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# 1 25-06-2008 , 01:37 AM
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Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 2

Trouble with 'Duplicate Special'

Hello, this is my first time posting on this forum. My name is Nick, and I just recently started learning how to use Maya... about 2 months ago.

I downloaded the Personal Learning Edition of Maya 8.5, and purchased the book "Learning Autodesk Maya 8: Foundation". The book is good, but it sometimes does not explain key details like what setting to have a tool on.

Anyway, I ran into a big problem along the way through the various exercises that the book takes the student through. (Luckily, they included a disk with files for all the projects, so that if you get stuck, you can move on to the next lesson).

Here is the problem that I had: The book instructed me to model a character using polygons with the Extrude tool, then cut the model in half and duplicate a mirrored copy with the Duplicate Special command.

So I did all of that, but when it came time to model further on the figure using the Extrude tool, the model would respond strangely at places along the middle seam of the two copies. For example, when I was trying to shape the nose using extrude, pulling them out was not a problem but scaling them caused the two polygon faces to split (scale independently).

I think the reason that the two (or more) faces scale independently is because the geometry of the two halves mirror eachother. So I tried to combine the halves, close the seam between the halves, try using 'Mirror Geometry' instead of 'Duplicate Special', but I haven't found anything that works.

In the book, they don't say anything about what you need to do to the two halves after Duplicate Special. But they go on to instruct me to keep modeling the figure, and the pictures in the book show how it's to be done.

It is very frustrating! If I didn't have the files for the next lesson, I would still be stuck trying figure out how to do this!

One last thing related to two halves of geometry. The 3-D Paint tool was also adversely affected by my mirrored geometry in that the color would not go onto the place I was telling it to, then it would shoot vertically up and everywhere else around the figure.

I would greatly appreciate any hints or information about how to fix this problem, or if there's any books that may be better than the one I have now.

Thanks

- Nick