difference between reflection and duplicate special? (maya)

kreativ

In a tutorial I was watching, the tutor was extruding a neck from the body face and then extruding a head from the neck. He then had two heads, he deleted the faces in the middle and they combined into one. But before he started extruding the neck, he turned reflection off. He had both reflection and duplicate special (instance, -1) turned on until then for mirroring.

My question is, I thought they both did the same thing, ie mirroring. I tried to find the difference by not turning my reflection of and extruding the neck from body face gave me two necks like in the tut, but extruding again to make the head made my manipulator handle go on the instance side ! Surely thats not how its supposed to be.

Can someone pls explain what happening.

For reference, the video tut is here and the part I am on about starts at 12:20 and is just a minute or so long.

DireWolf

Duplicate special can give you an instance. Meaning the copy will update itself after the original so it's ideal for when you're still working on your model. The instance has a negative scale, so the normal would be inside out. Something to keep in mind.

Mirror creates a static copy and also flips normal for you. It's for used when you're finalizing your model.

I've never really used mirror tho. I just duplicate normally, scale -1 and flip normal manually.

kreativ

thx wolf but why does the manipulator handle move over to the instance instead of the original copy when i have reflection (symmetry in 2015) off and just duplicate special on?

check screens.

this is when I have just extruded the neck. http://imgur.com/niediKW
This is when i hit g again to extrude again. http://imgur.com/RJTd4eA
Check the manipulator location.

kreativ

hmm... it seems that even when i have reflection on or off, i still get the manipulator on the instance face. Why is that?

kreativ

I think the problem was that I was hitting G (for extrude) again without selecting the face again. I just assumed that since I am moving that face around anyway, I can just hit G and extrude further on that face. Turns out that I need to click on the same face again and then hit extrude to extrude further.

Whats the reasoning behind this though? Wouldnt it be simpler to just keep on extruding that face without having to keep selecting it again and again?

(sorry for the noobish questions but really need some guidance/help)

throttlekitty

Typically you can work that way (g to extrude again without making a new selection.) Technically the face isn't selected; the polyExtrude node is. Try clicking the circle icon on the outer are of the manipulator. (toggles local/world location)

DireWolf

hmm I'm still using 2012, sorry I can't help much.