Orientation of dupliverted object

This is a really stupid question. I want to make a spiky ball. I created sphere and 1 spike, parented it to sphere and pressed Dupliverts and Rot. Obviously, dupliverted spikes didn’t point out of sphere. Following instruction in manual I tried to rotate spike in edit mode. It rotated dupliverted spikes, but I wasn’t able to get it oriented as I needed. I finally gave up. Has somebody proven method of rotating dupliverted object?

First, make sure that the spike is orientated along one of it’s local axis
(Edit Buttons; Draw extras --> axis).
Then clear rotation (local axis become parallel to the global ones)
Make the sphere parent of the spike
Dupliverts and Rot on.

The point:

Set the track buttons (Anim Buttons) for the spike to that axis the tip of your spike points to.
I.e. if the spike is orientated along Z-axis (tip pointing to the positve Z-direction) --> Track Z

Should work.

A spiked ball with images :

http://membres.lycos.fr/bobois/Tuts/DupliVerts/Dupliverts/dupliverts_en.html

Many thanks, your responses really helped me.

Then clear rotation (local axis become parallel to the global ones)

How do you do that?

Thank you in advance!

-A.

You clear rotation changes using alt+R.
While you’re here :
clearing location changes is alt+G
clearing size changes is alt+S.

Always more for you money.

Jean