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Rotating around a point
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Rotating around a point // New Users
Post by Grommit // Sep 28, 2006, 2:38am
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Grommit
Total Posts: 32
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Hiya,
Please excuse my blatant ignorance, this is such a basic question. Is there any way to rotate an object around a specific point? In 2D drawing packages, you often see a marquee rectangle with a coloured spot in the middle, which is the rotation point. You can move the spot and then rotate the whole item around wherever you place the spot. So you can rotate around the centre, or an edge or a corner or any other arbitrary point. So far in truespace, I've only found the ability to rotate around specific axes, or around the object's physical centre. Is there a way to move that rotation point easily?
I'm wanting to do something really simple - to accurately place a long bar at an odd angle to join up two spheres (like a molecule model) by putting one end of the bar in place and using that end as the point around which to rotate the other end into place (if that makes sense). This would be so much quicker and easier than the standard rotate.
Many thanks!
Grommit |
Post by Bobbins // Sep 28, 2006, 2:52am
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Bobbins
Total Posts: 506
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In tS, every object rotates around it's axis. The axis of an object is usually at the centre of the object, though this can get skewed if the object is point edited. Fortunately, you can move the axis wherever you like - even outside of the object.
Select the object, then use the show axes tool to display where the axis currently is. While the axis is displayed you can use the move object tools to move it to wherever you want. When finished, you can make the axis invisible again by selecting the show axes tool once more. Now if you scale or rotate the object it will do so relative to the position of it's axis. |
Post by frank // Sep 28, 2006, 3:04am
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frank
Total Posts: 709
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Yes, what Bobbins said. I found myself doing this many times. For instance, on designing a timberframe shed project in trueSpace I would take the post object and set the axes at the very bottom. This way, I could scale up or down and the post remained planted to the foundation. (It was either that or use Point Edit, select the top face, and move it up.)
One plugin that's really handy for this is MoveAxes:
http://www.3d-ts-forum.de/wbb2/jgs_db.php?action=show&eintrags_id=15&katid=3&sid= |
Post by Grommit // Sep 28, 2006, 3:14am
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Grommit
Total Posts: 32
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Thanks Bobbins! That is such a help! :banana: Works a treat.
Much appreciated.
And yes, Frank, I quite see your point. Since the main reason for me wanting learn TS in the first place has been for planning building interiors, I suspect I'll be doing similar things.
Cheers Guys :-) |
Post by Jack Edwards // Sep 28, 2006, 4:42am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Anothering things to be aware of with the axis is what mode you are in:
http://www.motbc.com/ForumStuff/Axis.jpg
I use object mode a lot so I can rotate the view around the object, but it's also useful if you need to move a point or extrusion in a particular axis and need more accurate control.
Like Frank said some times it's useful to set the object axis different than the world axis. Say for example you needed to move points off at an angle but wanted them constrained to that angle, you could rotate the object axis, set TS to "object coordinate mode" then you can move constrained to that modified axis.
If while working at the skewed axis you needed to move in the normal up-down-left-right (etc.) you can just switch back to "world coordinate mode" mid editing and move in the normal constrained directions. :D
Took me a while to figure this one out. At first I thought it was a bug untill I realized how the different modes worked.
-Jack. |
Post by Bobbins // Sep 28, 2006, 4:47am
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Bobbins
Total Posts: 506
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One further comment about the axis that you might have realised - you can rotate the axis as well as move it. In this way you can define the default orientation of an object when its rotation is normalised.
In other words, if you want your object to be 'upside down' when rotated to 0, 0, 0 just show the axes and rotate them 180 degrees. A lot of the time it is easiest and most useful to orient your object the way you want, show the axes then normalise the rotation of the axes. |
Post by Steinie // Sep 28, 2006, 5:56am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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"A lot of the time it is easiest and most useful to orient your object the way you want, show the axes then normalise the rotation of the axes."
Bingo------ Thanks Stan the Man and TrueBlue
Stan's
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=1340
trueBlue's
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=1337 |
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