Easy Pivot brings a fast, hotkey-driven custom-pivot workflow to Blender. Tap or hold one key to enter a dedicated pivot-editing mode where you can snap the pivot to any component, drag it with an on-screen manipulator, tumble its orientation freely, and then transform your object around that exact point — all without leaving the viewport.
Hey, cool idea. I tested it and like it! I do not like too much that it overwrites the D key for annotations.
You are positioning the 3D cursor right? As long as the user has not set the 3D cursor to be the pivot point, it is no pivot. The pivot point is something the user can define by the ‚Transform Pivot Point‘ menu. Are you also a Maya User? I see that wording a lot with Maya users.
This could lead to people installing your extension with wrong expectations. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is critical. Either way there are other extensions called something with ‚pivot‘ also moving the 3D cursor, so maybe your extension will simply fit in.
What’s the advantage to Ctrl - . and changing the transform to Origins/Pivot only (or via menue: top right → options) ? It also snaps when snapping is enabled (Shift-TAB) .. or does it “just” combine this two shortcuts ?
Okay.. when someone does need this often then this is easier
Yes, I’m a Maya user, and I find it a bit tough dealing with this problem in Edit Mode because Blender doesn’t have it. What happens when I need to rotate or align a vertex/edge at a specific angle — like how I would rotate a finger if it doesn’t have a rig ?
You can’t do that in Edit Mode. What happens if you want to rotate a finger or a hand? You can snap the 3D cursor or the pivot to the correct position you want, but how do you rotate it to the exact angle you want ?
Ohh.. i see.. because i was using some other 3D apps before blender 2.48 i sometimes mix “special terms” (like also for example chamfer and bevel)
I was thinking about the Object Origin sometime also in other apps called pivot point. But of course changing the actual transformation pivot by using the 3D cursor and/or some temporary view alignment and/or some temporary Transformation Orientations..
Hey, I previously discussed with you about the rotation issue of the pivot. In Maya, there is an automatic alignment of the axis to the target edge without the need for manual rotation. However, with this plugin, no matter whether I enable “align to normal”, use “snap (edge)” or “snap (auto)”, I cannot achieve the same result as in Maya. Maybe I can rotate the pivot by pressing R to align this edge as closely as possible, but this is not very precise.
In Blender
But isn’t “the problem here” that the edge does have a normal pointing outwards “between” the adjacent faces ?.. so the pivot might be place to the edge (or a vertex) but the alignment has to be for the face.. ??
Like i show here when i thought this was about the object origin:
But his should be oriented for the face and then the 3D cursor place to the edge or some vertex ??
So some addon/extension should use the face on the side of the cursor to align but the (midpoint) location of some edge or a vertex to be placed.. that wouldbe easy (to use.. not to implement )
..if you know what i mean (i understood this now correctly ).
Thank you all for the great feedback — it’s been really helpful! I’ve just released v1.0.2 with the following fixes and improvements:
Fixed edge orientation: when snapping to an edge, one axis now runs parallel to the edge instead of taking an arbitrary twist, so the pivot sits flush and readable on the geometry.
Fixed vertex orientation: snapping to a vertex now uses the vertex’s own normal with a stable frame, so the pivot no longer spins unpredictably as you move the mouse.
Improved face snapping: face center is now included in Auto snap — no need to switch to Face mode manually. When snapping to a face, one axis aligns parallel to a face edge for a clearer orientation.
Thanks again to everyone who reported these — please keep the feedback coming, and let me know if you run into anything else!
