Rotating Pivot points in Maya

Steve Schulze

I have a vague feeling that I've seen a topic on this before on here somewhere, but seeing as the search engine seems to be busted, I'm just going to have to post it again.

Can anyone explain how I'd go about rotating the pivot point of an object in Maya? I've got it woprking once fiddling around with a bunch of componant buttons and turning bits of UI on and off, but I don't really know how I did it and can't seem to replicate it again now. I'm sure theres some simple, logical way to get this working, but I'll be damned if I can work it out.

MoP

I think you can toggle between object and pivot point by hitting Insert ... although i don't know if that means you can rotate the pivot, or just move it. I haven't used Maya in a while.

Daz

http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/info/maya/manual/UserGuide/Overview/TransformingObjects.fm.html

Steve Schulze

That didn't appear to have the necessary information.

Anyway after an hour or so experimentation I've managed to work out all the necessary steps to get it working. The fact that you have to select the axis itself rather than the rotation axis node was what was tripping me up.

Strange that the don't have a one button solution for this as they do with moving the pivot point.

For the reference of those who might run into this problem in future given that the help file isn't at all clear on this the steps are as follows:

1.Select Display->Componant Display->Rotate Pivots from the drop down menus to make the rotation pivot node appear.

2. In componant mode select the pivots (a circle with a dot in the centre) and miscellaneous (question mark) buttons on the status line toolbar.

3.Select the axis on the rotation node. Make sure you select the axis and not the node otherwise you won't be able to rotate.

4.Rotate to your hearts content.

Raven

Cool been wondering if it was possible.
I've always just gone into Axis Mode (insert) and clicked on the reset ball. Puts it back at Local Transform&Rotate 0,0,0. So I can tinker from there.

That looks like it needs a shortcut key setup. ^_^ heh