So I have this perennial problem with UE3. Sometimes I need to position entire groups of items together, keeping their relative positions the same. But if positioning them includes rotating, I can only rotate in one axis before they get severely borked up. I need a workaround to this problem, and I can't find one.
A common example is a set of static meshes, say several replications of one item making a long object, or several different items as a group. Here are screenshots showing what I'm trying to do. Say I've got a long girder made from several repeats of a short girder, and I want to put it at a double angle. (e.g. the longest dimension of a cube, at 45 degrees to all three planes). I can't do it in UED without screwing up the relative positioning of the group!
Example:
Three short girders (Industrial_Static.Objects.supporttri) stacked up to make a long one. I place the pivot near the bottom so I can rotate the whole assembly around it.
Rotate on one axis, and the assembly rotates correctly:
But when I rotate on a second axis, they rotate wrong! They all rotate the same amount around their own centers of gravity, but their centers don't move proportionally so as to keep their relative positions the same.
They end up disconnected!
Am I doing something wrong? Is there a workaround to this problem? I've had similar problems with scaling and mirroring, where groups of items will lose their relative positions during transformation. I'd positively kill at this point to be able to lock groups together and transform them as single objects, like in Maya. UED just doesn't seem to handle transformations of groups well at all.
Unfortunately, there are things in my current map that can be done no other way. I've thought of two "solutions", but they both have problems.
1) I could rotate one mesh and then replicate later. But things with double-angle rotations usually end up with endpoints off the grid, so it would be very hard to line them up correctly afterwards. And it doesn't help if my group includes several different meshes. (The actual girder in my map has lights and wires as well, so it ends up a total mess).
Also, my longest girders have about 25 of these meshes strung together, and I have a half-dozen of those groups going at different angles. Lining up every single mesh by hand, off grid, would take me a week.
2) I could make single long girders in Maya, and import them as static meshes. But then I lose the performance benefit of having repeated static meshes. And, every place I needed a different overall length, I'd have to make a new static mesh, which is a total waste.
Help!
Thanks,
Ev
A common example is a set of static meshes, say several replications of one item making a long object, or several different items as a group. Here are screenshots showing what I'm trying to do. Say I've got a long girder made from several repeats of a short girder, and I want to put it at a double angle. (e.g. the longest dimension of a cube, at 45 degrees to all three planes). I can't do it in UED without screwing up the relative positioning of the group!
Example:
Three short girders (Industrial_Static.Objects.supporttri) stacked up to make a long one. I place the pivot near the bottom so I can rotate the whole assembly around it.
Rotate on one axis, and the assembly rotates correctly:
But when I rotate on a second axis, they rotate wrong! They all rotate the same amount around their own centers of gravity, but their centers don't move proportionally so as to keep their relative positions the same.
They end up disconnected!
Am I doing something wrong? Is there a workaround to this problem? I've had similar problems with scaling and mirroring, where groups of items will lose their relative positions during transformation. I'd positively kill at this point to be able to lock groups together and transform them as single objects, like in Maya. UED just doesn't seem to handle transformations of groups well at all.
Unfortunately, there are things in my current map that can be done no other way. I've thought of two "solutions", but they both have problems.
1) I could rotate one mesh and then replicate later. But things with double-angle rotations usually end up with endpoints off the grid, so it would be very hard to line them up correctly afterwards. And it doesn't help if my group includes several different meshes. (The actual girder in my map has lights and wires as well, so it ends up a total mess).
Also, my longest girders have about 25 of these meshes strung together, and I have a half-dozen of those groups going at different angles. Lining up every single mesh by hand, off grid, would take me a week.
2) I could make single long girders in Maya, and import them as static meshes. But then I lose the performance benefit of having repeated static meshes. And, every place I needed a different overall length, I'd have to make a new static mesh, which is a total waste.
Help!
Thanks,
Ev