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Old 21st July 2003, 05:50 AM   #1
Mizkreant
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Default How to align things to a specific axis?

Let's say I want to align verts, surfaces or objects to a specific axis. How can I do this? I know about the "Snap objects by vertices" command, but that only seems to align things along one axis.

Let me describe my problem. I'm tracing a reference photo using the line tool. I traced an eye, duplicated and mirrored it, and placed it on the other side of the face. After positioning the duplicate in the front view, I switched views and noticed the two eyes were out of alignment on the Z axis. I selected one vertex from each object and used the "Snap objects to veritices" command. That worked and the eyes are now aligned on the Z axis. Now what I'm trying to do is align them on the Y axis so the two eyes look even from the front. I thought maybe if I selected the same two vertices again and switched to the side view it would align them along the Y axis, but it didn't. It moved the two verts to the same location, meaning I would have to manually move one eye back again, messing up the vertical alignment.

Similarly, is there any way to constain to movement along one axis when creating an object?
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Old 21st July 2003, 06:14 AM   #2
Andy
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Default Re: How to align things to a specific axis?

3.7 will include vertex->align to axis(x, y, or z) (and mirroring too) but you can easily do it in 3.6:

Select both of your eye shapes and resize the selection (to zero) from the side that isn't aligned to the axis and all vertices will be aligned with each other.

Hold down the control key when you move objects to constrain to horizontal or vertical movements.

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Old 21st July 2003, 06:31 AM   #3
Mizkreant
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Default Re: How to align things to a specific axis?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy Colebourne
Select both of your eye shapes and resize the selection (to zero) from the side that isn't aligned to the axis and all vertices will be aligned with each other.

Andy
I'm not quite sure what you mean. Resizing the selection flattens the eyes to straight lines. I want to retain their current shape.
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Old 21st July 2003, 06:52 AM   #4
Andy
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Default Re: How to align things to a specific axis?

aha - sorry I thought the eyes were flat polygons - if they were the resizing to zero (probabaly from the plan view in this case) would line up the vertices along the axis.

Use the move-to box in the control panel. Click the '>' to load the current position and adjust the numbers to reposition the object (press Move-to to move the selection).

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Old 21st July 2003, 07:38 AM   #5
Mizkreant
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Default Re: How to align things to a specific axis?

The eyes are flat polygons. Selecting them and resizing to zero from the plan view would work if they were out of alignment on the Z axis. But resizing along the Y axis from the front view flattens them to lines.

Say these dots were the eyes:

Code:
    .
               .
But I want them to be like this (looking from the front view):

Code:
.      .
How would I do that?

On another note, does AC3D have an equivalent of the "weld" command found in other software? Cause I noticed that snapping vertices together or merging objects still leaves all the vertices separate (they move together usually, but they can be selected individually and moved).
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Old 21st July 2003, 07:50 AM   #6
Andy
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Default Re: How to align things to a specific axis?

Use Move-to:

select one eye, click on the '>' button to get the positions into the fields, select the other eye and click on 'move-to', now both objects will be in the same place and control draging the selected eye will allow you to move the it away along one axis.

Use Object->optimize-vertices to remove duplicates at the same point.

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Old 21st July 2003, 08:17 AM   #7
Mizkreant
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Default Re: How to align things to a specific axis?

OK, that worked. Thanks.
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