Mirroring not working?

Technical Support Basics & Interface
1

Hi, new Blender user here. I am following the tutorial in “Blender 2.3 Guide” (which has been on my shelf for a few years). I’m using 2.61. I know the interface has changed and am compensating appropriately with other information.

Anyway, I’m stuck on mirroring the half body to create the full body. It is set to pivot around the 3D cursor and it is on a vertex on the leftmost side. I’m hitting Ctrl-M, then X to mirror on the X axis. But what happens is more a flip, not a mirror. It just flips on the axis and is still a half body.

What am I doing wrong? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

2

If you want to mirror, use a mirror modifier. Also throw the book in the rubbish and use the many up to date tutorials

3

Ok cool, I looked it up and see how that works, thanks.

But it leaves the question of why Ctrl-M isn’t doing what I expect, because Mesh -> Mirror does the same thing.

What if what you want is to mirror the current object state with the other side being an independent copy of the vertices that can then be edited separately? That is what I expected from ^M.

4

After you apply the mirror you can separate the vertices / selected vertices with p key then it will be a new object. If I understand what you need.

5

Another alternative would be to duplicate your half object (shift-D) and flip the duplicate around (ctrl-M).

6

That is what I expected from ^M.
Because you don’t understand what this operation means. All it does is mirror the active object across the selected axis, not create a new mirrored object. That is why the mirror modifier is most suitable for your case

7

Thanks much, this makes sense.