CompuServe Messages

>>rotations around an arbitrary axis… Richard, if I understand you correctly, there is an easy way to rotate something around and arbitrary axis. Say you have a rudder on the tail of an airplane that is angled somewhat with respect to everything. You don't mention if you are wanting to rotate in the Editor or the Keyframer, so I'll assume you're talking about animating in the KF. *IF* you've built your rudder relative to an ortho view (with the hinge oriented to a std axis, say vertical) and have nudged it around into position on the airplane and now you want to swing it on its hinge to animate, simply choose Hieararchy/Object Pivot, click on the object, choose the view that looks *down* the hinge, and click to reset the pivot point in the middle of the hinge. Then Rotate away. If your object was NOT created with the hinge parallel to X/Y/Z axis, you can Rotate Absolute in a user view in the keyframer by setting the user view so it is looking down the hinge. Since the KF is missing a Display/UserView/Align, you can rotate by eye till it looks right. However, what I usually do in this case is (having made sure I've built at least one face in the object perpendicular to the axis of the hinge) align a user view in the Editor to that face, click on the user view icon and remember the H&V values at the top of the screen, then go to the KF and rotate the user view until the H&V match those of the Editor. Now set the pivot point in the user view and Rotate Absolute. This sounds more confusing that it actually is! J K J