If I take Blender’s base plane (or any object) and rotate it, I can get that object back to its starting orientation by hitting “Alt-R” (Clear Rotation).
If I wish to change that base orientation, I rotate the object to whereever I like and hit “Ctrl-A” (Apply Siz/Rot). Thereafter, it returns to this orientation when I hit “Alt-R”.
So…
When I create an empty, it is created with the Y-axis pointing upward on my screen. If I leave it alone or rotate it around (the same thing happens either way) and then hit “Alt-R”, it does not return to its starting orientation. It instead aligns with the world axis (Z up, etc).
If I change this orientation and then try to ‘set’ it with “Ctrl-A”, hitting “Alt-R” afterwards still returns it to the world axis.
This is really annoying if you’re trying to set the orientation of a texture on an object using an empty. Hit “Alt-R” to get your object back to its base position and the texture ends up all wrong…
Do I have something incorrectly set, or am I missing something else? Or is this just how it’s going to be…?
A technique that may work for you is to parent the empty to the plane when both are in the orientation you want. Then, you should be able to “Alt-R” the plane back it’s base position and have the empty follow.
I got this to work once out of fifty or so tries! One Empty was, for some inexplicable reason, created different from all the others and would respect the orientation I put it in (ie: Alt-R moved it back to my positioning, not the world axis). Every single one of the other Empties I’ve made trying to replicate this feat go to the world axis, regardless of being Ctrl-A-d or parented to something else.
Of course I erased that one because I thought I had it figured out…
:< :< :< :< :<
Someone else, please try this in Blender 2.28c – in exactly this order – and post here what happens:
1 - Start Blender.
2 - Select the plane and rotate it in any direction.
3 - Hit ‘cntl-A’.
4 - Rotate it some more.
5 - Hit ‘alt-R’ and see that it goes back to the position you put it in.
6 - Add an empty. Note that Y is pointing up.
7 - Parent it to the plane.
8 - Rotate it to some position and hit ‘cntl-A’.
9 - Rotate the plane and see that the empty goes with it.
10 - With only the plane selected, hit ‘alt-R’. The plane should go to its home position and the empty should follow it correctly.
11 - Rotate the plane again.
12 - Select both the plane and the empty.
13 - Hit ‘alt-R’.
So: Does yours behave, or does your Empty end up with all its axes aligned with the world axes, like mine?
Alt-R ALWAYS realigns with the world axis, even with meshes.
What Ctrl-A does is apply the matrix of the object to the data it containts, hence realigning the axis with the world without modifying the look of the data. So using Alt-R later on looks like it didn’t realign with the world, but it did infact do it.
This of course cannot be done for Empties, since they don’t have any data to start with.
Notice that the orientation of the axes of any object, even an empty, depends on the view you were in when you created it. To have them aligned with the world coordinates you must create them in top view.
Or use ctrl+a
This will work, but like I said, it wouldn’t solve his problem since using Ctrl-A would equally rotate the texture space, so in the end, you’d be stuck with the same problem as an Empty.
What you could do is add some Rot keyframes and go up one frame, tweak and add a new keyframe everytime you want to adjust it. Then to make it permanent, you’d just have to delete the IPO.
This will work, but like I said, it wouldn’t solve his problem since using Ctrl-A would equally rotate the texture space, so in the end, you’d be stuck with the same problem as an Empty.
Martin[/quote]
Right…
I edited to remove the confusion I may have caused.
And there’s the piece of the puzzle I was missing. Thank you!
Now that I know it only works on mesh data and realigns its axis and not the mesh itself, it certainly is an “of course” – but it wasn’t until ten seconds ago.
A couple things in working with armatures make more sense now, too.
So, note to self: In future, never hit “alt-R” if any Empties are highlighted. And these two commands do not actually do what I thought they did.
And these two commands do not actually do what I thought they did.