Manipulating the orientation and position of an objects origin without affecting mesh

Is this possible? I’ve seen older threads discussing it, but no resolution. I need to move and position the pivot point and orientation of the pivot point without the geometry changing position. I’ve seen some pretty cumbersome methods involving creatign a new object and orienting it, then copying the mesh data to that new object…but I already have a heirarchy for animation that I need to tweak the rotations of and would like to not have to break that heirarchy. Any add-ons available for this or some secret keypresses?

http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=127914

is an example of what I’m trying to do…I need the origin of the selected mesh to be aligned in the center of the mesh rotated along the shaft so I can steer the cylinder, which is a landing gear,

http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=48952

Here’s a lilnk to a blend file of the gear if anyone wants to give it a shot…I need to rotate NoseGear_Steering around what would be Z if I could change the angle of Z locally to the angle of the gear shaft.

Do you think about it? [video]https://i.imgur.com/6QXv7G4.mp4[/video]

Custom transform orientation
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/editing/transform/control/orientations.html

Custom transform orientation
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/editing/transform/control/orientations.html

Custom origin, pivot point:

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/origin.html

I am not quite sure as far as it already being set up for animation and parenting. But you can set the anchor point to wherever you want using the 3d cursor point or set origin to center of mass and that will be its rotation point. So for example if I make a gear and then go into edit mode and make changes to it or move it in edit mode it’s origin point may not end up being the true center of the hole. So I will select the inner circle verticies of the gear and hit Shift + S and select move 3d cursor to selected. It then puts the cursor in the middle of the selected circle I want to rotate around. Then I can tab into object mode and (mega shortcut key) Shift+Ctrl+Alt+C and select move to 3d cursor and now the origin point is at the center. Now I can rotate my gear around that origin point and it spins in a gear type motion and not wobbling anymore.

Again though I am not sure as far as rigging if it would involve removing the parent, then setting the origin point where you are needing it then setting the rig back up on that object.

Hey; you can do what FlyingBanana said, but the rotation will not be correct since your part is slightly angled. Also you can’t retract/slide the cylinder back up with out it coming through the mesh, plus the scissors won’t work. Armature with an IK is about the only way I have found to make this type work correctly. I sent you a PM for a link to a fixed version, hope this helps.

So I figured out that the angle of the shaft/cylinder is 4 degrees off vertical. By rotating the geometry in edit mode 4 degrees and then rotating the object -4 degrees in object mode I was able to modify the actual origin…which now means when I animate I can just create a parent child relationship and animate in the local coordinate system. That’s the way this should work, though I shouldn’t have to do all of that weird mesh modification to modify the origin.

Considering that for most of these, I already have empties that represent the local coordinate orientation, is there a way to set the origin’s orientation to match that of an empty?

Select the empty then press Shift S select cursor to selection. Then select the mesh you want the origin moved to and shift + Ctrl + alt C and select origin to 3d cursor. the origin point will move to the 3d cursor where the empty is. Repeat with anything else you want the empty to be the origin point.

Yup, I’ve already done that numerous times, but it doesn’t align the origin to the same orientation/rotation of the empty. I need to modify the local coordinate system too.

Hey; I sent you a link to the file I fixed, that’s fine if you don’t want to use an armature. So here is what you do. (1) Un-parent ‘NoseGear_StrutSteering’ but keep transforms. (2) In ‘EDIT’ mode select the center ‘edge loop’, shift-S . cursor to selected, tab out, ‘Tool Panel’ > ‘Set Origin’ > Origin to 3D cursor. (3) Add ‘Empty’ = single arrow, ‘Parent’ to ‘NoseGear_Strut’ > rotate it x = 4 degrees in the “DELTA TRANSFORMS”, Parent ‘NoseGear_StrutSteering’ to ‘Empty’. (4) Rotate ‘Empty’ on the ‘Z’ axis, now you’ve got things rotating the way they should be, but there is the issue of ‘NoseGear_Hub’ moving in/out or up/down…(5) select it in ‘Object’ mode, Shift-S > Cursor to selected, ‘Tool Panel’ > ‘Set Origin’ > Origin to 3D cursor, Un-parent it, but keep transforms. (6) Add another ‘Empty’ = single arrow, rotate it x = 4 degrees in the “DELTA TRANSFORMS”, Parent ‘NoseGear_Hub’ to 2nd ‘Empty’. (7) Now if you move ‘Empty.001’ on the ‘Z’ axis it will travel in the correct plane (4 degrees offset), NOW add a ‘Child Of’ constraint to ‘Empty.001’ and Target ‘Empty’, un-check scale boxes and hit ‘Set Inverse’ to get it back to place…Now rotating the first empty on the ‘Z’ axis spins your parts and the second empty retracts the cylinder - everything works. But now let me explain why this is a bad set-up, when you animate stuff and then you want to clear out (start again), those ‘Emptys’ are going to jump back to 0,0,0 - their real origin - and all your parts go with it !! That is why you use an armature for this type of thing !!!

I’ll have to learn armatures but I need to find out of the xplane exporter will understand them. I’m not sure. I did see the file you sent and will check it out tomorrow even if just to learn how it works. Thanks!

Hey; I want to offer you a better and more logical solution to this issue, Rotate ‘NoseGear_Strut’ so its parallel with the ‘Z’ axis(-4 degrees=‘X’), Un-parent ‘NoseGear_StrutSteering’ and ‘NoseGear_Hub’, reset all 3 of those parts so the origin is aligned with the ‘Z’ axis, Apply the rotations for those parts, Parent ‘NoseGear_Hub’ to ‘NoseGear_StrutSteering’ and it to ‘NoseGear_Strut’, now rotate ‘NoseGear_Strut’ back to it original position (4 degrees=‘X’), add an ‘Empty’ to 'NoseGear_Strut’s pivot point (not the origin), parent that part to the ‘Empty’, that will be your rotation for the whole gear, transform in ‘Local’ space – problem solved. I will leave you to work out the scissors :).