NURBS Modelling lesson, revolving curve for eggholder is black, no shading?

[Anonymous]

I followed the Lesson on revolving a curve to create the eggholder, but after revolving, the model only appears black and unshaded... I've turned Smoothshading on, and still nothing.... what's going on

I included a screen capture attached

Maya 2015

[pshwayka]

You need to click on Edit Nurbs->Reverse Surface Direction.  (It's in the 'Surfaces' menu set.) Edit: Make sure you have the eggholder selected when you do that.

[Anonymous]

I don't see it there... I clicked the Surfaces Tab, all I see is the Surface Editing Tool, but that tool has only one option, but nothing about reversing the surface direction. 

I just wanna make sure you are talking about Maya 2015, correct? I'm trying to follow along in the tutorials, but they seem to be written for previous versions and a lot of menu items are found elsewhere...

[halfstone]

You're in the right area, wrong menu item.  See pic. 

The issue is that your normals are facing in the wrong direction. When modeling in NURBS, the U and V direction of the surface are built in - i.e., you don't need to unwrap them in order to texture them.  The "normal" (the orientation of the surface) is a function of the U and V directions - reverse either of them and the normal will flip. 

The default setting in Maya is to display "single sided lighting"; i.e., the illuminated part of your surface will be the side that the normals are facing. 

Another way you can fix this problem is to go to the Panel Menu and select the "Lighting" menu and check "Two Sided Lighting"

[pshwayka]

Thanks, halfstone.