align objects to normal face in Maya

dlz

Maybe this is a newbie question but i was searching a lot and didnt found an answer. 
The question is if i want to align orientation by one face of an object to another face but i want to orient the y rotation axis to because when i use the snap two objects together tool it doesnt align the orientation perfectly. 
i made a screenshot of what i mean. 



you can see the y axis of the priramid's rotation didnt align to the y rotation value of the cube 

throttlekitty

Typically you need to use the tool twice, first axis then second axis. Since there aren't any coplanar faces on the pyramid, you'll need to add some temporarily. You could combine it with a cube if the pyramid is world-aligned to start with. Or if it's already at some random rotation, duplicate a face, pull it away then extrude that.

Or copy the rotation values if you're able.

dlz

Hmm but i can't use that tool twice in the two axis, the tool only snaps one face of an object to another of other object. i dont know if there is another tool for what i want i tried some ways but  without success. i dont understand what you say about coplanar faces  

the "snap together tool"


The axis of the components i want to align.
By the way thanks for the answer.

throttlekitty

Something I forgot about was Modify>Match Transforms. From there you can use the Snap Together tool to get the positioning that you want.

However, if the cube was rotated and had it's transforms frozen then this won't work. Here's what I was talking about with inventing some faces to snap with. I duplicated the bottom of the pyramid then extruded to make a small box; this gives me two flat surfaces to snap to the cube with. From here I would delete the temporary box and then align the pyramid again so it rests flush. If this is something that you want to do en masse, try looking into MASH or one of many duplication scripts (I'm having trouble thinking of one that would magically handle alignment at the moment).

Klaudio2U

throttlekitty said:

However, if the cube was rotated and had it's transforms frozen then this won't work. 

 You can use Modify > Bake Pivot to get transformations or just rotation in options. 

throttlekitty

Klaudio2U said:

throttlekitty said:

However, if the cube was rotated and had it's transforms frozen then this won't work. 

 You can use Modify > Bake Pivot to get transformations or just rotation in options. 

Ah, so it does, thanks! Just to expand on this because I completely ignored it for so long: hold D to enter pivot mode and click a face to set the object pivot to that face first to get the axis set quickly.

dlz

Thank you two a lot! with the two methods you teach me combined i could do exactly what i wanted. Its a bit long if i have to make that for many polygons but it works very fine, even more if i get the center of the faces visible i can snap with the "v" key in the perfect center