Viewport alignment?

[Lupaz]

Hi!

I'm kind off researching on max's coordinate systems and I can't find the way to align viewports to an object's local coordinate system.

I just want to create geometry on, for example, front viewport, but aligned to a rotated object (rotated on world coordinate system).

I know one way to do this is to create a grid, align it to the object, and select the front (grid) viewport; but is too tedious!

tnx in advanced,

Guido.

[Lupaz]

someone?

[ShaunDon]

I don't think anyone has an answer for you because I know of no way to do this myself. When I modify rotated objects, I merely group them, rotate them to align to the grid, modify them, then un-rotate the group. Works fine so long as you don't mess with the group object while you're working.

 

Shaun

[Lupaz]

Hi Shaun,

I don't know... Rotate and un-rotate things doesn't look like a neat solution to me. There has to be a better way to do it. A co-worker of mine says that in autocad it's very easy to do it and challenged me to do it in max (the eternal war ). I guess I'm going to lose this one!

[William Alexander]

Help/reference search on:

-Grid,

-Helper Grid,

-AutoGrid,

-Aligning objects

 

Helper grids can be set up anywhere, take the place of the default grids in the viewports when active. Using the align to object, normal, camera and view to place your grid where ever and however you want, but it can be object/view specific. An Indivudal helper can be aligned to a single object, and another to another and they stay aligned to an object .. AutoCad re-arranges the world to fit the grid to only one object at a time.

[Lupaz]

AutoCad re-arranges the world to fit the grid to only one object at a time

That's what I'm talking about. So no such thing in 3ds max?

[ShaunDon]

Thanks Mr. William. I was never properly schooled in the use of grids in max.

 

AutoCAD has a universal coordinate system. Max really doesn't, at least not one that's modifiable. Rather it has a world coordinate system and a local coordinate system for each object that's created. There are days that I miss the UCS in AutoCAD, but most of the time it's less confusing the way max does it since you're constantly jumping from one viewport to another... I don't want to worry about which direction Y is in the front viewport... when I'm in an ortho viewport, Y is always up. Wicked!

 

Shaun

[Noiré]

I always use the following procedure to create an object aligned view:

1) create a grid with auto-align that aligns to a chosen face on the object in question

2)right-click the grid an select 'activate grid'

3)set the view to grid_plan or whatever. I have assigned a shortcut (in my case shift+g) to this command in order to make it more efficient

it's not that tedious once you get used to it

(it is by the way easy to forget to activate the home grid once your done, which can create some frustration as for instance snaps wont work as expected)

[Noiré]

oh, and by the way, I use the different options for coordinate systems quite extensively, especially the 'pick object' one, for controlling extrusion directions etc. Often I create a helper object(box) with the autoalign and use its coordinates while modifying other objects

[Lupaz]

Noire,

Nice tip that "autogrid" for a grid object. Makes things faster. But do you know if it's possible to have grid views other than Display Planes into the quads menu or shortcuts?