[Bf-modeling] Improving the mirror modifier

[Daniel Salazar - patazstudio.com]

Do you know about using an empty object as the mirror source?
Daniel Salazar
patazstudio.com


On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 6:48 PM, Noel Stoutenburg <brasshat at core.com> wrote:
> Friends,
>
> Recently whilst on a trip (as driver), in seeking to reduce the monotony
> I was experiencing, I decided to plan how I would model a router bit
> (cf. <http://www.woodpeck.com/whitesidecovebit.html> ) in Blender. I
> first thought that I could reduce the work involved by using a mirror
> modifier, and model one side of the bit. But thinking about it further,
> I realized that, while the mirror modifier would be fine for the shaft,
> it would not work for the cutting head of the bit, because as currently
> implemented in Blender, the modifier is not really a mirror, it is an
> implementation of symmetry across a plane. So, using the mirror modifier
> on the cutting head part of the router bit would result in a router bit
> which had the cutters facing the same direction, instead of both cutting
> heads facing the same direction when the bit is rotating.
>
> I realize that in Blender there are a number of means of solving most
> problems, and that there are other modifiers and work methods that might
> work in this situation. For example, I could create half the part (as I
> would do with the mirror modifier), duplicate the half modeled, choose
> (and relocate, if need be) the point of rotation, and rotate the copy by
> 180 degrees, and then stitch the two together. A couple of other ideas I
> contemplated have even more steps to them.
>
> Therefore it seems to me that enhancing the mirror modifier to include
> the capability of projecting the symmetry through an axis, or a point
> might enhance workflow, but would it enhance the workflow enough to
> warrant making a proposing this for a future release of Blender? Or
> might it be better to create a different modifier to achieve the end? Or
> is the potential utility to the Blender community so small as to make
> this not worth the effort?
>
> ns
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