what are normals for

# 1 25-03-2007 , 02:27 AM

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why is there such a thing as normals? is it just to piss me off?

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# 2 25-03-2007 , 02:30 AM

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it's the way that ray tracers calculate the angle between a ray and a surface. Pissing you off is just a side effect user added image

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# 3 25-03-2007 , 03:08 AM

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cant it calculate that stuff behind the scenes? there's got to be a reason that makes it useful to the end user otherwise it would be behind the scenes wouldnt it?

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# 4 25-03-2007 , 12:23 PM

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well it can be used in display so you know which the inner face and the outer face are. I always keep mine turned off though.

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# 5 25-03-2007 , 06:35 PM

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you can also use normals to make something look smoother than it actually is (soften normals) and you can also reverse normals in conjunction with backfaces when, say, you want to model the interior of a room and you don't want the walls to be in the way.

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# 6 26-03-2007 , 02:32 AM

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its also very useful when using syflex. I use it often when i have to make a collision between the cloth and the object. It helps me make sure that all the faces are pointing out and therefore allow the cloth to settle properly on the surface.

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# 7 26-03-2007 , 03:19 AM

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Originally posted by Radical Edward
well it can be used in display so you know which the inner face and the outer face are. I always keep mine turned off though.

Originally Posted by

i think this is probably the best reason for them.

it's just that they get screwed up really easily. and when they get screwed up, they tend to screw everything else up.

it also happens to be the last thing that i check. once ive tried everything else to no avail. and after pulling out my hair and kicking my pc to see if i can get it to work that way.

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# 8 26-03-2007 , 03:29 AM

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there not that easy to screw up, just keep an eye on whats going on with them, if you swithc off two sided lighting any black faces have the nromals facing in the wrong direction, so select them and set to face to get them the right way.

They used to get me a bit wound when I started up as I never knew what was going wrong with my models when I had black splodges at render time, but now I dont get them in my models at all, think its just experiance and using the tools correctley, as I got them all the time using the extrde commands!

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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what are normals for

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