How can I align an object to the midpoint of another object's edge?

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

I am trying to create pillars in an interior scene and I need a pillar aligned to the center of a plane.

It seems like such a simple thing to do. Is there a fast and easy way to do this without all of that subdivision nonsense?

[damaggio]

Select that face and use the Poke tool...that will triangulate that face ,,,then snap your pilar to the center vertice created from the Poke tool

[Anonymous]

That is better than other methods I have used in the past, but is there a way to do this without creating extra faces? I'm trying to keep the poly count down and it's a bit tedious to go back an delete the created edges, especially if later on I decide that I need to rescale the floor.

[damaggio]

That's all I can think of....after you do that you could quadrangulate back again...I dodn't think your poly count would increase that much.

[Anonymous]

u can use "Snap align object to component" under Bonus tool tab (only available from Maya 2015)

with that, select your pillar, and then shift select the face component. clich the tool and voila, your pillar will be exactly on the center of that selected face.

u can go more advanced with that tool, it also has option to maintain the normal orientation to the selected object, and even autoparenting to the selected object, there is a demo on that on youtube you can check that out...

I am an architect and during design process, I use Bonus tool alot.. it is very handy.

[_sebastian_f · Accepted solution]

another quick solution will be to activate the display of "face centers" in the custom polygon options or when select your geometry "shift+rmb > polygon display > toggle face centers" than you can use point snapping (hold v) to snap your geo to the center points of faces.

[damaggio]

Those are great suggestion guys...I'll save those handy tips too.

[Anonymous]

Great solution! Just what I was looking for!