how to reference rotate?

[jikim-E]

hello all, i've started learning MAX a few days ago and I seem to be struggling with the basic skills. I can follow most of the tutorials out there, (i.e creating chess pieces etc.) so i think i'm relatively comfortable creating shapes, modifying objects. But one thing i can't seem to figure out is how to rotate an object with a reference.

 

In case of autoCAD, I can simply enter the rotate command, then enter 'r' to begin rotation by setting up a base reference point (click), then another click at the point where you want the rotation to occur.

 

In otherwords, what i'm trying to do is...

 

Say i've imported a dwg file with a rectangle that is rotated some odd degrees. And i've made a box in MAX, each side facing true x, y, z axis. How can i rotate the box so that the it perfectly aligns with the dwg rectangle??

 

I've searched online, but the only viable solution I was able to find was to use a script. I thought there must be an easier, more basic way to do this.

 

help? anyone? please?

Edited October 27, 2008 by jikim-E

[FlyinHawaiian]

Say i've imported a dwg file with a rectangle that is rotated some odd degrees. And i've made a box in MAX, each side facing true x, y, z axis. How can i rotate the box so that the it perfectly aligns with the dwg rectangle??

 

Whenever I have problems where something is not rotated in perfect 90 degree angles and the rotation is baked in (for instance, rotated in the sub-object level or simply imported), you can grab the rotation relative to the scene through "autogrid" and then apply that same amount of rotation except in the negative to straighten your screwy object.

 

First you need to find how much your imported cad is rotated. Usually, when you've manually rotated an object, you can figure out it's rotation by selecting said object and right clicking on the rotate icon in your main toolbar. This will bring up the "Rotate Transform Type-In" dialogue. The "Absolute World" transforms will show you how much your object has been rotated since creating it. If you hover your mouse over the "up/down arrow buttons" that are to the right of the box that has anything other than "0" in it, and right click. It will zero out that value - automatically resetting the rotation of your object to the original rotation.

 

However, your object has the rotation baked in, so you've got to use a little hack. First, grab your offending cad, and add an "extrude" modifier to it and type in 10ft or so to the extrude height. (You can always delete this mod from the stack after you've made use of it). Next, create an object (any object - box is fine) and before creating it in the scene, check the "autogrid" box at the top of the "standard primitives" creation menu. Rotate to a perspective view where you can see a vertical face that was created by the "extrude modifier" which was applied to the cad earlier. Now, click and drag on to that vertical face and your newly created box should now be protruding off of the side of that vertical face. (You've now captured the rotation of the cad onto your box). With your newly created box selected, do the right click thing on the rotate icon and behold, the rotation of your box and, indirectly, the rotation of your cad should be listed there. Now, simply copy that rotation amount and paste it with a "-" in front of it into the rotation of your cad (hint: use right click rotation menu).

 

Good luck!

 

Aloha,

Joel

 

BTW, you've double posted the same Q. Might want to kill the other one.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

I think you want to Align surface normals. I'd give a detailed answer but I'm in the middle of a rendering that I'm not gonna stop.

[FlyinHawaiian]

I think you want to Align surface normals. I'd give a detailed answer but I'm in the middle of a rendering that I'm not gonna stop.

 

LOL! Yes, this tool is also good. (Can find out more info on it in the 3dsMax help. The way I just posted earlier is simply another way to transform your cad. The Align Surface normals is another (possibly even more efficient way to extract the right transforms or transform directly)) -Not sure if I came up with my current scheme because I was having problems with the Align surface normals tool, or what, but it's the first thing that came to my mind and it's worked pretty consistently for me.

[jikim-E]

Thanks for the reply! I'll try all the suggestions!

 

and btw, how do i delete the other post? I seem to know more about MAX than i do with these threads and posting stuff...