Maya rotate about sub object. i.e. vertex

3dan · Post by **3dan** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 9:27 am

Hi,

I notice in Maya, when an object is selected the rotate is centred around its pivot point, which is great.

But if I go into Vertex suboject mode for example and even if I select a vertex and FrameAllSelected the rotate centre is still around the object pivot point rather than around the selected vertex (as using alt+LMB would do). This makes it very difficult to navigate in a sub-object selection of a large piece of geometry.

Please advise, Thanks.
Dan

Post by **rstadie** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:26 am

Hi,

Which version of Maya do you use and which 3D Mouse do you have?

3dan · Post by **3dan** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 9:49 am

Heollo, I have Maya 2008 and Space Explorer USB

I've noticed that if I turn fly mode off it does pivot around the sub object. But of course this involves a click, and the rotation and translation speed is much slower.

Is there a script available that automatically turns fly mode off in sub object mode and keeps the rotation / translation speed more or less the same?

That would be ideal.

Thanks

Dan

Post by **rstadie** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 5:57 am

I tried to reproduce this, unfortunately it seems to work as I would expect it to work.
Could you please provide a step-by-step scenario what you are doing to reproduce this? Which options are enabled in your 3Dconnexion Maya Control Panel?

3dan · Post by **3dan** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:31 am

Hi Robert

For object mode navigation I prefer to have these settings

Maya Control panel

View: Camera
Rotation Pivot: Scene / Object

Flymode on
Disable rolling on

All other tick boxes off.

3DConnexion Control Panel

Reverse All Axis
Sensitivity on Pan up and down reduced, and referenced to up / down on control knob.

With these settings I can quickly and easily navigate the scene, and whatever object I select becomes the rotation pivot.

Try creating a very long box, go to vertex mode and select the 4 verticies at one end, click frame selected (fit) so you are zoomed in on the area, try to rotate and you will notice that the verticies swing wildly away from you. This is because the rotate pivot is still that of the object. What I would like is the rotate pivot to be a mean average of the verticies selected, i.e. in the middle space of all the verticies selected. This is how I am accustomed to work in 3D Max, I have only recently switched to Maya and 3D space explorer.

Many thanks

Dan

Post by **rstadie** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:18 am

Hi Dan,

It seems as I start to understand. And using the "Focal Point" option has other disadvantages you want to avoid?

3dan · Post by **3dan** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 11:26 am

Yes, I have tried working with focal point, but I don't find it as practical/easy to work with because it's not a fixed point in space. When you are selecting a group of sub objects you are saying you want to work in this area, hence it makes sense to make that the rotation point (focus of attention).

You have it set up like this in Scene / object mode, it is a real shame that this doesn't translate into subobject mode.

Also Maya does do this as standard, if you select a bunch of verticies and "fit to frame" using Alt+LMB the pivot of rotation is the mean of the pivot points of all the verts.

Please make this a feature.

Cheers,

Dan

Post by **rstadie** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:52 am

Hi Dan,

Thank you for explaining this so detailed. We track this as an enhancement request with ID 5001 - I hope it will be possible to change the behavior.

3dan · Post by **3dan** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:56 am

Thanks,

I look forward to hearing about enhancement request 5001's progress.

Post by **mbonk** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 11:01 pm

3dan wrote:Also Maya does do this as standard, if you select a bunch of verticies and "fit to frame" using Alt+LMB the pivot of rotation is the mean of the pivot points of all the verts.

I think you will find that 'fitting' causes the group of vertices to be placed around the focal point or center of interest. Using Alt + LMB simply rotates about the center of interest. Setting the pivot in the 3D mouse to focal point and switching off translations causes the 3D mouse to behave exactly the same.

Does this not work for you?

3dan · Post by **3dan** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 10:24 am

OK I see what you are getting at

This is my normal method for navigating (keyboard and mouse) in more detail. Say I have a very large environment scene:

I select the object I want to work on, a tall building. I select it, I hit 'F' fit to frame. I want to work in a corner so I go to Verts mode, select a bunch of verts in that corner and hit F again. {OK, after trialing I agree the centre of interest is not fixed. } I now zoom back to my desired working distance, And this is where it is different,

when I zoom out with the mouse wheel and rotate the center of interest, or the rotation pivot remains where it was. when I zoom out with the space explorer the rotation pivot remains at the focal point of the camera. [Generally far too close!]

This means that although I will tend to Alt+MMB pan around my rotation pivot stays in generally the correct position. and after I have been working for a while sometimes I do want to reset my roation pivot, but normally it is good enough until I have finished with the verts in that area.

So is it possible for the rotation pivot to remain independant of the zoom level? I am guessing that forward back actually translates the camera position, so hopefully it would be simple to replace that with camera zoom.

You mention, to turn off translation, but it seems that only leaves me with rotation, although I don't mention it earlier, I do need to zoom and pan also.

I look forward to hearing from you, Thanks

Kind regards

Dan

Post by **mbonk** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:05 am

So is it possible for the rotation pivot to remain independant of the zoom level?

Actually, yes. Instead of disabling translations, you could switch fly mode off. This then reverts the camera back to a target camera: center of interest stays put in 3d space.

Markus

3dan · Post by **3dan** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:30 am

Thanks, we are moving closer to the root of the problem.

Turning fly mode off is almost perfect. One problem remains, one functionality is missing, Now I cannot pan.

I would like:

View: Camera
Fly mode: Off

Up/Down Axis: Zoom (or Off, to be controlled by the mouse wheel)
Forward/Backwards/Left/Right: Pan
Tilt/Spin/Roll: As normal, Twist/Turn

Dan

3dan · Post by **3dan** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:43 am

Also I notice in Flymode that if I look top down on the geometry and rotate, the geometry will spin much faster than if the camera is near the horizon, (near y=0) , while in the case of keyboard and mouse the rotation speed is always directly proportionate to the distance travelled by the mouse.

Post by **mbonk** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 12:40 am

3dan wrote:Also I notice in Flymode that if I look top down on the geometry and rotate, the geometry will spin much faster than if the camera is near the horizon, (near y=0) , while in the case of keyboard and mouse the rotation speed is always directly proportionate to the distance travelled by the mouse.

This I cannot reproduce. The spin is designed to be a constant angular velocity for a given cap twist about the center of rotation.