Beer glass scene creation
This course contains a little bit of everything with modeling, UVing, texturing and dynamics in Maya, as well as compositing multilayered EXR's in Photoshop.
# 1 08-04-2013 , 11:31 PM
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 31

Stopping Objects Interecting

Is there a way to stop different objects intersecting that doesn't involve placing them all carefully beside or on top of each other?


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# 2 09-04-2013 , 12:43 AM
jsprogg's Avatar
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Chicago
Posts: 1,712
Not really , the way to be accurate is to move the pivot. For example if you want to place a cube on top of another cube, move the pivot of the top cube to a bottom vertex by snapping with MMB while holding down V (pivot move = hit insert on keyboard move pivot then insert to complete) then once you have the pivot on the bottom of the top cube , snap the top cube to the top vertex of the bottom cube.

It sounds complicated and long winded but it's really not and can be done in seconds.

Another method would be to enter the exact translation in the channel box i.e if a cube is 3 units high and you translate another object on the same plane 3 units in y it will sit on top and not penetrate.

Also if your objects are the same you can use duplicate special, which means you only have to duplicate and move once then hit G to repeat the command.




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Last edited by jsprogg; 09-04-2013 at 12:50 AM.
# 3 09-04-2013 , 01:52 AM
EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,374
Depending on the situation, you can use dynamics to your advantage. If you need to make a pile of things, you can create rigid bodies that fall on to each other and they shouldn't intersect. Of course you lose precision in placement, so it does depend on the situation.

# 4 09-04-2013 , 08:08 PM
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 31
Cheers for the replies guys, think I'll just stick to the pivot method

Thanks again


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