How to flip normals of a tunnel created by beveling a bezier circle ?

Support Modeling
#1

Hi,
i’m new to blender, i hope this is the right forum.

I’ve created a tunnel by beveling a bezier circle along a bezier path (setting the circle as “Bevel object” of the path object).

Then i tried to export the model into collada and fbx to import it into the game engine i use (Unity3D), but the problem is that i need to set the camera inside the tunnel, but when the camera is inside the tunnel i don’t see it. I think this is because the tunnel has the normals pointing outside, so i need to flip them to point inside. So, how can i flip the normals in tunnel created that way ?

I’m using blender 2.59.

Thanks!

#2

You should be able to flip the normals with selecting the model and pressing CTRL+N (or Mesh->Normals->Recalculate Outside, there’s a button for this on the left panel too, but i don’t remember if it was there in 2.59).

Be sure that there are no accidental internal faces that shouldn’t be there, as it could prevent the CTRL+N to work correctly

If some face normals are always pointing in the wrong direction, select those faces then Mesh -> Normals -> Flip Normals

#3

If i remember correctly i’ve already tried this some days ago and it didn’t worked, but i’ll try again.

Do you think this work also with this kind of mesh that are generated using a bevel along path ? (so it not a “real” mesh) ?

Another question: is there a way to convert this bezier object on which i’ve beveled another object, into a “normal” mesh made by vertices ? i mean, actually i’ve a tunnel that is generated by beveling the bezier circle along the bezier path, is there a way to convert this to a normal “vertices” mesh, so that i can treat it as a normal mesh, touch every single vertex, and so on ?

#4

In Object mode - Object-Convert To- Mesh …Make another copy on different layer before. That’s not reversible. Actually it is, but…
And yes, it’ll be real…

#5

I thought you had converted it, may explain why the CTRL+N wasn’t working.

To convert it , in Object mode, after selecting the object click on Object then Convert To and finally select “Mesh from Curve\Meta\Surf\Text”

edit : was too slow, insta posted by eppo :slight_smile:

#6

Thank you very much! I’ve converted to mesh and now it works.

Btw, if i press CTRL+N before converting to mesh (while it is still a bezier path) it doesn’t recalculate normals (it ask me another thing not correlated to normals instead). I tried both in edit and object mode. Why ?