Quick question about normals

Dimplepwr

A quick question for all you Maya users. I was having an issue with what I think is my normals after merging vertices together. Someone suggested I attempted to smooth the edges through NORMALS > SOFTEN EDGE but as you can see there is no effect and in straight polygon mode it has made these dark shadows.

What is causing it and how do I fix it?

Scruples

Could be that the normals are flipped on the appendage, you can try Normals>Conform.

BARDLER

It looks like the normals are flipped on one of the parts of that model. Check the normal direction with back face culling, or turning two sided lighting off. I personally always model with two sided lighting off so I can easily see if my normals get flipped on accident. If normals>conform doesn't work then just grab the faces of the reversed normals and reverse them.

Dimplepwr

Thanks both Scruples and BARDLER. It was my normals, they were reversed on the legs and arms. The Normals>Conform worked. Like BARDLER said, I think I just might start modeling with two sided lighting turned off. Is there a downside to modeling without two sided lighting on?