Mirroring meshes in Blender

[lonewolf_kai]

I've duplicated a mesh on the left of the shoulders of a creature and mirror x 'd it so that it would be duplicated, but look like it's the opposite on the right side. Looks good in Blender, but when you look at it in Nifscope, the sides of the mesh look like it's been inverted. Is there a reason why? Can I fix it?

[WindmillTilter]

Hard to tell without the file or a screenshot, but it sounds like the normals might be inverted on the right hand side. The normals control what direction light bounces off the model from, if they got inverted during export you'll see through the faces from the outside to the inside of the oposite face which will display the texture. If the right pauldron is a sepeate NiTriStrips you can just right-click on it and do Mesh > Flip Normals. If it's part of a larger NiTriStrips you'll have to check the normals in Blender and try re-exporting.

WT

[lonewolf_kai]

Hard to tell without the file or a screenshot, but it sounds like the normals might be inverted on the right hand side. The normals control what direction light bounces off the model from, if they got inverted during export you'll see through the faces from the outside to the inside of the oposite face which will display the texture. If the right pauldron is a sepeate NiTriStrips you can just right-click on it and do Mesh > Flip Normals. If it's part of a larger NiTriStrips you'll have to check the normals in Blender and try re-exporting.

WT

I don't see that option though. There's Face Normals, but no Flip. There's a Flip UV on the NiTriStripsData. When you click on that, 3 different options come up. Using any three doesn't change anything though.

How would I flip them in Blender?

Edited May 21, 2011 by lonewolf_kai

[JackTheHedge]

Yes, I was just thinking that it might be a normal problem, too. I've had issues like that before. Now, I'm definitely no modeling expert (I only really do armor conversions and such), but I think I remember where the option to flip normals is in blender.

Now, you've got your little "Panels" area where you can switch between six different modes (logic, script, shading, object, editing, and scene respectively). You'll want to go to the editing mode and then look in the box that's titled "Mesh". Near the very bottom you'll see a button that toggles normal flipping. Click that and voila!

If that little explanation is hard to follow, let me know and I'll upload a screenshot.

[WindmillTilter]

I don't see that option though. There's Face Normals, but no Flip. There's a Flip UV on the NiTriStripsData. When you click on that, 3 different options come up. Using any three doesn't change anything though.

It should be right below Face Normals. Which version of NifScope are you running?

WT

[Vince]

Using Blender version 2.49b or similar, the normals are always inverted when mirroring. Since it's consistent and you know that now, it's easy to work around.

For example, assume your view is set to Top Ortho, try the following.

1> Make sure the cursor is at the origin and set the Pivot to the 3D Cursor.

2> In Edit mode, select the vertices you wish to mirror and press 'M' > X.

3> With the mirrored vertices still selected, press 'W' > Flip Normals and you're good to go.

[Artisanix]

And if you want to mirror a whole mesh along one of the axis and not only the part of it (good for cloning any kind of clothes or armor - boots, gloves, pauldrons, etc.), then you may want to use mirror modifier in object mode as it doesn't make the normals inverted, and you do not need to move your mesh later to that opposite symmetrical position.

[washington]

Btw useful shortcuts here are Ctrl+N and Ctrl+Shift+N for facing normals outside and inside.

[lonewolf_kai]

Wow, thanks for all the great advice. I'll give this a retry.