useful maya transform script?

[MyPeople]

My friend at work just sent me this, if i used Maya i would probably find this useful.

http://www.henrykorol.com/Scripts/LocalTools/LTDocFeatures.htm

Thought someone might like to try it.

[Giometric]

That looks pretty sweet, actually. It looks like it allows you to alter an object's local transform orientation using its normals and stuff as the axes, or even other objects, permanently or temporarily, and all without screwing up any hierarchies. I think XSI has something like this in the form of a "use reference" sort of thing, but Maya doesn't have that, so that's pretty awesome-looking. I'll give that script a whirl when I get back from class tonight.

[KEDavidson]

Haven't tried it yet but it does seem usefull...

added to the Armoury (http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8159) as well;)

[Ritorian]

SICK ! thanks for the post budski, def goona use this ;)

[Ritorian]

I cant seem to get this script to work for some reason. anyone know a step by step of how to get this script running ?

[Giometric]

It's a bit strange (and it throws an error every time I use it in Maya 2008), but I've got it to work, at least for what I wanted, anyway, hehe. Still playing with it to see what else it can do.

Basically (assuming you've at least got it installed at this point), you select the object you want to move, say, a box that's moved up in the air and rotated about. Then go to Modify > Transformation Tools > Local Tools (don't worry about the option box just yet). It'll tell you to pick another object whose pivot point and orientation you want. Now you pick your reference object, like, say, a sphere that's back at the origin and not rotated at all. Sometimes you may have to box-select it for it to register that you've picked the object already; in any case it'll throw up the error at this point, something about the block being occupied by another HUD (could be because I have the polycounter open?), but you'll notice now your box is selected again, and the transform pivot is over where the sphere's is! Now you can switch between move, rotate, or scale, and the pivot will remain there until you deselect the object. Once you deselect it, the pivot will go back to the way it was. Note also that you can use a sub-object (er, actually I think in Maya, a component), like a vertex, or edge, or face. It can even be a vertex, edge, or face on the same object you want to transform.

That's all I've got working so far (at this point it's all I need), so hopefully that at least gets you going with the tool. Thanks again MyPeople, this is useful stuff :)