Mirro or Match These

I would like to mirror the object on the left, so that it is like the one on the right, except I want them to touch so that when I explode them, they become one solid object. Right now, for what I’m doing, they are on an angle.

I have spent the last hour trying to rotate, shift and move it to match the other, but I havent gotten anywhere, is there an easier way to do this?

Make one side a component, Copy it the side, and scale on the X-Axis or Y-Axis -1, and that’ll mirror it. Since they’re in a group, they can touch and not affect each other until you explode it. If you hide the edges on where they touch, you won’t need to explode, better for your model. Also, since they’re a component (not a group), when you modify one, both will change.

If you’re unaware of Components vs Groups, you can find many tutorials on youtube. Very important and helpful.
This is a simple screen cap of an example, notice when I select one face in one component, the mirrored component’s face is also select? So if I modify one component, all other components (that are copies) will follow.

That’s how I normally did it, the problem is, where this object goes on the one it will be apart of is on an angle, so this piece is on an angle, normally mirroring it works, but this is what happens when I mirror it normally.

Ah, your model is rotated, open your component, and change the axes so that your model is in line with the x-axis or y-axis.

After I do that, is there a way to change it back to the former X/Y so when I paste it into the final model it’s in the right angle?

Nevermind, the component axis changes but not the rest of the model :D:D Thank you!

Unless you note down the angle that you’ve rotated it, no.
Why do you need to have your model’s axes rotated within the component?

If you like, you can make your component within another component. So that in the nested component, your drawing is in line with an axis, and on the parent component, it’s still rotated

yea, forgot to mention, changing a component axes doesn’t affect the model’s axes :stuck_out_tongue:

About Components VS Groups. So, if I made a triangle on one side, would it mirror that triangle on the otherside? Does this essentially make it easier to make things symmetrical?

If you use component instances then changes you make to one instance will affect all other. If you use groups they will remain unique.

Yes, it is easier to make things symmetrical, because you only have to work on one side.
In fact, if you’re doing a squared building for example, you can have components on 3 corners, and you only need to make one corner (1/4 of the building) and the rest will just follow that component.

If you flip objects, there is a small but important difference:

flip along > Group’s Red/Green/Blue (global axes!)
flip along > Components’s Red/Green/Blue (local axes of the component!)

I’ using TIGs mirror plugin, if you need this functionality often, you should have a look at it too.

By the way. At least in current versions of SU, You don’t have “get into a component” to change it’s axis. Just select the component, right-click on it for the context menu, there will be an option to change the component axis, you can then click on the geometry of the component with the axis tool that appears without having to opening the component.

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