What are the best methods to align (and distribute if it’s possible) nodes and objects in Blender? I’m coming at this from a vector program (Freehand, Illustrator) point of view. What I’m wanting is a way to say, give all selected nodes in a mesh the same x axis value- so they all line up on the x axis. In the case of objects, it would give either the center or the furthest boundary of the mesh of all the selected objects the same x axis value (or y or z depending on in which direction you choose).
The long way of doing this would be to be able to physically type in the axis value for the selected node or object- how could I do that?
I’ve searched around the forum here, and haven’t found much useful information- I’ve seen something about a snap funcion and it apparently has something to do with parenting, but everything I’ve found seems to assume you already know how it works and all.
Links to any tutorials or anything would be appreciated. Thanks
If by nodes you mean vertexs… Select all the vertexs & scale them along the x axis to “0” (Skey, Xkey, 0key).
For objects you could use a add a copy location constraint (F7) to one of the objects & then select the others & copy the constraints (Ctrl+C, need to select the object with the constraint last, should be light blue).
You’re right- I meant verticies. From using bezier curves in Freehand et. al. I’ve got ‘nodes’ in my head.
Thanks for the advice- I’ll give it a try.
So what’s the deal with snapping in Blender? I’ve seen some references to it, but I don’t understand it at all. Where’s the best place to look to read up on it?
Blender currently has only pretty basic snapping (compeared to other pro apps) at the moment. So there’s not much need to read up on it, hit Shift+S to get the snap menu (try search these forums and/or the blender wiki for more info).
There’s talk about there being new snapping stuff being added to the next version of blender in this thread.
Snapping in Blender is rudimentary when compared to CAD programs. You can find the options in Shft-S. There are a few scripts around and there are rumors that it’ll be enhanced soon.
