[Plugin] Fix Reversed Face Materials v1.6 20120716

[utiler]

Thanks TIG, clear as crystal now....

[Pilou]

A black crystal
Faces are or are not well oriented
If they are false they must be reverse (material or not)
Then apply material

Maybe I miss something

[utiler]

A black crystal
Faces are or are not well oriented
If they are false they must be reverse (material or not)
Then apply material

Maybe I miss something

maybe you're just a little crazy my man.....

[TIG]

Pilou - There is no way of knowing if a particular face is 'the wrong way round'. Especially if an edge has more than two faces.
The built-in 'Reverse' & 'Orient' will consistently arrange faces that are 'manifold', BUT if you have applied materials to a back-face then that won't flip onto the front-face.
This tool simply finds all selected faces that have a back-material but no front-material - it then can assume you have modeled them 'wrongly' and it reverses the faces and flips the back-material so it becomes the front-material. keeping the UV-mapping intact etc. This is important when 3rd party applications render the image exactly as you've exported it - i.e. most of them do not render the 'back-faces' at all - rendering only the front-face materials - which in such cases will be the 'wrong' side of the face!
This might well often look like an 'orient' operation - in the image example all faces do end up correctly oriented too - BUT 'orient' alone would not sort out the wrongly applied materials, as this tool does.
The tool's 'forced' option is similar, but that works even if a selected face with aback-material that has a front-material, reversing the face and using the back-material on the front-face instead and defaulting the back-material - because it is more 'dangerous' its sphere of operation is more limited...

[Pilou]

This tool simply finds all selected faces that have a back-material but no front-material

That the Knot

In your image example walls have not thick, does the plug works also with thick walls ?
I suppose yes but...

wall.png

[TIG]

The tool works for any faces - as long as they only have a material on the back and not the front.
It simply reverses the face whilst leaving the materials in the same 'location' [orientation].
With an 'un-fixed' face - flick between Textured Mode and Monochrome Mode to reveal faces that are 'wrongly' oriented but have their materials on the back so look OK in the SKP-render BUT will fail in the external-renderers.
With a face that's 'fixed' it looks the same in the SKP 'Texture Mode', but it will then render properly in renderers [the Monochrome Mode should then show all faces oriented the same]

[TIG]

Here's v1.4 viewtopic.php?p=264134#p264134
It has an additional Tool 'Reverse Faces and Materials' - this reverses faces keeping their materials with correct UV-mapping - effectively turning the form 'inside out': if it is 'brick' outside and 'wood' inside with the 'back-faces' oriented to the 'outside', then using the tool reverses the faces so that the back-faces are oriented to the 'inside', AND now the 'wood' material will be on the 'outside' and the 'brick' material will be on the 'inside' - UV-mapping will have been correctly reapplied.
For example I recently had an imported OBJ object that had all some objects with faces reversed ['blue' outwards] and so their materials were mapped [correctly] on their 'insides'. Simply 'reversing' the faces failed to keep the UV-mapping on the new face orientations [on 'smoothed' surfaces it's especially problematical] - but this tools now solves that problem.
The included lingvo files have all been updated to match the changes.

[pmolsen]

Note: Groups and Component-Instances that can have materials applied
directly onto them - then any faces within them that have the default-
material [front and/or back] will then appear to have that material applied
to them. In fact these faces within the Group/Definition will still have
the default-materials [front and/or back]. If you want to quickly remove
the appearance of this material on the back-faces within the group then
explode the group and immediately regroup the geometry - the group's
previous material will then be individually transfered to each face that
had the default-material. Now use this 'Delete Back-Materials' to delete
the unneeded back-material.

Excellent plugin! Exactly what I have been waiting for.

I think I must be missing something with your above comment though. As you say if a group or component is textured with a material without first opening the group or component, all untextured faces, including the back faces, appear to be painted with that texture.

To fix the problem there is no need to ungroup and regroup as stated above. Simply select the default texture (either from the materials window or by sampling an untextured front or back face) then paint the unopened group or model. All untextures faces go back to untextured the way they should be.

[pmolsen]

When I start Sketchup after installing the plugin I get the following error:

Error Loading File FixReversedFaceMaterials.rb
No such file to load -- deBabelizer.rb

I checked the zip file and there is no such file in it. I found a copy in the Lattice Maker plugin but it should really be in this one as well.

