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Tangent Coordinate System
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Tangent Coordinate System // Tech Forum
Post by Electric Jim // Jul 24, 2008, 6:44am
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Electric Jim
Total Posts: 98
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I don't see this new coordinate system selection covered in the manual. (Though I may have missed it, somewhere -- an index really would be nice.) Could we get a brief overview of how it works? |
Post by Steinie // Jul 24, 2008, 9:25am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Did you say index?...:)
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?p=72150#post72150 |
Post by Emma // Jul 24, 2008, 9:25am
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Emma
Total Posts: 344
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Perhaps the picture explains it best.
The tangent makes kind of a thought connection between the faces
working with coordinates then is based on a calculated value including
all of the seleceted faces.
- picture right shows the selected faces moved up one step with the sweep tool
- picture in the middle shows how the faces follow the coordinates if you pull upward with the widget now
- picture left shows how it looks if you set Tangent Coordinates
You will not notice the effect on planes but here where we have the
torus it shows very clearly. |
Post by Electric Jim // Jul 24, 2008, 10:09am
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Electric Jim
Total Posts: 98
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Thanks for the info! From your response, and a little subsequent playing, it appears that it's intended for use primarily when point editing, in which case it allows individual faces to be moved/rotated/scaled along each individual face's normal (for the z-direction) or tangents (for the x- and y-directions). Cool. I think I or someone had requested this capability quite some time ago. :)
Though I'd REALLY be happy if it acted differently when not in point-edit mode. Right now, when dealing with entire objects or groups of objects, rather than in point edit mode, Tangent coordinates appear to act the same as World coordinates. I think their usefulness would be maximized if, when not in point edit mode, they defaulted to treating each selected object as if it were being manipulated in its own Object coordinate system. That way, if one were to select multiple objects and want to rotate each one around its own z axis, or translate each one along its own x-axis, simultaneously, that could be done. (And this behavior would be an intuitive generalization of the rules guiding the coordinates' use in point-edit mode, too, since in all cases each manipulated entity -- whether that entity is a face of a single object or an entire object itself -- would be manipulated around its own Object coordinate system. Still, it's an improvement to have this capability in point-edit mode, at least.) :o
Thanks again. |
Post by Emma // Jul 24, 2008, 10:29am
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Emma
Total Posts: 344
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You can use it outside PE mode too.
Just place a few objects on the ground , selct them all with holding down Ctrl key and left mouse click
The try rotating or scaling to see how the objects behave when seting to tangent or object coordinates, you should see a very small difference. |
Post by Electric Jim // Jul 24, 2008, 10:56am
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Electric Jim
Total Posts: 98
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Hmmm, if there's any difference at all outside point edit mode then it's too small for me to see. The behavior appears to be identical to that with World coordinates selected. In any case, it's definitely not the sort of behavior that I was hoping for (i.e., the "each of you move, rotate, or scale relative to your OWN Object coordinate system" behavior I described). Oh well, such is life. :) |
Post by Emma // Jul 24, 2008, 11:11am
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Emma
Total Posts: 344
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Yes, that is so and I think it will need a a lot of imagination to think what will happen with the objects.
Following scene I made a line and resize the objects which are connected through Ctrl and LM click. When reaching the line you see the different shaping
- notice how the long bar 4 changes its shape on the top face depending on tangent/object coordinates
- notice that the widged jumps outside the grouped objects when I select tangent
Using this in PE mode I think will be not that complicatet to think ahead about the effect, using in object mode, well I guess we'll hae to wait until someone creates a group of objects that make it easy understandable what happens |
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