Strange behaviour after mirroring a plane made with Quad Draw Tool

[VansFannel]

Hi!

I'm learning Maya, and I have this:

When I do mirroring I get this:

And I don't know why.

Why is it not mirroring as I expect?

Thanks!

[dukeweezo]

Hi there, can you clarify what result you’re wanting? (I’m guessing you might want to change the Merge border vertices settings…)

[VansFannel]

I have updated my question, but this is what I expect to get:

[damaggio]

your pivot point should be at the spot you want the mesh to merge or at the world, you can see it in the image and to avoid figuring out these settings is much easier to duplicate the mesh and do a negative scale, then combine and merge it.

Also see the different result you get from world and object and read the documentation to understand the tool.

[dariush]

I agree with that. Should you freeze transforms after the negative scale and before combine and merge? Not sure it's necessary, but I like to OCD things. Also, after you combine and merge the verts along that common edge, delete the history to get rid of the combine history, as long as you're happy with the results.

[damaggio]

No you don't have to, but remember the UV still in negative and depending on the object it can just be rotate 180 and merged, that's even cleaner.

[VansFannel]

Sorry, but I've just started to learn Maya and I don't understand anything about what you are saying.

I'm following a course and doing the same steps than the teacher and I don't get the same result.

Thanks.

[damaggio]

it's in the documentation, please read it first.

[dariush]

Have you tried retracing your steps, or restarting those steps to see where you and the teacher are differing?

Freeze Transforms is in the Edit menu and it "resets" the _values_ of the transformations (move/rotate/scale) back to 0 basically. Delete History is also under Edit > Delete by Type > History and it disconnects the processes damaggio suggested (combine and merge). This definitely veers you away from the tutorial I bet, but will give you similar results when done (properly). He was saying, copy your original mesh (duplicate) and then set a scale of -1 to "flip" that copy around to effectively mirror it. Align the two edges where they need to meet and then combine (Mesh > Combine) the two meshes into one mesh. Then, merge the vertices along that common edge together to weld them together and then delete history on this new object. If this is all foreign, it may be best to discuss with your instructor what's happening and re-align with him/her about it.

[VansFannel]

If I read the documentation, will I understand magically what it is happening? Because what I want to know is what it is happening.

[dariush]

Hi! Yeah, it's tough to know if reading the docs will help; but generally learning Maya properly just takes time and patience. Now it's hard to know what's going on with your results vs the tutorial results without knowing more about the tutorial steps and the steps you are taking to see what the difference is and why your results are different. I'm not sure if you are in a class or following a tutorial where you cannot ask or work with the instructor on why you're seeing different results. So short of you sharing the tutorial as well as a video of the steps you are taking for someone to scrutinize and see where it's going different, it's really hard to help you understand what is happening with your results vs. the lesson's results.

As far as what is happening in the suggestions from @damaggio and myself, reading or youtube'ing what those processes are may help give you better context.

[VansFannel]

I'm following this online tutorial from Skillshare: https://www.skillshare.com/classes/Maya-2020-for-Absolute-Beginners/543786196/classroom/discussions. I have asked there too about this issue.

The tutorial is to learn Maya 2020 but I'm using Maya 2022. I have tried again and I get the same result.

And also, I can upload the scene (is a Maya ASCII) file if you want to test it.

Thanks a lot.

[dariush · Accepted solution]

Ok, I don't have Skillshare account, but looking at your scene file, this is what I would do instead. Set the mirror options NOT to merge borders and then merge the borders manually with Merge (see my video below):

[video]

[dariush · Accepted solution]

Alternatively, you can do it this way (see video below). Essentially what is happening when you do the mirror with the original options, it is merging the vertices together automatically. BUT it is unfortunately merging vertices that should not be merged because they are far away from each other. But since the threshold level is being set automatically, it is grabbing vertices far apart and merging them anyway. So by setting a custom threshold, you are forcing Maya to only merge vertices that are very close together, thereby preventing the model from melting together like it is for you.

Also at the end of this video I show you what Delete History does.

Please mark this or the other post (or both) as the solution if it works for you.

[VansFannel]

The teacher didn't say anything about Merge Threshold but he had selected the custom option:

So, bad for the teacher, and bad for me, because reading the documentation would help.

Thanks a lot!

[dukeweezo]

So that worked? I figured the merging / threshold setting might be the issue. Unfortunately I got lazy and didn’t clarify since I’m typing on my phone…

[VansFannel]

Yes, it worked.

Thanks a lot.

[dariush]

Yeah, the devil is in the details. Frustrating, I know, but keep at it!! Also hard for teachers to know what to mention and what not to mention, there are so many little things that could be different or missed, so it's just one of those things! If it weren't for all my editors and reviewers, I would have have a lot more little things like this in my books frustrating learners. This is one of the benefits of being in an actual class with actual teachers who can look at the variances learners face all the time and work around/through them.
I'm glad this was helpful. 🙂