Cineversity

I am trying to model a cylinder which branches out into a Y shape as the new extruded branches are at an angle, I feel I have two choices.
One is to make the new branch separately and aligned to the world axis, to allow me to snap and align and generally model more efficiently.
However, I was wondering if this is what would be considered best practice.
Would it be feasible to somehow adjust to this new angle and keep working at this unusual orientation? I decided to try and started to have some problems with my axis, see images below:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w6eosi472zbh7b0/edge align 90.jpg?dl=0
if I select an edge on this branch, the axis (set to normal) does align to the edge, but at a useless orientation. Is there an easy way to align it to the adjoining edges? so Y is pointing along the nearest vertical edge, x and z along the adjoining edges to the vertical edge?

next example:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0wuihf9u3gci5kw/loop selection.jpg?dl=0
Loop selection. What causes the axis to align in this way when using loop selection in the above situation? It is set to normal, as with the previous example, and I must admit I don’t really understand how edge normals work.

this is the model so far, to get better reference:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/43cm2a4q2036esp/align axis.c4d?dl=0

I was thinking, maybe the axis workplane could be changed? I haven’t played around with this before, wanted to get an idea for what would be the best approach.

Thanks,
Nick

Hi Nick,

Even points have normals, the Normal setting to my understanding is for Polygon selections and then obviously for the points of such as well. If the points do not share a single polygon as a group, the calculation is off (but mustn’t be always off …), as in your image.

To make this point more clear and just meant as an example, not as a workflow, I have deleted most of the parts, but created a Polygon with these four edges in question. Now Points, Edges and Polygon-selections of this specific area works with the Normal Setting.
Scene file
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/PllNiCBmU2xXfnF7WP2mTOR1aT5Z3bC8dFD1Nie0lLw

So, yes, the points are clearly on a flat plane which made them a perfect candidate for a “Align Workplane to Selection”. Then the Move tool should be set to world. After the needed work is done on this, click once on the “Locked Workplane” to get to your standard environment.

All the best

ahh cool, I followed your advice and selected a couple of edges which gave me a good axis alignment, locked the workplane to this axis, then go back to my loop selection and have the axis set to world mode, and perfect! I haven’t used this kind of approach before, really cool. I was a little confused at first until I realised it also changes all your viewports around when you re-align the workplane..

Another technique I use a lot is, with move tool active, when you right click on an axis arrow, bring it to 0 (or other location) and then move to align to some other point.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24304389/Axisalign.gif

I used to get annoyed that I couldn’t get this technique to be as useful with the rotation tool, since your axis needs to be aligned and with another at the preferred starting. But thanks to your tip on re-aligning the workplane, using it with rotation is going to be way more useful now!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24304389/AxisalignR.gif

Thanks Nick, for the feedback.

In the early ‘90s I worked a lot in Archicad, and there I enjoyed the Guides, which are now available in C4D. Perhaps have a look.

https://help.maxon.net/us/#OGUIDE-ID_OBJECTPROPERTIES

Let me know if there is anything else.

My best wishes

I haven’t used them much before and generally get by with vertex snap, but they do look really great! That’s all, thank you!

Cool, thanks for eh feedback, Nick!

Enjoy your project.