I finished the Gus tutorial, but when I render the animation, as Gus moves, the split between his left and right halves (where I duplicated and mirrored him) opens and closes. How can I merge the two meshes of his halves, though they are one object, into one mesh, so they will stretch together?
Thanks!
You select the 2 inner loops, one left and one right, that are common to both halves (the verts should superimpose their opposites), and hit W >> Remove Doubles.
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Yeah, I’d guess the same thing as Fligh %… Although my advice would be to hit AKEY to select everything, then do “remove doubles”… making sure that that “Limit Selection to Visible” thing is not turned on. (I’m not 100% sure I know what “inner loops” are.)
The section on “Coincident Vertices” near the top of the second page is where the command was that you may have missed. (Edit: oops… maybe, I really should say the command you may have missed is the line right above the heading “Reference Center”)
If that isn’t it, I don’t know. Good luck.
The inner loops are the loops of vertices along each side of the join - the two loops that will join to make just one loop.
I use the inner loops to ensure vertices are aligned before joining (the little blighters move around when you’re not looking)
In edit mode, while mirroring is still turned on, I place the cursor exactly on the centre grid line (Shift S>Cursor to Grid). Make sure both halves are centred on this same grid line. Then use loop select (I use Apple-Option-Click on the Mac - don’t know what the generic selection method is) to select the inner loop(s). Set the Rotate/Pivot option to Cursor then scale in X direction (S,X). Move the mouse toward the 3D cursor and watch the numerical readout (bottom left of window). When it hits 0,0,0, all your vertex pairs should be together. Then, exit edit mode, join the meshes, go back into edit mode, select all (A), then W> Remove doubles.
You could do this after joining but you’d need to select both inner loops first.
I actually didn’t know what a “loop” was, so the definition of “The inner loops are the loops…” wasn’t very helpful. 
I have since googled around and I think I understand that loops are sequences of vertices involved in turning a wireframe into something with what blender calls faces (or going from “wireframe” view to “solid” view in Blender UI terms). No?
A loop is a row; edgeloop = row of edges; faceloop = row of faces; loop = row of vertices.
All the above except in certain exceptions
When they form a circle around a tubular object (like an arm or a pencil) then they are a Ring, edgering and facering.
Edgeloops are continuous; ie, they don’t fork, branch or run into a T (Pole).
It’s 3D jargon and if we all learn to use it then Q&A becomes much more accurate.
But, did you get your two halves united at the common loop?
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I actually didn’t know what a “loop” was, so the definition of “The inner loops are the loops…” wasn’t very helpful.
Oops!
I think your googling and Fligh’s additional explanation pretty much covers it.
i had to hide vertices and pick each vertical row next to each other then merge vertices,
unhide then merge the next sets
so phoenix ,what did you do?