Normal Move, Scale, Rotate

Normal Move, Scale, Rotate

It would be useful if the Translate Manipulator - when set to Normal orientation, would operate on the individual Normal of selected faces.

Currently, the Extrude tool sort of works this way. When selecting a variety of faces they can be extruded and each extrusion moves outward along the Normal of that particular face. Upon completing the extrusion, the translate manipulator no longer respects the normal of individual faces. It instead works on some form of group total positioning, even when set to Normal orientation.

With the Preserve Group setting unchecked, the Extrude tool can extrude out individual faces. Being able to manipulate these based on their individual normals, at one time, is preferable to selecting and manipulating each one individually.

KurtF said:

It would be useful if the Translate Manipulator - when set to Normal orientation, would operate on the individual Normal of selected faces.

Click to expand...

Isn´t the polygon tools "Normal Move/Scale/Rotate" doing exactly this?

Cheers
Frank

Thanks Frank, I didn't know that tool existed.

However, again oriented to the normals of individual faces, I don't see anyway to scale in X, or Y, or even Z separately. When I tried it, the faces got taller and wider, or shorter and narrower. It's scaling in X and Y, with Z I guess as the Normal of the face. Unless there's some modifier Key I'm unaware of.

Also, it might be an area for consolidation. As we have 3 individual tools under the polygon menu for Normal rotation, scale, and translation. Rotate seems to be about the Normal of the face, and move is of course forward or backward along the normal. These could be removed from the menu if the translate, rotate, and scale manipulator actually worked on individual faces (and maybe points and edges) respecting their normals, when set to Normal orientation.

With multiple faces selected, the Translate manipulator works on the group as a whole, not the per face normal, even when the orientation is set to Normal. The individual polygon tools, normal move, rotate, and scale help, but are missing two key elements.

Maybe what we need are Normal Scale X, and Normal Scale Y?

KurtF said:

However, again oriented to the normals of individual faces, I don't see anyway to scale in X, or Y, or even Z separately.

Click to expand...

Are you sure about Scaling along Z-axis? What kind of result are you expecting?
I don´t get the picture right now - have no idea in which case this would be useful/needed. Any example available we can work on? And be aware of that the X+Y axis are differently oriented (due its byte-order I guess) for every polygon; see screen-grab:

Cheers
Frank