topic Re: Scale pivot is wrong in Maya Forum

Scale pivot is wrong

th_ricardo — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 14:08:37 GMT

Hello I'd like to know how to center this scale pivot as to not deform the shape of the mesh in the process. the pivot should be in the white X in the attached image. I know I can edit the pivot manually but the result is not acceptable at all, and it is also not acceptable that I have to manually edit the pivot every time I want to make such a simple operation. In blender I can do this in the fraction of a second automatically, I never faced such an issue before. There must be a way to do it, I've been trying for half an hour, genuinely flabbergasted to have such problem with this industry standard software.

Re: Scale pivot is wrong

brentmc — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 14:58:58 GMT

Hi,

In this case you could use Modify > Center Pivot from the main menu but I prefer to use the D hotkey to quickly change an object's pivot point.

In this case all you need to do is tap D and then you can hold Shift and click on the point in the center to snap the pivot to that point as shown in the GIF below. When you are done tap D again to exit pivot editing mode.

You can also drag the manipulator directly to move the pivot. By default when snapping the pivot it will adjust both orientation and position. As mentioned above Shift can be used to just snap position, Ctrl for orientation or hold Shift + Ctrl to aim the selected axis at the component.

There are more options in the right-click menu while in pivot edit mode and here is a link to a learning chanel video that dicusses pivots in Maya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmkYuxcuEt0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmkYuxcuEt0

Re: Scale pivot is wrong

th_ricardo — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 17:25:58 GMT

Center pivot does nothing on my end, I already tried a couple of times before, going as far as separating the part I want to scale from the mesh.

Re: Scale pivot is wrong

th_ricardo — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 18:48:56 GMT

here's a video to better illustrate my current issues

(view in My Videos)

Re: Scale pivot is wrong

brentmc — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 06:55:19 GMT

Hi,

It would be easier to help if you uploaded a scene that shows the issue.

It looks like you might have some non-uniform scaling or skewing on the object so you could try Modify > Freeze Transformations to get rid of that.

Also, you did not mention if you tried editing the pivot with the D hotkey as suggested in the previous post?

Another option when dealing with components is to switch the tool to component mode. The easiest way to do that is to hold down the transform tool hotkey (R in this case) and then left-click and select component mode. Then when you select components like vertices the manipulator will be aligned to those components.

Re: Scale pivot is wrong

th_ricardo — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 12:14:50 GMT

Freezing the transformations worked, thanks!