HELP - align points on X, Y or Z

[Bongo51]

I've looked everywhere... the manual, tutorials... etc. I can't find how to do something which I've become quite used to in Lightwave. I need to align a series of points to one dimension. In many cases I need to align polygons or points to flatten them completely. Is there something capable of doing this in Hexagon? I've tried all of the tools... am I missing something?

anybody know how to do this?

Ian

[Tunesy]

With the verts selected did you try scaling to zero along the appropriate dimension?

[Nemoid]

thanx tunesy.
had the same prob just today. i guess Bongo was asking this because in Lw, we have a "set value" tool, that aligns points onto a given value. in this case x=0 would be the needed one. then we also have a mirror tool (simmetry in hex) that joins vertices aligned onto x axis. so usually we align points along 0 then mirror the model and all its joined perfectly.
In facts I also had the problem to connect the two halves of my model in hex. at the end i finally selected tyhe edges along centerline, hit weld and voilaaa!

[Bongo51]

actually, the problem (for me) is a pretty big issue. I'm building an aircraft, and I want to align a bunch of points along the x axis. I have tried six ways from sunday to get this done, and I'm pretty frustrated. I've come to the conclusion that Hexagon is a great organic modeller but for non-organic shapes where accuracy and scale are an issue... well, I'm obviously having issues with this.

So far I have found ways to do everything I need; Hexagon has it's 'way' of doing things, which I just need to learn... but I've sorted through the manual quite carefully, looked through every forum I can find... It APPEARS that the ability to quickly align multiple parts of a model along any plane is lacking. This is a pretty big issue in my mind.

Somebody please tell me I'm wrong. I was looking forward to using Hexagon to do most of my modelling... if this feature is not present I will need to build mechanical things in Lightwave.

[Piem]

Hexagon do not have a complete constraint set (like Amapi7.5 get).BUT
There is an other way to align which is..The snap/align tool
select a point or a bunch of points ,or face or edges (as Nemoid told it ,you always type 0 value in the X box ,those values are alway the current selection value ) ..so you have your selection ---> snap a first point (holding shift) and snap the destination point .


Sorry ,I'm just awaking so..it's maybe an uncomplete answer.
More to come if it's the case

[Nemoid]

i'll try the align method too. however i didn't had probs with Tunesy method as well.
t would be awesome if Hex could simply move multiple items in the same axis with move command,writing 0 in the x axis field . this didn't worked with multiple items selected.
you can do that in Maya. simply select points change the move value to 0 and they are aligned in 0. or also, you can snap them with move tool in the x axis so u'll use only mouse in that case.

[MilesW]

Hi Bongo51,

Sorry - do you mean you want to align a set of points on a single object, or are you wanting to select a single points on multiple objects and then align these points to a particular X,Y or Z value? Perhaps if you could post an screenshot it would help.

If all the points are on the same object, then by selecting the points and setting the size to zero in the properties panel you align all the points on the appropriate axis; you can then set the position value in the same panel to move the points as required.

If you want to move objects so that a particular point moves to X=0 then the fastest way I know is to use the Utilities|Snap/Align tool.

(1) Switch in the top orthographic view
(2) Select the object of interest
(3) Select the Snap/Align tool
(4) Move the cursor close to the point you wish to align
(5) Press and release shift - the cursor snaps to the point
(6) Left click the mouse (image align1) - and now don't move the mouse
(7) Press TAB to get the the properties panel, X co-ordinate
(8) Enter 0.
(9) Press NumericPad-Enter (image align2)
(10) Press it again

That looks like a lot of work and won't be as quick as a dedicated tool, but is OK once you get the hang of it (a shortcut key for Snap/Align helps also). You can then move other objects the same way (image align3).

[EDIT - Piem types too quick for me and got there first ]

Miles

[Bongo51]

Miles, though I really appreciate the effort. I am used to being able to quickly either scale anything to the point where I click and drag, and on any axis... or type in a coordinate value and instantly move points or polys to the entered location. To imagine that a modeller like Hexagon could be missing such basic tools really shocks me.

Unless of course, there is something I've missed from your posts. I'm sorry I wasn't more specific. I honestly never even imagined the idea of moving one point at a time! I'll drop back to Lightwave before I find myself moving more then a couple points at a time. I

thanks for everyone's posts. If anyone does figure out a way to align multiple points on one plane with the same action... let me know? thanks.

[Grendel]

I know I am confused, could you post a screenshot from lightwave showing what you do there so I can understand.

[Tunesy]

"...or type in a coordinate value and instantly move points or polys to the entered location."

You can do that, unless I'm misunderstanding you. This is a pic of a cube with the top 4 verts selected.

[Tunesy]

In this pic we've "sized" those 4 verts to zero along the x-axis...

[Tunesy]

...and, finally, here we've "positioned" them along the x-axis.

[Bongo51]

An example of what i'm used to with Lightwave.

This is EXTREMELY timesaving and useful. I normally use the scale tool as shown in the screenshots, since you can (as demonstrated) click and drag to scale everything to one plane in the 3D perspective window. By lining up the items to the plane you wish to scale, you can thus flatten everything to a plane other then the default X,Y,Z. I could easily click and drag in any of the ortho windows to scale on x,y,z.

If anyone finds a way of doing this in Hexagon... please let me know.. At this point I'd be happy with less functionality... but just to be able to line up a few points! That seems pretty simple? Doing it one point/poly at a time is not really an option, plus, the polygon shapes (in lightwave) are modified as well to conform/be flat.

Thumb descriptions:
#1. Showing a selection of points. I select the scale tool and then click where I want the final points to be scaled to... and drag. (thumb #2)
#3. Showing a selection of polygons. again, the scale tool... In this example I click and drag in the 3D window, and it aligns the polygons perpendicular to the viewplane, but I just as easily could have performed the operation in one of the ortho views and the polygons would have flattened to that that plane. #4 shows the result of my click/drag, and where it was done.

EDIT:
Tunsey, thanks for the effort, however, try that trick on a model that has points NOT already on the same plane. They are moved with their relationship to eachother intact. The scale tool doesn't allow you to scale them to a flat plane either (??). It simply moves them around and they never all pass through the same point simultanously.

Ian

[Tunesy]

"try that trick on a model that has points NOT already on the same plane. They are moved with their relationship to each other intact. The scale tool doesn't allow you to scale them to a flat plane either"

Hmm. Not sure I follow you. The scale tool (more precisely with text entry) does indeed "scale to a flat plane". I wasn't using the manipulator in the previous example. I was using text entry (circled in red in previous example). You can, for example, 'flatten' a sphere (mostly noncoplanar verts) along any of the three axes by entering zero in the appropriate "size" field and all the points of the sphere will end up in the corresponding plane, each point having moved exactly along the axis for which you entered your value. You can also work in the screen plane (click on the tiny "camera" icon at upper left), but apparently you have to use the manipulator; inputting values seems to default to the ortho axes. I see no difference in results whether the verts are coplanar or not.

Are you working with vert selections? Are you on a mac? Or maybe I just misunderstand the problem ;) I can get any selection of verts to be coplanar in any orientation I want, 'but', it will not be with cad-like-precision if I have to work in the camera plane.

[Patrick210]

Hexagon works essentially the same way. I'm assuming you are extruding on a specific axis, x or z in Hexagon. In my screenshot I show the second part. I used "Fast Extrude" to pull out the selected facets on the z axis. "Fast Extrude" is great if you aren't familiar with it. I then used the scale part of the UM to scale down to 0 on that plane. Hexagon doesn't show right now the scale updates in the properties box until you stop, but you can see visually when it's about zero and stop and then type the value to 0 to get it perfect. Your first problem is essentially the same, rotate the sphere, select the points and scale in the UM until almost planar and tyoe the value to 0 to get it exact. I guess the difference is that Hex will go below zero instead of stopping there. Please ask more if my explanation was too brief. But Hex works essentially the same way as you describe LW. I guess you'd need to rotate the model so that the plane you want to flatten to is aligned with an axis.

[MilesW]

Ian,

Try this to flatten a selection of faces to an arbitary alignment.

(1) Select Camera in the manipulator's palette
(2) Select "Custom Working Plane with Camera Rotation Enabled" (middle button in Scenes|Properties palette) & click on a face on the object (I chose the centrally selected face)
(3) Use Alt+Left mouse down to rotate around the object until the required alignment view is reached
(4) Use the scale manipulator to reduce the selection to zero height. Note that the numeric entry fields do NOT seem to reflect the values relating to the current view - so you can't type in zero (that still seems to flatten with respect to the world axes - not what I might expect?)
(5) Reset the working planes (left button in the Scenes|Properties palette).

Hope this is what you were after

Miles

[Patrick210]

After thinking a little more and re-reading your posts, I believe I can help a little more. If you follow my steps using the Fast Extrude, you can rotate or move your planar facets in any direction before validating the Fast Extrude. This should solve the problem. This might even give you more functionality than LW has.

[Nemoid]

using the scale tool worked well with me with point not yet aligned to an axis and to flatten em in x=o i simply choosed all edges of my half of the model, then converted the selection to points (even if this couldn't be necessary) then hit scale, typed o both in size on x axis and position and points became aligned.

the behaviour i was getting with move typing x=0 kept points not aligned. i think hex in this case makes the average between all points position, and in any case keeps their relative doistance (there's an option like this also in maya, except you can uncheck it, and then points will move on x=o with move command and type x=0)

about points aligned on another axis i think the custom plane axis is the way to go, but the fast extrude trick is interesting as well.

basically, what it happens in Lw is this :

1) set value command can align selected items onto a plane if you type for example x=0 or y=o or other value. you can also repeat this for every axis and set a bunch of point on a given value, so that they share same coordinates , for example x=0, y= 0 z=0 this is a very useful comand, because you're numerically sure about points position in space.

2) we have a so called "mouse mode",with which we can use cursor position on the screen to modify( smooth shift, move, bend, stretch..) items.
in this case, if we for example use the stretch tool on a selected bunch of points into an ortho view, we can hit ctrl+stretch andwe'll be able to align points to a plane passing where cursor is. the same can happen in perspective. this is very helpful in organic modelling, but also in technical BTW.
3) in the case of mirroring we have the possibility to mirror along axis, and if the points of the 2 halves share the same position in space they can be automatically merged.

we also have another cool feature i dunno if hex has. when in simmetry mode, like in hexagon, we have locked points on x axis. this would serve to avoid u accidentally move them on one side. (ok then we have some tool that can break this, unfortunately, and thats becasue hex is better in simmetry modelling than Lw.

[Bongo51]

I'm just a little flummoxed. It seems that everything else is so intuitive and easy with hexagon. This clearly is a major oversight. Anyone who has used lightwave or any other mature app knows that the number of clicks should always be down near... oh, lets say 1. Anything more complex really gets in the way of creativity. I'm guessing this functionality, and other CAD-like support would help.

[Bongo51]

Nemoid,

are you a LW user? You know what I'm trying to do right? I just want to select some points, then use a tool to interactively scale them to a point. In most cases it's to adjust 'true' or orientation on a particular edge of a model, or perhaps to align errent points into a line. In any event, in LW it's a simple matter of selecting the points, hitting "h" (which is scale) and click/drag to desired result. I never even thought such basic functionality could be 'missing'. Though I guess it entirely depends on what you need to model. For me, I was looking for a more 'artsy' modeller, since I'm an illustrator at the core, I wanted something more in line with how my mind works. I guess i've kinda become a bit used to all the niggly little bits that Lightwave has grown on it's way to being V9. So to be fair. Hexagon approaches modelling in a way more akin to the way I WANT to model. As soon as it has a bit more history to pick up the core features that modellers need... then it's going to be a contender. Now... well, I think I'll keep LW around for anything that is non-organic.



All these workarounds are just not gunna cut it when I needs it done yesterday.