Does anyone have an object centering plugin?

[Geminii]

There was one floating around a couple of years back, but I heard the author lost the original to a hard drive crash. Did anyone download the plugin and could make it available? Alternatively, is there a general object/group centering plugin available?

I've done a bunch of Google searches and looked through the back archives of this forum without running into any matches, so I realise I may be out of luck here. There was a note about manually setting an object's rotation point, but it doesn't seem to work for my already-grouped objects - I can type new co-ordinates into the properties box, but they auto-revert when I close it.

I'm hoping to get something similar to a stackable animation joint, where I can set an object's rotation point at X, Y and Z, then group the object with a parent and set the group rotation point, then ubergroup the small group with another object and set a third rotation point for the whole shebang.

Yeah, I know, it's not IK, but my needs are simple :)

Animation is out for the moment, but it'd be nice to be able to tweak the 'pose' of a jointed model for screenshots with the minimum of fuss.

On the third hand. if there aren't any plugins available at the moment to do this, what are people's favorite third-party joint programs?

[Dennis]

Are you looking for the AC3D-supplied "Adjust object centres..." utility (under the Tools menu in AC3D 5.0)? Or is what you're looking for something different?

I can type new co-ordinates into the properties box, but they auto-revert when I close it.

This one's sneaky. When you type in new coordinates, make sure to hit the "Enter" key to have the coordinates accepted. imho, the property editor box could really use an "apply" button ...

hth

[Geminii]

Ah! Yes, that works.

Er... sort of.

The object properties now list the new co-ordinates, but using the Rotate function still seems to be spinning the object around the point where its bounding-box centre would be, if it had one.

*Thinks*

I mean, I guess I could place the object's desired centrepoint on the origin, flip a copy of the object about all three axes, set the copy to invisible, then Merge the objects. That (in theory) would give me the correct rotation point for a visible object, although in practice it'd be a terrible waste of time and polygons.

Perhaps there's a way of merging a single additional invisible vertex to a given object to "pull" the centre of rotation into the correct position?

[Dennis]

I think the only way to get the rotation about the object's center is to use the mouse to rotate , but you also have to have the "Rotate about object centre" checked in the "Settings" dialog. I tried this using the numeric rotation, but that always seems to rotate about the object's bounding box center for me --- have to use the mouse for "center point" rotation...

It would be great if the "rotate about object's centre" option showed up in the control panel when "Rotate" mode was active...

[Andy]

This appears to be a bug - "rotate about object's centre" no longer works.

Noted - thanks.

Andy

[Andy]

Correction - just checked this - it's not a bug and it works fine. when rotate-about-object-centre is set, you need to be in object mode and have just that (single) object selected. Then the object will rotate about it's defined centre.

Andy

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by Andy Colebourne

Correction - just checked this - it's not a bug and it works fine. when rotate-about-object-centre is set, you need to be in object mode and have just that (single) object selected. Then the object will rotate about it's defined centre.

Is my previous comment accurate, that this is only supposed to work when rotating with the mouse?

Also, I notice that "rotation" seems to be missing in the 5.0 manual. In the "Selecting, resizing, moving and rotating" section, there is only "Selecting, resizing, moving" --- "rotating" seems to be missing.

Thanks
Dennis