I'm not normal!

[Piglet]

Is there any way to control the direction of the poly's normals? As you can see in the pic, the normals are going all over the place in a haphazard manner. This is causing strange shading in FS9. I tried playing with planars, meshes, etc. This is in GMAX

[Mathias]

In Gmax there's the normal modifier which has the options to unify or flip normals.
Thought though that normals are not supported by FS?

[Snuffy]

Aren't polys directional specific? Or coordinate specific?

If drawn to the left they face one way, if drawn to the right the face another?

Just be aware of the direction you draw them and in what orientation your coordinate system is in.

[Mathias]

Snuffy,
some quotes from the 3dsmax helpfiles:

The direction a vertex normal points affects how neighboring surfaces reflect light. By default, normals are set so that reflection of light in 3ds Max follows the rules of real-world physics: The angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence. But by reorienting vertex normals, you can set the angle of reflection to be anything you want. The Edit Normals modifier lets you specify vertex normals' directions, combine and separate them, change the type, and copy and paste values among normals.

Undesired normals can appear in these objects:

Meshes imported from other applications.

Geometry generated by complex operations such as Boolean objects, lathe objects, or lofts.

Normals are used to define which side of a face or vertex is considered the "out" side. The out side of a face or vertex is the side that gets rendered unless you are using two-sided materials, or turn on the Force 2-Sided option in the Render Scene dialog > Common panel > Common Parameters rollout.

Do one of the following to view or change face normals:

Apply a Normal modifier. If a Face sub-object selection is active, Normal applies to the selected faces. If no faces are selected, Normal applies to the entire object.

Apply an Edit Mesh modifier, enable Face, Polygon or Element sub-object mode, and then use the features on the Surface Properties rollout to change the directions in which normals point.

Convert the object to an editable mesh, enable Face, Polygon or Element sub-object mode, and use the features on the Surface Properties rollout

Gmax has no edit normals modifier but the procedures to fix bad normals should be the same.

[Snuffy]

Heh! Not bad for someone who hasn't messed with 3ds in ages. I think I had my hands on a version 2.1 or something like that. Had to give it back to the dealer after he decided not to sell the stuff any more.

But being a mechanical engineer and doing 3d solids and 2d fabrication details .. and recalling how cryptic Autocad use to be .. say like version 9, where what I expressed was a very prominate problem.

3ds max came from autodesk, I kinda expected them to carry certain errors thoughout all their software. :banghead:

[Piglet]

None of that normal modifier/planer/bafoonery stuff worked, so figured out a new way to make wings, stabs, fins, etc. Instead of starting with a tube and scaling/moving the points around, I now start with the airfoil shape made from the line spline thingy, then exrude from there. I just rebuilt the Waco's wings and the result is alot better. Live and learn!:jump: