Normals question
 

Hello everyone. THis is my first post. With 3D apps I only have experience with maya and Lightwave. I am taking a class on LIghtwave now and we just got rolling. In class we were using MACs and when extruding polys it seems that normals are reversed so after we extrude we would have to flip the normals to fix it.

My teach said he didnt really have experience on MACs and he suspects it was just someone before our class messing with the settings. Well over break he gave us an assignment to model a simple object. Im doing a stapler. At my house on my PC when I went to extrude the same thing happened. We are using v7.5. Has anyone else had troubles with this? WHy might it be happening and how can I fix it. Thanks

Hehe,,, sorry for laughing,,,, just that your teach,, things its setting prob,,,, then change the teach,,, ok,, for you to extrude polys,,, you select the poly and then extrude and then poof you are on your way right... Ok to avoid the normal reversing,,, try to flip the poly first before you extrude... This way your extruded polys stay normal... Nothing with the settings.

What do you mean try to flip the polys first? I have them the correct way. You mean flip the poly to make it invisable before I extrude and then flip back?

When you extrude, i think of it as (for extruding a single polygon) creating a box, which the existing polygon is one of the sides...

So by making it 'invisible' as you put it, your making sure the outside of the box will be visible when you extrude it..

Ok,,, here goes,,, say a box.... 6 sides,,, 6 polys... So select any one of them,,, if you go ahead and extrude,,, then you will get the problem,,, of reversing the normals... If you flip the ploy you selected before you extrude,, then the following ploys created will be normal.... You dont need to flip back after this as the poly is inside and cant really be seen.

Although you should delete this inner polygon as in large meshes/complex renders, these 'internal' polygons can really slow Lightwave down...

Ok I understand what both of you are saying now. Im just not used to this problem cause in maya you can see the polys from both sides. But Mark has a point, if they are innecesary they probably shouldnt be there. For a box example I can can just use the knife tool I guess, but thats not always the case

Well,, Mark is right about the slowing down part,,, Guess i smooth shift more than extrude. And there are loads more ways you can do the modelling,,,,, thats the great thing about Lightwave,, and if you want the poly to be seen on both sides,,, turn on the option under the surface editor. ;)

Good Luck, and Post your WIPs,,,, will be great to see your progress... Come to think of it,,, i should have started with something easy like the stapler,,, Duh! why didnt i think of that.... Oh well thats the past...

So what did you start with?

Well,,,, believe it or not its a dragon,,,, I played around with horns,,, and wings and then started to create my first model which is the dragon,,,...

Here is a link... Dragon Model uploaded at SimplyLightwave

After the dragon i went on to do a Orc Head,,, inspired by the warcraft game..
Here is the link...Orc Thread at SimplyLightwave

A did some texturing on the Orc Fellow,,, but thats on another thread....