Maya 2016: mirror along a custom axis doesn't work

oBoogiemanx

Hello everybody, I'm having a nightmare with something I imagined would be very easy to achieve but oh surprise! it isn't. I'm trying to mirror an object in maya along a custom axis but doesn't work with either duplicate special or mirror geometry. I want to duplicate this piece along the Y axis in the custom axis shown in image 1  but the only result I get from DupSpecial and MirrorGeometry is shown in image no. 2 The result I want is shown in image 3 (I cheated by duplicating the piece, moving it along the custom Y axis and using scale to invert the geo, the I inverted the normals so it didn't appear black) Can somebody help me? what am i missing?

Eric Chadwick

You're missing an explanation of which software you're using. I would suggest adding it to your thread title. E.g. "Maya 2016: mirror along custom axis?"

oBoogiemanx

Eric Chadwick said:

You're missing an explanation of which software you're using. I would suggest adding it to your thread title. E.g. "Maya 2016: mirror along custom axis?"

You are right. Now it's included in the title. Thanks for the tip!

throttlekitty

I typically stick with duplicate and invert, recent versions of maya flip the normals for you, though they will appear black until you change selection. Using Mesh>Mirror, set Geometry type to Instance and Object as the axis position, I think the tool was designed for "traditional" symmetrical modeling.

oBoogiemanx

throttlekitty said:

I typically stick with duplicate and invert, recent versions of maya flip the normals for you, though they will appear black until you change selection. Using Mesh>Mirror, set Geometry type to Instance and Object as the axis position, I think the tool was designed for "traditional" symmetrical modeling.

If I use mirror I get the same result as the imagen with the overlapping geometry but without any translation, just one on top of the other. I want to achieve a "custom mirror" along a user-defined axis (in this case as you can see in the image with just one object, I want to use that Y axis that I customized to be the mirroring axis) but I don't know which tool to use.

throttlekitty

Sorry, I thought you understood that based on your first picture. Whenever the pivot (manipulator) is located, so if you're doing an object-level transform when the pivot is centered, you will get no translation. So if I were to duplicate the second cube and invert the X scale, it would appear on the left.


This is what I was able to do with the Mirror function like I described above, I also chamfered some verts to make it easier to see.

oBoogiemanx

throttlekitty said:

Sorry, I thought you understood that based on your first picture. Whenever the pivot (manipulator) is located, so if you're doing an object-level transform when the pivot is centered, you will get no translation. So if I were to duplicate the second cube and invert the X scale, it would appear on the left.


This is what I was able to do with the Mirror function like I described above, I also chamfered some verts to make it easier to see.

Man, I'm having such I hard time trying to explain my issue haha. Let me try again. For what I understood by your pics (thanks for taking your time to help me btw, I appreciate it) you used the D key or Insert to move freely the pivot but in your move toolbar you are still in world mode or in object mode right? when I try to move the pivot by rotating it or changing its orientation (I use the ctrl, ctrl + shift, shift to snap to orientation, pos, aim x, etc while still in the pivot edit mode) the move mode changes to custom (not world or object anymore) and I can't use this new orientation as a mirror, well at least I still don't know how. I really hope I made myself clear this time, thanks again!

throttlekitty

I know the feeling, and I was confused about what you were having trouble with, but now I got you. Just to clarify, I adjusted the location of the pivot only; I then left that edit mode to rotate the cube, the axis I'm showing is Object (not world or custom). You may know this, but holding down q,w,e,r + LMB gives a nice marking menu, I swap axis very often this way.

So, most major operations won't use a custom pivot set on the manipulator. Normally you'd rotate a world-aligned object (such as this cube originally sitting with the edges neatly parallel to the grid), and then work from there with your tools set to object mode. But once you freeze rotation, that's gone forever, forcing you to work in a custom axis/orientation when you need it.

So if you're in that situation, the only way that I know to "unfreeze" rotation is to first world align the object and freeze transforms and work from there. Modify>Align Tool is great for this. First make a cube, then simply pick any flat face on your model, then an appropriate face on the cube. You can do this a few times to get it straight on the grid. Hope this helps?