Mirroring in Maya?

I'm creating a symmetrical sculpt in Maya, but I'm not sure how to get Maya to create the opposite side. All the tutorials I've found online are for older versions and the menus have changed. Anyone know of a good tutorial site that could help with this?

www.lynda.com Have the best maya training videos on the net there not free but if you can afford $7000 for maya im sure you will be able too afford one .

If you can afford Maya, you'd probably already know how to use it and not ask here.

Anyway, select the object, then go to Edit > Duplicate Special
Click on the tiny box next to it. A panel pops up with some parameters to set.
Set the geometry type to 'instance'.
Then key in -1 for any of the scale values. Which axis depends on which direction you want to mirror it.
Click 'apply' then close.

Changes to the original object will now affect the duplicated instanced one.

Please shut up any further in the builders forum and go to
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Talk:Sculpted_Prims
to talk about your bloody sculpies

Uh, no.

Sorry if you're not equipped to make them yourself, Marcush, so you feel the need to refer to them as "your bloody sculpties", but that's no reason for you to try to silence everyone else. This forum has always been a source of learning and inspiration, where people are free to ask and discuss any question on building they choose. Adding sculpties into the mix doesn't change that. Don't try to stifle people, man.

And by the way, a wiki, while also a great source of information, is not a place to hold discussions. Notice no one on the scripting forum ever says "shut up and talk about your bloody scripts on the wiki".




Anyway, Patrick, some additional tips for you. Cottonteil's instructions were correct, but there are a couple of other things to know. First, if you're using an older version of Maya, there's no Duplicate Special. You'll need to go to Duplicate, and click the little options box to bring up the same window. Second, be sure to reverse the surface direction as well as just reversing the construction across an axis. Otherwise your sculptie will be inside out, and really messed up. Happy sculpting.

Thanks Cottonteil and Chosen, I'll give that a try tonight! I knew there had to be an option in their somewhere

Oh, a couple things I forgot:

1. If your purpose in mirroring is to create a single symmetrical sculptie, don't forget to attach the two surfaces and delete the construction history before you export.

2. Make sure your pivot point is in an appropriate place before you duplicate the surface, as the negative duplication (mirroring) will happen precisely across the pivot. So, if your pivot is a meter away from the surface, the duplicate will end up an additional meter away in the opposite direction. If you're going for a single symmetrical object, then you'll want the pivot to be precisely flush with the open side of the surface, so that the duplicate will end up mating with the original exactly. For example, if you're making a head, the pivot should be flush with the head's vertical center line.

To move the pivot, press Insert. The pivot will appear (looks kind of like the Move tool, but with no arrow heads), and then you can move it around. Press Insert again when you're done to hide the pivot and return to normal manipulation.


Hope that helps.