Hey there, Matt here for the Maya Learning Channel.
Today I'm going to show you how to change the rotation and scale pivot of an object in Maya.
As it turns out, understanding how pivots work is a really important, fundamental skill in 3D.
So in Maya, you can Move, Rotate, or Scale an object using the Transform tools in the Toolbox.
You can also activate each of these using the W, E, and R hotkeys respectively.
Whenever you transform an object, Maya always does so around a pivot point.
Even though the pivot’s usually invisible, a quick way to tell where it is,
is by where its manipulators appear.
By default, an object’s pivot is located at its center
so that it scales and rotates evenly on all sides.
But sometimes you’ll find it useful to change that.
For example, I can change the pivot of this planet so that, instead of spinning on its axis,
It'll orbit the sun instead.
To do that, all I need to do is press 'D' on my keyboard to enter Edit Pivot mode.
You can tell I've changed modes by the change in manipulator,
which I'll now use to move the pivot point to the sun without affecting my object.
Then I'll press 'D' again to exit Edit Pivot mode, and the manipulator goes back to normal.
Now when I select my planet, notice that the manipulator appears all the way out here.
And sure enough, if I rotate, it now orbits the sun instead of spinning in place.
Or if I scale, it scales away from the center of the solar system.
And if I want to go back to scaling or spinning on axis,
I can just go to Modify > Center Pivot.
Now the question remains: what if I want to do both?
The planet only has one pivot so do I have to keep switching back and forth?
Of course not!
Instead, I'll select the planet and press Ctrl + G.
This places it in a group.
Ordinarily you'd use this to group together bunches of related objects,
but even with our single planet it can be useful…
…because a group comes with its own pivot!
So that means I can go into Edit Pivot mode, and move the group's pivot
to the center of the sun...
…while leaving the planet’s pivot centered.
That means I can now rotate the planet on its axis…
…and orbit its group around the sun at the same time!
I can even combine these tricks with commands like Duplicate Special.
Watch how fast I can create an entire solar system by duplicating my group 8 more times
and then rotating them around the pivot.
Then I can move and scale each planet independently...
...while keeping their orbit pivots the same.
Or I can even scale the entire solar system at once.
Now let’s try looking at this in a different context.
So here we have a firetruck model made up of individual body part groups.
If I select the entire fire truck group and turn on a Transform Tool,
you can see the pivot is at its center.
That makes a lot of sense since it gives me good control over the rotation and scale.
However, if you think about it, the pivot point makes even more sense here
– right on the front axle.
This is because the front wheels are what guide the back half of the truck around.
By placing the pivot here, I can get this fishtailing motion
that previously wasn’t possible, which will be great for dramatic swerving turns.
To make things even more dramatic, I could move the pivot to one set of tires,
allowing me to tip the truck on its side!
Even within these various subparts, pivots are important.
For instance, look at how these doors rotate by default.
But with a simple pivot adjustment, that same rotation can open the door properly!
As an aside, even though I’ve only shown you pivots working on entire objects at once,
they work equally well on components like vertices or faces as well!
Hopefully now you can see how just a few clever pivots and groups
can really optimize the way you interact with your scene.