How To Move Object out from Center of Another Object???

thedude123

Hi,

How would I go about moving an object from the center of another. Basically, I want to detach parts of a sphere and move/expand them out (without changing their scale) from the surface. Kinda going for that orbiting effect (if that helps clarify my rambling).

The objects need to come out and go back along the same path so I can animate them.

Thanks for any suggestions!

I have included an image for reference. I AM USING MAYA 2018.

HenryVIII

I guess you should align pivot of the object to the faces normals, and animate movement on one axis. There was some script for maya Align Pivot to Selection MEL, maybe it will help 

thedude123

Hi,

Thanks.

Will that work with an object that has multiple faces? Maybe something that uses the normals average to move along?

I used the Transform tool and that worked great...except for the fact that it also scales the object at the same time, which is not what I want.

nooks

maybe maya got the working pivot function too.
its for 3d max on pic.



adjust the pivot, then select "use working pivot", select the object/polys you want to move and select "working" for move tool.

R3D

In maya with the faces selected

Edit Mesh-> Transform

thedude123

Hi R3D,

Thanks.

That method transforms the object exactly how I want...but it also SCALES the object, which in NOT what I want.

Any way to keep it moving like that but without scale effect?

Axi5

Select the object/faces you want to move.

In move tool settings change Axis Orientation to Component

Job done

thedude123

Hi Axi5,

Thanks for the suggests, but it does not work. Changing the Axis Orientation to Component does not move it in the diagonal direction like the Transform tool does. It just move it on a flat x,y,z plane.

Axi5

Reset your tool and try it again it should do it... what version of Maya?

thedude123

Hi Axi5,

I think this actually may have worked. I was doing something else in Maya today and I forgot to reset my move tool (it was left in Component mode). I selected some faces, Extracted them, and then the pivot appeared in the center of the new object and was oriented in the direction of the face (diagonally).

So, it looks like I needed to SET the move tool to Component mode FIRST and then make my face selection and extract. I was doing the extraction first and then trying to set/adjust the move tool and the pivot.

Thanks for the push in the right direction, my good man!

thedude123

MAYA 2018

Interesting...

After playing around with this a bit more, it looks like you have to be in FACE mode in order for this to work. If I switch to OBJECT mode and select the move tool, it reverts back to the generic x, y, z planar orientation for the object.

OBJECT MODE


FACE MODE

throttlekitty

Try using the w+lmb marking menu to set a component axis. Selecting it from there temporarily goes to component mode to pick something to aim at. Or just be in object mode, press D for pivot editing and do your thing (this gets stored into the "custom" axis slot).

Here I snapped to grid since it's the center of my sphere, aimed at the most likely vertex to represent In-Out, then snapped the handle to that vert.

thedude123

Hi throttlekitty,

Thanks for that. Very interesting solution!