Difference in movement of prop when moved directly or by parameters-frame sliders

lamoid_5f20d3e469

This is something that I have found annoying for years and I do not know how to fix it. If I import an object and move with it the local attached (object frame) coordinate axis set it moves in the direction I pull it and rotates it around the correct axis. (What is the proper name for that gadget, anyway?) But when I move the object using its parameters-pane sliders or by typing numbers directly into the number fields, It moves in a completely unexpected and, frankly, wrong direction. It matters not whether I use local coordinates or world coordinates.

Why does this happen? How can I align the parameters-pane axes with the object's attached object-frame axes? E.g. so that when I adjust the y-axis slider, it moves in the same direction as when I pull on the attached object-frame y-axis. In nearly 20 years of using this program, I have not figured that out (rather dense I am sometimes). I've tied some of mcasual's scripts, like mcjChangeOrientation and mcjZeroOrigin orientation but they do not change the behavior I am describing.

After all this time, I'd really like to understand what is happening and how I can fix it.

Thank you all in advance!

felis

I assume you are refering to the difference between world and local coordinates. Parameters will always show world coordinates.

The gizmo (3 arrows and cirkles (dependent on selected tool)) can be set to either. In the Tool Settings pane you can change it.

Persoannly I prefer local coordiantes in viewport even though it doesn't match the parameters.

lamoid_5f20d3e469

No. That is not it. If I move the object by pulling on the gizmo's axes the object moves as expected. When I use the sliders in the parameters window, the object moves in strange other directions. This is completely independent of my choice of coordinate sytem that I select in the tool settings pane for the Universal tool. No difference whatsoever in the direction caused by the sliders.That does jibe with your statement that the sliders always control positions w.r.t. world coordinates. I did not know that. Thank you for the information, Felis!

Since I posted this, I looked at the object using the joint editor tool. There I see the green axes at the object's origin and the red axes that indicate the motion of the object when using the sliders. So I see why it is happening. But I don't like it. I don't want the pose that is specified by the joint editor. What I want to do is to make the object's origin (as shown by the green axes) to be at the barycenter of the object. I want those axes to align precisely with the world coordinate axes. There appears to be no way to make that happen. In the joint editor, if I pull on one of the green axes, it causes the object to move as well. Moreover, I cannot control either the exact location of the red axes nor their orientations w.r.t. the green axes. Very frustrating. It is nearly impossible to align the joints with the object itself. Undoubtedly there is some way to do that. But I do not know what that is. I do not know how to align the joints to the object's natural symmetries. Do you know how to do that? Anybody? I would appreciate knowing how to do that. 

By the way, I am talking about a rigid object with no articulations stored in a .obj file that I put in the scene through the import function.