3ds Max Working Pivot to Local Pivot?

Ghostscape

Is there some way to make the working pivot become the object's actual pivot?

Alternatively is there a way to align an object's pivot to the view or the surface (like you can with the working pivot)?

I can't find anything in the help and it seems like this would be a no-brainer. I've got an object I'd merged down that I need to get a good pivot for, but its at an arbitrary angle and I don't want to eyeball the pivot, so an align to surface would be totally awesome.

Mark Dygert

Ghostscape wrote: »

Is there some way to make the working pivot become the object's actual pivot?

I think I get what you're after... Try:
- Turn on edit working pivot.
- Click the Align tool (not quick align)
- Click the object that has the pivot you want and
- In the dialog that pops up check on each axis under "Align Orientation (local)"

Ghostscape wrote: »

Alternatively is there a way to align an object's pivot to the view or the surface (like you can with the working pivot)

Not as easily no...
You could try:
- Create a dummy object.
- Align the copy to the surface using Align Normal (alt-n, click the surface you want to align, click the surface you want to align too)
- Then affect pivot only.
- Align tool your pivot point to the dummy.

Ghostscape

The second solution is the one I wound up doing since I couldn't figure out a way to do it through any pivot tools. It is really stupid that they don't let you use their awesome align-surface tool for the regular pivot.

I didn't have a pivot that I wanted in the scene - I use the first technique all the time (except not in edit pivot mode). But this time I only had a surface normal that was aligned in a useful fashion

Thanks for the advice, though. Glad to see there isn't something I'm missing.