Moving, rotating and posing (Gizmo 3D)

The Gizmo 3D moves, rotates and scales a whole SubTool, or only the part of it you haven't masked. Use it to place parts (an eye in its socket, a sword in a hand), to fix proportions, and to pose: mask the body, put the pivot at the shoulder and swing the arm. It works like ZBrush's Gizmo 3D, with the same keys.

The three modes#

Press a key, or click the button on the top shelf (they're also in the Transform palette):

Pressing the same key again also goes back to Draw. X is red, Y green and Z blue; the handle under the cursor turns yellow. While the gizmo is on, dragging anywhere off its handles still turns, pans and zooms the view, and Ctrl still paints the mask, so you can mask and move without leaving the gizmo.

While you drag, the amount shows beside the gizmo (the distance, the angle or the percentage), and a rotation draws the swept angle as a slice. Each drag is one undo step (Ctrl+Z), and the gizmo goes back with it.

Snapping#

Hold Shift while dragging to snap:

• Rotate: 15 degree steps.
• Move: whole steps of the grid, a round number about a twentieth of the model's size (0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1...).
• Scale: 10% steps.

You can press and release Shift during the drag.

Moving only part of a SubTool#

The gizmo respects the mask: masked parts stay where they are, partly masked parts move partly, and hidden parts never move. To move only the head of a figure, mask everything else (or paint the mask on the head and invert it with Ctrl+click on the background), then drag.

Turn Mask off in the Gizmo 3D panel to move the whole SubTool whatever the mask.

Posing a limb#

1. Mask what should stay: for an arm, everything but the arm (Ctrl+paint, or MaskLasso).
2. Press R. The gizmo jumps to the centre of the unmasked arm.
3. Put the pivot at the joint: hold Alt and click the model at the shoulder or elbow. (Or click To Surface, then click the model.)
4. Raise Falloff in the Gizmo 3D panel, for example to 15%. The turn then eases in over that distance from the mask's edge, so the joint bends smoothly instead of creasing along the mask line.
5. Drag a ring. Release, then drag again to refine; each drag is its own undo step.

Falloff only ever eases in on the unmasked side: the masked part stays exactly where it was. It is measured along the surface, as a share of the SubTool's size, so it bends the same way on a rough model and on one with millions of polygons.

Symmetry#

With X, Y or Z symmetry on (top shelf), a masked transform is mirrored: the unmasked part on the other side of the symmetry plane takes the mirror image of the move, so both arms rise together. This needs a mask and a pivot off the plane; a SubTool moved as a whole just moves.

The pivot#

The pivot is the point rotation and scaling turn about, and where the gizmo sits. It starts at the centre of what will move (the SubTool, or its unmasked part) and follows it when you change the mask or pick another SubTool.

After a drag the gizmo moves (and with Surface axes, turns) with what it moved.

World or Surface axes#

World keeps the gizmo's arrows and rings on the world's X, Y and Z. Surface lines them up with the surface where you put the pivot (Y along the surface normal) and turns them with your rotations, which is handy for sliding a part along itself, or for twisting a forearm about its own length.

Typing exact values#

The Gizmo 3D panel opens in the corner of the canvas while the gizmo is on. Under the options it has Move (X, Y, Z), Rotate (degrees about X, then Y, then Z) and Scale (percent). Type the amounts and click Apply: the model moves, turns and scales by them about the pivot, along the gizmo's axes, in one undo step. Clear sets them back to 0 and 100%. The values stay after Apply, so clicking Apply again repeats the step (rotate by 15 degrees, again, again).

All SubTools#

Turn on All SubTools in the panel to move every visible SubTool together (ZBrush's Transpose All), for example to turn a whole character with its eyes, teeth and clothes. The pivot is the centre of all of them. Each SubTool gets its own undo step: undo goes back in the active SubTool, and selecting another SubTool undoes its part.

What a transform keeps#

A transform only changes where the vertices are. Polygroups, quads, UVs, polypaint, textures, the mask and the topology stay as they are. Sculpt layers move with the surface: the base and every layer's offsets are transformed together, so a layer you sculpted on a forearm stays on it after posing, and layer sliders keep working. With subdivision levels you can pose at a low level: the detail of the higher levels, sculpt layers included, turns with it when you step back up. Projects save the result, and the gizmo's pivot and options too.

Scripting#

Every gizmo drag appears in the console as the transform command that repeats it, so Copy session as script replays your posing. You can also type it, or use it in scripts and sculptforge-cli:

transform translate=0,0.5,0
transform rotate=0,0,45 pivot=1.2,0.4,0 falloff=0.15
transform scale=2 all=true

Speed#

The gizmo recomputes every frame from where the drag started, touching only the vertices that move, and sends only the changed range to the graphics card. On a 1.3 million triangle model a drag frame takes about 2 ms to transform plus about 7 ms to upload, and the release about 20 to 40 ms; undo is as fast.

See also#

• Masking
• SubTools
• Sculpt layers and blend shapes
• Keyboard and mouse