Hello all.
I would dearly love to be able to set my xyz axis to normals so i can work on planes at arbitrary angles to each other whilst keeping them flat. [a bit like set cp angle in Rhino]
Is there a way of doing this?!
Many thanks
Hiya @MrCat!
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Clicking on a surface with Gizmo or the Transpose Action Lines will align the manipulators along the point of contact normals. I personally prefer the Transpose mode for this, as Gizmo is a bit clunkier and requires you to unlock the manipulator first, but the transpose controls are less familiar to most users and require more study to learn how to use quickly.
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The Move brush has an alt mode, where if you hold down ALT after establishing contact with the surface (holding it down before just activates Smooth mode), it will displace points along the normals instead of the viewport plane.
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If working at low poly, Zmodeler has many tools that do this by default.
If any others occur to me, Ill add them here.
Hi
Thanks for your response.
I think to put it another way when i use move that it only can move at right angle to the normal so that whatever the orientation of the plane it stays flat.
hope that makes sense?
As far as I understand, the options I listed do this. You may need to labor a bit more on the distinction for me.
If you’re talking about constraining the movement along the selected axis–whether it’s worldspace or custom orientation–both Gizmo and Transpose can do this. Read the documentation for both tools linked above.
Sorry not explaing my self well.
If you look at the pic you will see a canted plane .
What i wish to do is be able to move point s in the ticked arrow directions only relative to the plane no matter how its oriented on the screen.
As if the xyz indicator moved with the head in the attitude indicator on the top right of the view port.
Like this:
A is what i does now B is how I would like to do it.
The pic shows Rhino 5 , A standard B setting Cplane to object.
I mean, there’s not a persistent mode where it automatically does this–it requires an active modeling operation, and the repositioning of the manipulator as necessary. You’d isolate whatever elements you want to move through masking, hiding, or poly-grouping , or some combination thereof , and position your manipulator. Once positioned, you can constrain movement along the manipulator axis , however that axis is positioned. The manipulator rotates with the mesh, not the screen plane.
Again, I prefer the Transpose action lines for this, because they are more nimble in the hands of an experienced user, but you can use Gizmo if it’s easier. You can just click on a plane to position the manipulator, and drag the selected geometry only along that axis, regardless of mesh screen orientation (Directions for constraining movement are found in the links above). You can click on one of the x/y spokes at the base of the transpose line to quickly switch to moving parallel to that surface, instead of perpendicular. Or you can custom draw the action line between any two points on a surface to create an axis line between those two points, along which you can constrain the movement of the selected geometry.
However, there are a lot of options to these tools, and a lot to unpack. I’m not going to explain every feature, when it’s explained in the links above. Here’s a video by Michael Pavlovich using transpose action lines to quickly reposition objects along axes defined by clicking on surfaces, independent of the screen plane/cam view.
Thanks for your input.
I do use both the transpose and the gizmo, neither as far as i can see enable moving of individual vertices in the way I would ideally like.
Its such a peculator zbrush, both wonderful and frustrating in equal measures [not especially just in light of my quest in this post] ,oh to be a genius coder ,hehe 
With the action lines, with a click, you can move an isolated point, polygon, or cluster of elements along the world axes, parallel to the screen plane, out in a normalized direction, or constrained along any arbitrary axis you choose to define.
I’m sorry we haven’t been able to communicate here, but you have not yet been able to explain to me how this would not do what you are asking. I just don’t believe you’re as familiar with these tools as you could be.
I would fully agree, this applies to various software i use , I tend to use what i need to get the job done and when something comes along out of that particular knowledge envelope, well this can be what happens.
I have a friend who loves just doing tutorials and learning minutiae but i tend toward having and idea and going for it. my bad i guess.
anyhow thanks for your help and will i investigate further.