I need a cylinder or sphere, which has all normals directed inwards. Sounds strange, but I want to place my VR-Camera inside of this cylinder and use it kinda like a skybox. I know, that I can let Blender set all my normals to the outside, but is this possible for the inverse, too?
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3$\begingroup$ Yes. Shift+Ctrl+N (as Ctrl+N may calculate the normals to the outside). Also, even with Ctrl+N you have the operator panel on the bottom left under the tools panel, which shows an 'inside' check button. $\endgroup$– lemonJul 28, 2016 at 12:31
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$\begingroup$ Great thanks, I hoped for such an easy solution ;D $\endgroup$– TobiasWJul 28, 2016 at 12:34
1 Answer
To flip the normals of your cylinder, Tab into Edit Mode and key T to toggle open/close the Toolshelf. Go to the Toolshelf > Shading/UVs tab > Shading dropdown > Normals section and click Recalculate. This will align all the normals. Now, you can click Flip Direction to align the normals on the inside of the cylinder.
Note that as lemon said in the comments, Ctrl + N is the shortcut for Recalculate, and Shift + Ctrl + N is the shortcut for aligning the normals to the inside of (an object), not flipping them, aligning them to the inside of an object.
To check your work, first, make sure the exterior and interior shading has been flipped. Next, key N to toggle open/close the 3D Viewport Properties panel and go to the Mesh Display tab. I like to turn on Face Normals. Now, every normal will appear as a little blue line in the center of each face.
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$\begingroup$ This answer is way too good for such a simple question :D Thanks! $\endgroup$– TobiasWJul 28, 2016 at 13:20
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$\begingroup$ @TobiasW thanks very much. I know lemon pretty much solved it, but I figured I'd say a couple other things. $\endgroup$ Jul 28, 2016 at 13:21