3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [104]
FIGURE 7.12
The Align Selection dialog box can align objects along any axes by their Minimum, Center, Pivot, or Maximum points.
The Align Selection dialog box includes settings for the X, Y, and Z positions to line up the Minimum, Center, Pivot Point, or Maximum dimensions for the selected or target object's bounding box. As you change the settings in the dialog box, the objects reposition themselves, but the actual transformations don't take place until you click Apply or OK.
Cross-Reference
Another way to align objects is with the Clone and Align tool, which is covered in Chapter 8, “Cloning Objects and Creating Object Arrays.” •
Using the Quick Align tool
The first flyout tool under the Align tool in the main toolbar (and in the Tools menu) is the Quick Align tool (Shift+A). This tool aligns the pivot points of the selected object with the object that you click without opening a separate dialog box. This is much more helpful than the Align tool, which causes a separate dialog box to open.
Aligning normals
You can use the Normal Align command to line up points of the surface of two objects. A Normal vector is a projected line that extends from the center of a polygon face exactly perpendicular to the surface. When two Normal vectors are aligned, the objects are perfectly adjacent to one another. If the two objects are spheres, then they touch at only one point.
To align normals, you need to first select the object to move (this is the source object). Then choose Tools⇒Align⇒Normal Align or click the Normal Align flyout button under the Align button on the main toolbar (or press Alt+N). The cursor changes to the Normal Align icon. Drag the cursor across the surface of the source object, and a blue arrow pointing out from the face center appears. Release the mouse when you've correctly pinpointed the position to align.
Next, click the target object, and drag the mouse to locate the target object's align point. This is displayed as a green arrow. When you release the mouse, the source object moves to align the two points and the Normal Align dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 7.13.
FIGURE 7.13
The Normal Align dialog box allows you to define offset values when aligning normals.
When the objects are aligned, the two points match up exactly. The Normal Align dialog box lets you specify offset values that you can use to keep a distance between the two objects. You also can specify an Angle Offset, which is used to deviate the parallelism of the normals. The Flip Normal option aligns the objects so that their selected normals point in the same direction.
Objects without any faces, like Point Helper objects and Space Warps, use a vector between the origin and the Z-axis for normal alignment.
Tutorial: Aligning a kissing couple
Aligning normals positions two object faces directly opposite one another, so what better way to practice this tool than to align two faces?
To connect the kissing couple using the Normal Align command, follow these steps:
1. Open the Kissing couple.max file from the Chap 07 directory on the CD.
This file includes two extruded shapes of a boy and a girl. The extruded shapes give you flat faces that are easy to align.
2. Select the girl shape, and choose the Tools⇒Align⇒Normal Align menu command (or press Alt+N). Then click and drag the cursor over the extruded shape until the blue vector points out from the front of the lips, as shown in Figure 7.14.
3. Then click and drag the cursor over the boy shape until the green vector points out from the front of the lips. This vector pointing out from the