Distribute and align

[mattjgerard]

Would be really great to have some way to align and distribute parts equally. Just like in photoshop but in 3d. I realize that it complicates things a bit being in 3d, but still. Would be fantastically awesome.

Disclaimer- I have no clue about how easy/hard any of these requests are from a coding standpoint, so please forgive any ignorance as to what can or cannot happen. This is all balck magic f**ckery to me behind the scenes, so while I may ask for the blessings of the universal deities upon all you that make this stuff work, that won't stop me from making sometimes unreasonable requests

[Will Gibbons]

In the meantime, how about this:

1. Add cube
2. Make pattern
3. Snap to pivot (using move tool)
4. Hide all cubes

Mission accomplished 

[Rex]

Actually this can be done now my multi-selecting a number of top-level models > right-click > make pattern! And the pattern tool will evenly distribute the models

[mattjgerard]

Actually this can be done now my multi-selecting a number of top-level models > right-click > make pattern! And the pattern tool will evenly distribute the models

Seriously, that's a deep tip. I'll be trying that one here soon. So it will do that without creating any clones? Like if I just had 5 random objects, select those, leave them all at 1 and use the distances to line them up. Hang on a moment, I hafta try that before I hit send....


Well call me a turkey and put me in the oven it works. Sort of. Having 6 objects-

1) The objects still need to be inside a group individually (6 groups with one object in each group) to get the Make Pattern tool to show in the contextual menu
2) When in the pattern tool, need to select which direction you want them to run, example align to X, have the Instances for X = the number of objects, so I have it set to 6, then use the X Spacing slider to adjust the gap. If you set the Instances to more than the number of objects they will start to repeat.
3) Setting more than one axis at a time only will honor the top level axis, (X will override Y, Y will override Z, etc.) But Z will move the whole lot along the Z axis if one of the other axis are active. Simple rule, don't use more than one axis
4) If aligning along the X axis, the Y axis will arbitrarily re-align them- If all objects have been snapped to the floor, the y axis will float some of the objects depending on where the objects origination is . Cube will stay put, but the flat plane next to it will float.

Despite these little issues, its a cool little use of the pattern tool, and also its great to learn that the pattern tool will iterate muliple objects! That's actually pretty cool to know. Thanks Rex!