Simple mesh editing question

Support Basics & Interface
1

When in mesh editing mode, how do you rotate a face around its normal? I can’t find this function, and it seems something thats pretty much built into every 3d app out there… so its gotta bere. I’m talking about rotation round the normal of the face though, not around a given axis.

Also, is there a way to define a custom coordinate system, like in MAX, and then scales will consider that to be X,Y, and Z for those transforms? This would help for modelling various things.

2

actually, blender doesn’t have either feature

but you can do transforms around the local object axes, press x twice for the x axis, y twice for the y axis… and so on

see, but to use this you’d have to rotate your entire object in or out of edit mode, then move it back [that’s just how you reorient the objects axes]… might as well just use the global constraints then

3

For your first question:

  1. Select a face.
  2. Shift+V -> Top. This will align the view to the normal.
  3. Usual rotate: R.
4

Also, is there a way to define a custom coordinate system, like in MAX, and then scales will consider that to be X,Y, and Z for those transforms? This would help for modelling various things.

You can’t define a custom coordinate system but you can:

  1. Move the 3d cursor to the point you wish to scale from and set the pivot point to cursor mode

  2. Move your object center to the origin of your new coordinate system.

GreyBeard

5

Thanks for the replies.

The Shift-V then work in viewspace seems to be the quickest solution.

The lack of a definable coordinate system, though, does mean it gets tricky to modify some off-axis geometry in a predictable way… but we can manage