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How to easily move object in a specific direction?

the_assassinthe_assassin Posts: 73
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I often find it very difficult to move objects into the position I want them, particularly if I need to move something obliquely towards or parallel to another object.  Moving simple objects is often hard enough, but it can become even worse when dealing with posed figures, because poses often change the origin and/or the direction of the xyz axes.

Often in the best case, I find myself having to make multiple, incremental changes to X, Y and Z values, while switching between multiple viewing angles.

Is there a better way to do this?

E.g. to push or pull an object towards a specific point or other object?  Or to set a bearing and azimuth and distance in which to move something?  Or to redefine the axes of a character so that e.g. their arm (whichever way its pointing) becomes the primary x axis?

   

 

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,728

    If you want to move something along one of another object's axes one option would be to create a new null (Create>New Null), then parent it to the item you wish to align to with Parent in Place off (Scene pane option menu if using drag-and-drop, or check box at the bottom of the Change Parent dialogue). Now parent the thing you wish to move to the null with parent in Place on so that it doesn't change, select the Null, and in Tool Settings make sure the axis is system at the top is set to Object. Now the Viewport Gizmo's axes will allign to the Null's, which align to the obect you wish to match. 

    You do do soemthing similar if you are not wanting to parallel another node, just manually setting the alignment of the null.

  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 14,042
    edited January 2022

    What I tend to do and it's pretty quick is switch to top view and just grab ahold of the object and drag it to wherever you want it then go into front, left or right view and set the height. Then you can us the dials to fine tune it. 

    Post edited by frank0314 on
  • cgidesigncgidesign Posts: 442
    edited January 2022

    One way is "Use Screen Coordinates" in Tool Settings. It was a bit confusing when I first used it, but since mastered it is very handy in various cases.

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    Post edited by cgidesign on
  • chris-2599934chris-2599934 Posts: 1,804

    Another trick is to use the white triangle to drag the object in two planes at once. To re-use one of cgidesign's inages...

    The cube has red, green and blue axes, if you drag on the arrows that's the way the cube moves. But notice there are lines going at right angles to each axis, and where they meet there's a white triangle. For example, the read and blue axes meet at a triangle just below the base of the arrow in cgidesign's diagram.

    If you click on that triangle and drag it, you can move the cube freely across the red and blue axes, whilst it remains fixed in the green axis. I find this trick really useful when positioning items on a flat plane. It's sometimes handy to go into tool options and temporarily disable the translations and rotations that you don't need to make it easier to pick out the ones that you do.

  • cgidesigncgidesign Posts: 442

    @chris-2599934

    I don't know about the OP but thank you from my side; I didn't know about the two axis transform.

  • the_assassinthe_assassin Posts: 73

    Thanks, I'll try those and see how I get on.

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