I have a problem with editing on duplicates and i don’t know what to do.
I have separated the duplicate from the original mesh and want to connect it again at a different spot by merging vertices. The problem is that when i try to delete a single vertix the whole duplicate dissapears, and when i try to merge a vertix on the duplicate with one on the original mesh the duplicate is morphed beyond recognition. Is this some bug with the latest blender version or is it just me that is dumb.
If it is the latter if someone could give me some tips on what to do.
I’m not sure I understand. How exactly did you create the duplicate (shift + D, or alt + D)? If you have two separate objects, then make sure you join them into one object before trying to merge vertices.
Firs i duplicated (shift + D) the part of the mesh that i want, then i separated § it from the original. after that i moved the duplicate to the desired position and joined (ctrl + J) it with the original mesh. when i then want to modify the duplicate in edit mode it doesn’t work, when i try to delete single vertices the entire duplicate dissapears and when i try to merge the duplicate with the original mesh it either clings to the armature or stretches out to the point where it’s basically just a line.
This is odd, I haven’t heard of this type of issue. You said you are using an armature? You should only rig the object with an armature after you are done with the modeling. Maybe that has something to do with the issue. Which vertex group did the duplicated vertices belong to after you merged them back into the main object? The armature uses vertex groups to determine which vertices are deformed by each bone. Test to see if the armature is the issue by disabling it before merging those vertices into the main object.
I tried it again without an armature but the problem persisted. When i comes to vertex groups I don’t really know what they do or how to use them yet (I started using blender 2 days ago so I am still pretty new). Should I create a new vertex group for the duplicate? or could it be that there are groups from the original mesh that i need to delete?
I have tried a lot of things now and i think I have found the problem. if I duplicate the object and don’t separate it merging and deleting of vertices works fine. But as soon as I separate them and the join them back together it stops working. So the problem must be with the separation or the joining (ctrl + J) but I can’t figure out what it is during these processes that goes wrong. Do you have any ideas?
Sorry it took me so long. I didn’t notice that you replied since a lot of other treads I was watching updated that day. A vertex group is like a list of vertices where each vertex in the group has a 0 to 1 value assigned to it. Here is the blender manual page for it: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/properties/vertex_groups/introduction.html
A bone in an armature uses the data in the vertex group that has the same name it has to determine which vertices to deform and how much influence it has over it (0 being no influence).
That is kind of confusing. My best guess is that it does have something to do with the armature, but you said it didn’t influence it. When you duplicate vertices, those vertices do still belong to the same vertex group. It copies everything including the vertex weight data, so if you move a copy of the mesh that belongs on the left side of the model to the right side of the model it will still be deformed by the bones on the left side. That said, I also expect that you won’t notice anything until you try to rotate the bone the duplicated vertices belong to. The solution would be to figure out which group they belong to by going into weight paint mode and individually selecting each vertex group one by one until you find the one that highlights the vertices you copied, then either painting the influence with 0 weight, or removing them from that group in edit mode.
Like I said earlier, you need to finish modeling before adding an armature. You could try removing all deformation related modifiers (armature, lattice, and stuff like that) from the object then redoing them after you are finished making changes (like reparenting the armature using automatic weights).
Now that I think about it, why did you feel the need to separate that into its own mesh? You should be able to position it anywhere inside the original object while still inside edit mode.