Deleting a polygon's duplicate

[Anonymous]

Guys, I seriously need help for my campus assignment. I've asked my lecturer about this problem but even he doesn't have any idea what happened and he never encounter this problem before. I'm still a newbie to Maya so forgive me if I use somekind of wrong choice of words here 😞

Ok so, I'm making a robot. For symmetrical purpose, I duplicate the arms and legs parts. However, I didn't use the duplicate special tool but instead I used Mirror tool. When I edit one part of the polygon, the other part also follows the change as if these two polygons are actually 1 object. When I move the arm around, the other also move the other way. Completely like a mirror, right?

But here is the problem. I cannot seperate them even though I have used the seperate tool. If I delete an arm, the other also perishes. Even if I was trying to delete the duplicate one, the original polygon disappears. When I used Seperate tool, the message that I got was basically saying that these "two" arms and legs are a single object, ignored. I have also deleted the history but still nothing happened!

This is really frustrating and there is no way I have to redo them again. The deadline's on July 14th! I hope somebody knows what's going on. I'm going to attach the link for the my Maya file so you guys can check for youselves. If anyone can fix it and help me explaining what did I do wrong that would be a great great help!

[Its_jay]

here the Fixed File ..
use my file or
do this
try to export your mesh as .FBX
open it in another scene

[Anonymous]

OMG okay, I just opened the file and yes it worked! They're now separated! 

But it seems like there are additional edges that makes a tris for the faces? I mean like, now the faces are mostly triangle shaped instead of square and that worries me since my lecturer and seniors say that it's not okay to be like that. And also the smoothed shapes of my polygons aren't as good as before because of these additional edges. They look wrinkled. I tried editing the edges but the lines are yellow and I can only move the object around instead of the vertex/edge...

Could you explain how you fixed it, tho? Is it just by exporting the file to .FBX and the tris faces are the aftermaths of it?

edit: The knee caps are also part of the legs, sorry I forgot to put them inside the group!

[Its_jay · Accepted solution]

try it yourself

when exporting as .FBX

make sure the (triangulate box) is OFF

[Anonymous]

IT WORKS!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

[Its_jay]

any time , any where