Applying a material shows up reversed?

[alz]

I can't remember if SketchUp always did this -- but whenever I apply a material with the paint bucket on an XY poly (top down), the material is applied backwards.

Why is it applied incorrectly (as the material and material thumbnail displays)?

[remus]

Have you got the face oriented correctly? to change face orientation right click->reverse face

[alz]

AH! That's it... reversed face.

So 2nd question -- when drawing a simple rectangle, why is it reversed (face down)?

[remus]

No idea, just standard SU behaviour as far as i can tell. Id be interested to know why as well.

[remus]

The orient faces trick doesnt always work: often in complex models with lots of faces it can reverse faces that were originally facing the right way, usually worth a try though as it can save lots of time.

[alz]

@unknownuser said:

Thats the way it is, it's only when you pushpull to a 3d object that the faces are the right way.

Hmm rats... well that makes sense in the bigger picture.

Thanks for all the help!

[remus]

Lol, on a slightly more on topic note, ive found using the subdivide tool in subd and smooth often produces reversed faces out of nowhere, can be quite annoying as ofen the faces are really small.

Didnt dider do a script that was really good for reversing faces?

[Gaieus]

There are two or three things here that are worth mentioning:

• When you apply an image on a face and apply the same image on its reverse, the latter one is always flipped (or mirrored). This is particularly useful and essential when you apply semi transparent images to create 2D plants for instance. Without this feature you'd always keep manually flipping them all the time

• a simple face drawn on the xy plane shows its reverse face upwards because SU presumes that that's going to be the bottom of any structure you are going to build on top (above the ground level). And unless you use the PP tool, it's correctly oriented since it will be facing inside. In fact, the PP tool is the "exception" because when you start to use it, it flickers a little bit until "realises" that you are going to push/pull that face up and immediately - very smartly - decides to leavi it like that (the flickering actually being the new face and the old one z fighting a bit).

• Orient faces work best when there is just a simple volume surrounded by the faces (i.e. no wall thickness, no faces that may face either this way or the other etc.). Once you have several volumes combined together, SU may not be able to decide what is outside and what is not. Try a simple test:

• Draw a rectangle

• PP it up to a certain hight

• now Ctrl+PP it up to another height (leaving a face in between). This face is a single face and how SU should be able to decide that when orienting faces, where it should orient? Click on any of the outside faces and choose orient faces. You'll see the screwed up result.