Making a Mirror Copy

Lets you create a symmetrical copy of hierarchies according to an axis plane. This works for skeletons as well as ordinary hierarchies and will mirror IK handles, constraints, rest poses, limits, animation, and selection handles.

This function lets you:

• Create a mirror copy starting from any level of a hierarchy, so that not only geometry, but also the complete hierarchy, animation controlling IK handles and constraints, and joint attributes are mirrored across the specified axis plane.

(By contrast, while Layers > Symmetry lets you use an arbitrary plane of symmetry, only the geometry is made symmetric-that is, only the leaf level is affected. For more information, see Setting Symmetry on Layers on page 263.)

• Create real nodes for mirrored hierarchies, including the geometry.

(By contrast, Layers > Symmetry makes the symmetry by instances, so the geometry is not really duplicated. For more information, see Duplicating Objects on page 215.)

How to Use

Select Edit > Mirror- to open the Mirror Options box. There are two types of mirroring and three mirroring planes you can select from the option box.

Mirror Duplicate

Lets you pick a branch as the source branch-the tool duplicates the branch and mirrors all nodes on the new branch.

1

Select Edit > Mirror.

2

Pick a branch of a hierarchy.

A new branch is created as the sibling of the picked one, and it is mirrored across the plane defined in the option box (Mirror Across settings). All IK handles, constraints, animations, and skeletons on the branch are also duplicated and mirrored.

Mirror Reshape

Geometries are not mirrored for this option.

Lets you pick an existing branch as the destination (rather than have the tool create it).

1

Select Edit > Mirror.

2

Pick the branch which you want to reshape.

3

Pick another branch which you want to be the source of the mirror.

The first branch is reshaped as a mirror of the second branch. All IK handles, constraints, animations, and skeletons on the first branch are replaced by new objects copied and mirrored according to the second branch.

Mirror Across

Mirror provides three mirroring planes: XY, YZ and ZX planes under world space.