Stuck in one type of modelling axis

[Alan Lacey]

R13.

I’ve been modelling a loft nurbs created with a series of splines (the first of which was positioned via a construction plane if that’s relevant) They were mainly copies of each previous spline, but some new ones.

When moving the spline points I selected for the modelling axis: Axis=points, orientation=parent which I found kept the bezier tangents in the same plane as the spline points.

Now I cannot change any modelling axis parameters (all greyed out)for either the move, rotate or scale tools! Under Move/Object axis there is an unchecked ‘per object-Manipulation’ this doesn’t make any difference but I don’t know what that’s for.

Problem’s the same for either Model Mode or Object Mode.

Any ideas what I’ve done wrong? With thanks

Alan

FlashXDR,XDcamHD,XDcamEX,D9 etc
FCS,AE,Combustion,LiquidSilver,Vegas,Edius,
G5,MBP,Vista64,XP

[Alan Lacey]

I seem to be making headway with this but have now lost the ability to constrain the bezier controls on the spline points to the plane that the (flat) spline is lying in. The big X,Y & Z buttons don’t do this.

Thanks Alan

[Brian Jones]

they do function (here anyway maybe your setup is different than I am understanding). To lock a bezier handle into an axis (when it’s not flat on a workplane) you can use the XYZ buttons but only one should be active. If two are active it will be able to move off the selected plane. If you are off the world workplane remember not to use World Coordinate system.

[Alan Lacey]

Thanks Brian. I think one of my problems is that I’d deleted the construction plane. I’ve experimented and placing the spline as a child of the plane and selecting orientation=root sorts this. I was hoping though to be able to constrain the bezier handles to any planar surface without bothering with a construction plane for each one.

Do you happen to know if there’s a method of setting the position & orientation of a construction plane onto a random planar surface?

Thanks

Alan

FlashXDR,XDcamHD,XDcamEX,D9 etc
FCS,AE,Combustion,LiquidSilver,Vegas,Edius,
G5,MBP,Vista64,XP