Off-axis transforms

How do you manipulate geometry that is off-axis in Nvil? If you read this thread that I posted on the Luxology forum, then it will be easier to understand what I mean:

http://forums.luxology.com/topic.aspx?f=32&t=75930

Hello,

Set the manipulator to geometry.

Have a look in the help file "Help -> Contents-> Modeling-> Object Manipulation"

There is also a more advanced tool for setting manipulator:- "Edit-> Customize-> Streamline tools" -> "Built in tools-> Set Manipulator". Set an hotkey for that tool. Instructions on its use are shown within the Streamline tools window, and/or you can see the instructions in the popup "Instant help" when you call that tool.

Hi Steve,
Thank you. Although I couldn't find setting the manipulator to "geometry" in the interface or docs. I was able to achieve the effect or function I was after by setting the Manipulator's Orientation to "Selection" and it's Pivot Position to "Selection".

Hi chikega,

quick example:-

Select sub_objects you want to move (edges in this case)



Enable "Snap to vertex" (by default, you can select from top drop down menu)



On the bottom "Manipulation" window, enable "Set"



You can then move the mouse cursor over (on this example) the bottom vertex and RMB. The manipulator will then move and orient to the vertex normal you selected. (If you use LMB, that will set manipulator to position only, MMB will set manipulator to orientation only, and RMB will set position + orientation)



Disable "Set", and you can then use the manipulator to move the sub_object selection.



You can of course use any snapping to any geometry to set position/orientation of the manipulator.

OK, Steve! That's what I'm talking about! Excellent! What I noted before as working didn't work when I tried it again. But what you've just shown me is really sweet ... this is great stuff. If you've read my Luxology thread ... Modo has some asymmetry issues. And LW just added this feature in 11.5. It's amazing to see such a robust modeling program like NVil. I hope it doesn't go the way of Silo which I adored. 

Great mini tutorial, thanks Steve, this really helpful to new users like myself.

One additional approach that I find very helpful in some cases. You can use the transform list to set the pivots. Select any object, component or any kind of selection (advantage here), and click on save current transform. You can save many of those tranforms. Then, when setting the manipulator position, or object pivot, you can select a transform in the tranform list and click on "Perform Aligning". You can choose which axes to use for position and orientation.
You can even select multiple transforms from the list and set an interpolation, to get a result inbetween (more than 2 transforms selected will set orientation to world space though).

This approach, besides direct input, allows you to set the manipulator to a place where there is nothing else to snap to.

also there is a streamline tool to do the same, i actually have it bound to a key, and the nice thing with the streamline version of set manipulator, is that it automatically enables snapping for you.

actually kinda nice since the set pivot tool, has the exact same usage, so i have them bound to 'o' for set manip and 'p' for set pivot.

set manip is temporary, set pivot does it permanent for the object

Hey guys, new member here. I've been posting in the polycount thread a lot but decided to finally get involved here as well.

I found a nice way to set custom orientations with a hotkey that I hadn't yet figured out. Was about to send a feature request but then I stumbled upon this solution:

Make a streamline tool, set 'Orientation:selected' on activated and 'Orientation:manual' on tapped. Now whatever you have selected (doesn't work on highlighted components) will set the orientation to align to its normal (or combined normal) and freeze it by immediately switching to manual.
If I could figure out a way to get it to align to the world or object again when nothing's selected, that'd be perfect!