Does anyone know how I can scale/grab/rotate an object along its own axis? I’ve been trying to adjust the size of a particular bone by grabbing the point where it is connected to another bone and dragging it upwards, but I also want it to be as straight as possible so I want to change the 3D-axis so that it aligns in the direction of the bone, as highlighted by the red arrow in the picture below:
The problem though is that I don’t remember how to realign the axis anymore, as its been a while since I’ve last had to that. I’ve tried doing a Google Search for a solution and all I could find where suggestions of pressing XYZ twice in succession after hitting G, S, or R to make the switch, but unfortunately for some reason it doesn’t work, so now I need help in how to do this.
After trying your suggestion, I’ve determined that the problem seems to be that I cannot switch the 3D-axis while I have the bone’s connecting point highlighted, it only seems to work while the bone itself is selected. This a problem since that would mean that I can’t grab the bone’s connecting point and drag it along it’s own axis to where I want it to be.
Maybe this will have some insight. I had no idea about the ctrl+n options for setting the bone roll axis and to view the rotation axis as well. How do you align to an axis AND fix bone roles?
Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. When I try to input Y, Y, X, X, or Z, Z after hitting the G key, it simply locks and then unlocks the 3D-axis in whatever direction I selected.
Where I can find the Transform Orientations option? Looking at your screenshot, I don’t recognize that part of the interface at the all.
As proxe says that is the best way to do it. You might have to create a temporary plane on the same angle as your bone to align the manipulator to its normal.
IMO not having a workplane or way to manually rotate the manipulator to the desired angle is a shortcoming in blender.
Sorry for not responding for a while, I got caught up with trying to deal other parts of my model, and so it was only recently that I finally got around to trying the solution that was recommended here. Fortunately it worked as suggested and now I can adjust the bone’s size along its own axis just as I initially wanted.
Whats wrong with placing 3D curser at the point of interest Shift-S ->Cursor to Selected and then select bone’s head or tail and Shift-S ->Selection to Cursor?
You could even assign quick shortcuts to these by right-clicking on and assigning say Q and Shift-Q.