Also what is the Sketchup8 link that is installed in the subfolder?

[TIG]

When I start Sketchup after installing the plugin I get the following error:
Error Loading File FixReversedFaceMaterials.rb
No such file to load -- deBabelizer.rb
I checked the zip file and there is no such file in it.
I found a copy in the Lattice Maker plugin but it should really be in this one as well.
Also what is the Sketchup8 link that is installed in the subfolder?

Sorry about this... it is always the same 'deBableizer.rb' file... BUT I have now added it to the zip [ viewtopic.php?p=264134#p264134 ] - it was packaged with the earlier zipped versions, but I missed it out of this one
I also managed inadvertently to add a shortcut linking to my copy of SUp v8 [luckily it's all public now anyway] - but that's now gone too !!! I just had a really bad day

[Aerilius]

No problem, that shortcut was not dangerous
Many thanks, this is the best reversed-faces-plugin that I ever found

I saw, maybe you'd like to have a german translation

FixReversedFaceMaterialsDE.lingvo.zip

[TIG]

Thanks for the DE lingvo.
I'll include it in any future release - unless someone else wants to jump in with another version or comments...
My German is not up to much [as you probably noticed!]...

[TIG]

Here's a tweaked German lingvo file [by Aerilius]...

FixReversedFaceMaterialsDElingvo.zip

[Ecuadorian]

Thank you, TIG!

This is a life saver...

[TIG]

Here's another version of the DE lingvo [by User2012] - try them and choose which you want...

FixReversedFaceMaterialsDE.zip

[Eugenegoth]

Thank you TIG!!!!

[Rich O Brien]

Any chance this could be compiled under a menu?

[TIG]

Any chance this could be compiled under a menu?

No sooner said than done - here's v1.5 with the four tools under one submenu viewtopic.php?p=264134#p264134

[Rich O Brien]

Thanks

I've a file that doesn't remove backface materials

[TIG]

Thanks
I've a file that doesn't remove backface materials

Let's see it - PM if needed...
Is it perhaps a group/instance where the back face is actually the default material but is displayed in the container's material ?

[Rich O Brien]

Too large for here. I'll email it.

[TIG]

Got it.
Where are the errant back faces with materials ?

[TIG]

Fixed it and emailed back to you... a material was applied to some group/instances, I used the Outliner and Entity Info to make it the default-material, then re-ran the tool to remove all back-face-materials - it seems OK now ?

[JGA]

Thanks

[irwanwr]

i might have a problem with the new version 1.5 20120216.
i don't know why and not sure either.
the last time i used this plugin, it can be accessed in context menu by right clicking.
but it seems that the new version would only available in the toolbar menu instead.
i just overwrite the previous version when installing this new one.

[TIG]

Iranwr

You are mistaken.
This toolset has never had any 'context-menu' options.
It has only ever worked from menu items.
This last update only combined all of the tools into one submenu, to avoid clutter etc.
Nothing else was done to the coding.
There is [and there never was] any code in the script regarding context-menus.
You also mention 'toolbar' - it never had a toolbar either - I suspect you actually meant 'menu' ??
OR perhaps you are thinking of another tool altogether ?

[irwanwr]

ah yes, sir.
i think i've made mistakes and confuse this tool with the other one.
and yes, what i meant was the menu bar.
sorry for bothering you with my mistakes.
i probably was thinking of that context menu feature if it's possible for this plugin.
obviously, it's not good to do modelling, thinking, reading and post a comment for feature request at around 4 am early in the morning.

[TIG]

Here's v1.6 viewtopic.php?p=264134#p264134
It includes a new tool. If you have faces with different materials front and back and you would like the back to match the front use this tool...
Plugins > TIG: Reversed Face Tools... > Match Back-Materials
It will match all selected faces' back-materials with the front-materials,
maintaining UVmapping if the material is textured etc...
There is no reversing or flipping of faces - the back-material is simply matched
to the front-material.
Do not use this as an excuse for sloppy modeling!

[utiler]

Many thanks from Down Under, TIG!!!!

[That's a down under thumb BTW....]

[Bob James]

I use TheaRender and it is very fussy about flipped faces. Now suppose I build a complex model and somehow an odd assortment of faces (large and very small) are reversed. Is there an analogous plugin that will set all of the faces correctly before I apply any textures? (i.e.; all at the same time rather than having to go in and flip them one at a time).