Aligning to a Sphere's surface

[BrandonD]

Well, if you wanted to create cylinder's along a surface turn on AutoGrid. If you have existing objects that you want to place on a sphere's surface you could use the Scatter Compound Object or Scatter Utility. You could also use an Attachment controller (position constraint) if the Sphere's a mesh. If it's a patch or NURBS object with UV data then you can use the more interactive Surface Controller.

[RealThing]

There's also a script to do this but I can't find it at the moment. I'll get back to you on this gotta talk to the creator of the script and find out where it is.

[visualboo]

Yeah, I think Bobo made one. It aligns the object with the normal of the recieving object. Very handy.

I use it constantly

[javierdl]

Excellent! THat sounds super :)
Precisely what I need.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks BrandonD anyway. I should learn to do it your way too.

DrPepperCan
http://sunnylandbaja.jdlprod.com/others/drpeppercan_small.gif (http://sunnylandbaja.jdlprod.com)

[gaggle]

There's ALT-N, shortcut to the Allign Normal tool? I realise it's not very handy if you're alligning 200 buildings, I just wanted to make sure that this build-in tool of MAX isn't forgotten :)

[LFShade]

I wrote a script to do something like this. It's called MousePlanter, and you can get it here:

MousePlanter 0.2 (http://www.zeetec.net/host/lfshade/maxscript/MousePlanter.mzp)

It lets you choose an object (or a bunch of objects) and plant them to the surface of any other object. It automagically aligns the planted objects to the surface normal, and you can use the mouse to rotate and scale each object after you plant it. It's pretty cool (I think!), so please check it out.

In case you're not familiar with .mzp files, you can just drag it onto a Max viewport to install it, or run it from the MAXScript menu. Here's a readme with some quickie instructions on how to use it:

mouseplanter-readme.txt (http://www.zeetec.net/host/lfshade/maxscript/mouseplanter-readme.txt)

[RealThing]

Originally posted by RealThing
There's also a script to do this but I can't find it at the moment. I'll get back to you on this gotta talk to the creator of the script and find out where it is.

Ok I managed to chat with my friend Gordon who wrote the script I was talking about. You can find it here. http://www.darkwheel.com/maxscript/PG_Tools-FreeAlign.mcr
It allows you to interactively place an object on the surface of another object.

[tubby]

Great script LFShade!! thats just what i was lookin for , thanks!:)

[LFShade]

I hear ya, tubby;)

You're very welcome!

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