is there a way for me to better undestand when i should alternate transform orientations?

[puds luls]

at certain points Wayne would switch from global to normal, global and local make decent sense to me but understanding when it would be to my benefit to alternate between different orientations is beyond me right now.

[Shawn Blanch]

@puddles you’ll understand that one more with time I promise.

Typically when I have a need to move in a normal direction (away from a face) and the global/local orientations aren’t pointing in that direction. That is a perfect time to switch the transform orientation to Normal. Then I switch back when I am done.

[Wayne Dixon]

Like Shawn said – you will know this with time.

But in the mean time, here’s a little summary….

Global is when you want to move something in relation to the world (up, left, right), that should be pretty obvious.

You will probably use Local or Normal most of the time when animating a character.

What’s the difference?

Local is the always the local direction the control is pointing (up, left, forward)
Eg your left is always your left, no matter what direction you are pointing.

When you only have 1 control selected – Normal and Local are the same.
However when you have more than 1 control selected, they work differently.

Imagine 2 people facing back to back.

In Normal mode – one of them says “take 2 steps towards MY left”.  They both move the same direction.

In Local mode – one of them says “take 2 steps towards YOUR left”. The both move in opposite directions.

There’s more to it than that, but that is the main bit to understand.

Hope that helps.

[puds luls]

so when i do normal with 2 objects they both change relative to the first object selected?

[Omar Domenech]

If you want a clearer picture of the direction, you can turn on your gizmos with your move tool selected, set your transform orientation to local or normal and your gizmo will point to that direction. That way you don’t have to picture it in your head. 

[Wayne Dixon]

Puddles – try it out.

Don’t overthink it.  Just try to remember that if the manipulators don’t move the way you want, you can change them.

That’s what I’m doing all the time.  90% of the time I’m using local or normal.  But I’m not worried about which one it is.  

I’m just working until it’s not doing what I want, then I switch.

[Author]

Posts