specific pivot rotation problem

[andy.engelkemier]

I'm really surprised this isn't something other people are frequently running into. I'm not sure if it's just Rhino imported data or not because that's pretty much all we use directly since it's much easier to organize things in Rhino when you have assemblies of thousands of parts.

If you type the value of rotation for an object, my object was imported from Rhino, then the rotation pivot point is Always the world axis.
Even if you're in the move tool. Try having something several inches off center in all directions from within rhino. After import, rotate an object 45-ish degrees with the move object tool. Looks right? It should still. Now type 87 for your value. That's the value you want.
You'll notice your object moved Quite a bit, because the first 45 degrees, you moved with the object's center point. But the additional value you typed moved from world. You'll notice as you're rotating, the position is changing!? That's because it's Actually got the pivot point at world. So in order to appear in the correct spot, it's moving the object as you rotate.

Is there a way around this? I have to do an animation in Keyshot finally, and this is a bit of a hangup for me. I have an object where I need to do a technical animation. One piece is horizontal to ground, so the rotation is correct. But another piece of the same part is angled at 4 degrees. Since all objects imported from Rhino, or any other software where the part was built in place, have a part axis that is aligned to world, you'll have to have an object that you rotate First, then choose that object as your pivot. The only option for snapping I am aware of is 15 degrees. And the closest I can come is something like 4.013 or 3.987 degrees. That's pretty close....only, these are two perfectly aligned cylinders, so you see the gap when you move it.

Is there any workaround? I'll even take changing a setting in some text file somewhere that lets me change the Shift interaction from 15 degrees to whatever value I put in. I don't often need values below half degrees. But this setup is Really limiting.

Ideally I'd select my object, choose, change pivot, and enter a value for the rotation. Yay, I'm done. My already rotated object now has the correct rotation, and I can use that as the pivot object for animating others.
The only solution I can think of is to have my pivot object as a sphere so the local pivot is always center. Then have it do it's own animation First, at whatever angle I need, then after that animation is finished, set up the others. But because of the weirdness of how keyshot's pivots work, I'm not even sure that would work.

Any suggestions appreciated. For now, I'm dealing with the small gap. But I'm also supposed to show someone how I made the file and sort of train them on the basics. I'd like to be pointing them in the right direction.