Hi, I'm trying to make my first model (ive been reading MSA boards of all sorts for a couple of years now and decided I should start myself), but in milkshape I have made half of the grip but some of the oarts are always black. I decided to see that maybe if I assigned a texture to it the black areas would disappear, but they dont.
I have attached a picture below to show you what I mean...

Also a quick question how do I just copy and paste a selection, for example I have done half of the grip so I want to copy it then mirror it and then paste the original half back in.

Any help with these problems would be greatly appreciated :)

Its a milkshape thing. In milkshape you have to connect the vertices in a certain order or else they turn black. Them being black means the face is backwards. To make the face white just select it, go to face > reverse vertex order. OR you can just select the face and press Ctrl+Shift+F, and it will reverse it.

To duplicate something select it and go to edit > duplicate selection. OR you can just select it and press Ctrl+D and that will duplicate it. To mirror something you have to go to vertex > mirror. It shows which ways it will be mirrored.

Hope I helped a bit.. :D

It's easier to find which faces are inverted if you use flat shade mode in the perspective view.

Sounds like the same problem i have, when i import a model from lightwave, the object is all black, yet the textures are loaded and assigned. All i have to do to correct it, is use the smooth all function, Ctrl + M, and it sorts it for me.