How to change Origin of a Prop without moving it? Solved.

richardandtracy

I am mildly stumped. I wonder if someone could help me?

I am trying to make my first piece of Jewellery, a pair of very simple and very Chavvy hoop earrings. I have got them as smart props attached to the character's ears. So far, so good. The problem is that the origin they rotate around when doing Rotate X, Rotate Y etc is the bottom of the earring, not the top. As a result, making the earring swing means the top comes out of the ear and a translation is needed to correct it.

Is it possible to change the global origin of the prop without moving the prop? I feel it must be, just not sure how. If you can help, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Richard

IceCrMn

Have you tried a rigid follower node?

example;

Switch to Geometry Editor

Select Right ear in Scene pane.

Use the tool in the viewport to highlight the ear lobe part you want the earring to attach to.

Right click and select "Create Rigid Follower Node From Selected"

Give it a name,,something like "This is where I will put the right earring on the Characters Right ear"

or maybe something simpler like "Right ear" :)

Exit Geometry Editor

Parent right earring to Right Ear Rigid Follower node.

The node and the earring can be manipulated independently of each other.

That means once you have the Rigid Follower node in place, you switch to the earring and fine tune the placement/pose.

The follower node will follow the ear and the earring will follow the node.

These are pretty handy and easy to use once you've had a chance to play with them a bit.

 

 

 

IceCrMn

Here's a screen grab.

I use these to stick things on stuff I want to be able to swing or move with the parent, like leather strings on hand bags, buttons on shirts(this can be a little problematic).

Can also use them to stick earrings in like eyebrows, noses, and other places one might want to peirce.

They aren't perfect, and some morphs will change the translation, but it helps alot.

 

richardandtracy

Thanks. I will try it, but I don't think it addresses moving the origin, but I will try it. Regards, Richard.

margrave

Yes and no.

You can use the Joint Editor tool to change the pivot point, around which the object rotates. However, there's no way to apply the transform, such that the new translation and rotation become 0. You can only memorize them.

richardandtracy

I am sorry, my memory isn't very good and the probability of memorising them for future use by other people in a freebie download is zero. How on earth do people create earrings? A paragraph in a manual would be save a huge amount of un-necessary frustration.

richardandtracy

I have tried using a "Null Node", and helpfully such things save as a smart prop as a node alone instead of alongside the earring when using "File:SaveAs:Support Asset:Figure/Prop Assets..." even with both are selected to save.

Leana

Save figure asset will only save a single item. 
A scene asset can save multiple items, maybe that would work?

richardandtracy

Think I may have it. Joint Editor. Naturally you expect to use it with something that has no joints... Silly me for expecting otherwise.

margrave

richardandtracy said:

I am sorry, my memory isn't very good and the probability of memorising them for future use by other people in a freebie download is zero. How on earth do people create earrings? A paragraph in a manual would be save a huge amount of un-necessary frustration.

The best way is to model it so that your desired pivot point is at world origin and the earring has no rotation. Then use the Joint Editor to move the center point to world origin and the end point to directly below it on the Y axis. After that, parent it to a Rigid Follow node. Since its coordinates are 0,0,0, it will move to the Rigid Follow's position.

richardandtracy

Yep. Thanks. There appear to be a number of ways of skinning this cat. I shall model differently next time. Regards, Richard.