Pivot Point Rotation- Edit will not stay

[bradaschreiber]

I have five objects in a  scene and I want their pivot points so they are all adjusted in synchronous XYZ directions. I'm holding D to activate Custom Mode and rotating their pivot points so the XYZ arrows are all pointed correctly. However when I move to another object, then go back to the object whose axis I have rotated- the pivot point has returned to its original rotation, which is incorrect.

How do i get the pivot point adjustment to stay. I tried Freeze Transformation after I manipulated the pivot point but that did not work either.  Thank you.

[_sebastian_f · Accepted solution]

easiest way would be to select all objects - hold d and align the pivots to an edge/face/vertex - modify > bake pivot.
if you don´t have a component which is facing in the desired direction i would create a helper object which you can use to orient your pivots.
you can also do it manually for each object but remember to "bake pivot" before changing the selections.

[bradaschreiber]

Thanks- Bake Pivot did the trick!

[Anonymous]

Why is that bake pivot step needed anyway? Shouldn't pivot stay the way user altered it? It is 'edit pivot mode' after all. What's the purpose of doing it in a separate step?

[lennieC6RRC]

Resurfacing this old thread here..

Is this the expected behaviour of altering the pivot point in maya still? I'm positive that I've been able to hit insert, rotate the pivot and have that update the object pivot rotation. 

[RickyODonnell2341]

Still not working in 2018.5, rotate pivot, deselect, pivot not updated.

[jemaho]

And still not working in Maya 2019.

How about you write the documentation for how the application works, not how you imagine it works.

Or better yet, make the app able to rotate the pivot point by a specific, exact amount AND have it stay rotated afterwards. Otherwise people WASTE TIME. Blender can do it for free. What is the hassle? What is the multi-year hold-up? I'm a student. my course makes me use this app. Sure as hell won't be paying big dollars for an app that can't easily rotate a pivot point.

[Anonymous]

Seriously, why is this so difficult? I have an animated rig, with a hand bone that is slightly off. I'm trying to apply a 20-30 degree rotation to it but every time I do and then move to a new frame, the rotation is gone and I'm left with original rotation. There has to be a simple way to get this change to stay.

[Anonymous]

Still the same problem on 2020.3 version...

[tennotime]

Same issue here on 2019.3.1 This is so annoying trying to do none uniform environments.

[brentmc]

Hi,

Bake pivot is needed because there is no pivot orientation in the Maya transform - only pivot position.

When you Bake Pivot you are baking the pivot orientation from the tool into the rotation channel of the transform so this is not something you would want to always happen by default. (because it could mess up rigs etc.)

--

Brent 

[jjbbqq]

You can follow what Brent has said. Maya only stores the local pivot coordinates in transform node Pivots section. There's no attribute for pivot orientation. What you can do is click Bake Pivot, or in your Move/Rotate/Scale Tool settings, check Bake Pivot Orientation. This just bake the pivot orientation to your transform every time you edit your pivot orientation.

[avtproS67AY]

For years it was a common procedure to just hold "D" key and rotate the pivot. It was also keep the channels numbers clear or the same. This is broke. Autodesk should fix it back. When I hit back it gives me all kinds of garbage numbers, which is bad for rigging.   Of course the suggestion would be to do all kinds of backflipping rigging to counter the problem.  I have a bunch of old tutorial where it was more efficient to just rotate the pivot. Done. 

[brentmc]

The pivot orientation stuff hasn't significantly changed since it was introduced.

Have you tried checking the tool settings to make sure you don't have something like bake enabled that could be affecting your results?

[avtproS67AY]

No it's nothing I'm doing wrong.  It's broked. If you 

I'm trying to align the X rotation axis of a Nurb controller to pitch up and down the foot. 

Press "D" key, the manipulator switch to a Local axis rotation control. Adjust X axis. Looks fine. Click off Nurb Object. 
Click back and the adjust is gone, the Local axis is reset back to the way it was. Not working. 

I just got a PC Laptop with Window 11.  Funny thing is I never had this problem on a Mac before. 

I reset the tools, still problem. 
Autodesk should acknowledge this bug so they can address it.

AA


I rea

[avtproS67AY]

So essentially rigging is defuncted.  The goal is to align the axis so one animation channel can be used in simplest numbers.. Zero. This way an animator can always reset a foot. 

It must have got broken on a PC when they add baked point. Bake pivot adds a bunch of garbage number to the channel box. 
Sad part my client wants me to use Blender. I don't think it's possible to rig like this in Maya anymore. Clean rotations are essential. Funny that a little bug like this can thwart such a huge process. Worst, I don't think Audotesk

is acknowlegding it.  I don't have my Mac but it use to be fine. 

[avtproS67AY]

k...Lets make this official. 

I have rigged for years...decades. So I have a treasure trove of old Maya installs. I went back to Maya 2014. To Autodesk credit the instal and the "D" key still works. 
Actually in 2014 the D key does work but theres blue button for rotate Local Rotation Axis and still work. There's no Bake Pivot. 

I just did an install of 2015 as well. Local rotation axis still works and it doesn't get a bunch garbage numbers in the rotation channels as well. 

So who ever fixed it actually broke it.  Fix it or broke it back please. 

Maya 2017 doesn't work and I haven't tried Maya 2016. 

And while I'm at it, bring back Composite. 😉

[brentmc]

Hi,

How does the workflow you are mentioning differ from selecting an object's rotateAxis component. (e.g. "pCone1.rotateAxis") and using the rotate tool to modify it directly?

In this instance the rotate tool will modify both the rotation channel and the rotateAxis channel to keep the object's orientation the same.

Are you able to post a small video showing your workflow with the old pivot manipulator and what values end up in the rotation and rotateAxis channels?

On the surface it seems like one thing we are missing a way to bake pivot orientation into the rotateAxis channel.

Thanks for your patience. I really want to understand your workflow as I was not aware that functionality was lost when the new pivot manip was introduced many years ago.

[brentmc]

Hi,

I went back to Maya 2014 and compared the workflow with newer version of Maya.

In both versions when you rotate the pivot it is switching the tool's Axis Orientation to Custom mode and that is where the pivot orientation is stored. (and nothing in the transform is modified)

The differences between the two versions are:

1) In newer version of Maya the pivot manipulator's two modes were combined into one manipulator.

2) In newer versions of Maya when you select something else (or re-select the same object) it switches back to the previous axis orientation mode. (e.g. takes you out of Custom mode and puts you back in World or Object mode)

If you want to keep the older behaviour of staying in custom mode (like 2014) you simply need to turn on Pin Component Pivot. (from either the tool settings or the right-click menu when in pivot edit mode is active)

I hope this clears things up.

[avtproS67AY]

Thanks for this informative post. 

I actually had finally found the "Bake Orientation"  yesterday and it was solved the issue with "Pivot Point Rotation_ Edit Will not stay." which is the OP of this post.  That was the issue and the different between the older and newer version of Maya. This option if off by default and if not aware of the modification it makes precision rigging extremely difficult and frustrating. 

Once the "Bake Pivot" is in evoked in the tools setting the expected rotation realignment is correct. 
With the "D" key no rotation are in the Transform, which is the best and "normal" way it's done in most common rigging techniques. I also thought that I use to be able to "Freeze Transforms" and zero out any unwanted values but all I get is the World Zero. I thought it use to be Local zero'd out. 

I'll get back to you with some images. Thanks. I'm sure this post will help everyone having the same issue.