Manually changing the pivot of an actor

Development Asset Creation
1

Hi guys

I have tried changing changing the pivot of a BSP brush by ALT-dragging the translation widget, but that does not seemto do anything.

Does this work for you guys?

Cheers,
michael

2

Have you already tried to do it with the “move pivot here”? select the actor -right click onto the position where it should move the pivot - pivot - move pivot…

2 Likes
3

Yep I’ve tried that, but to no avail. I’ll give it another shot tomorrow though…

4

-You can also change the pivot with ALT+Middle Mouse Button onto the position where you want to place it -> but after you deselect it, it will reset the pivot to the original position
-otherwise you have to edit it in your 3d program -> convert the bsp to a static mesh

5

Well that’s the thing that does not work for me (the ALT-Drag stuff). It does not do anything. To clarify: I am trying to do this with BSP brushes as after a few tweaks, the pivot can get quite far off and I would like to snap it back to the brush.

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Middle mouse drag on the pivot point (white sphere) to move it

7

Hi Matt

Thanks, that works in the perspective view, what about the orthographic views?

Also you might want to clarify the docs on this:
https://docs.unrealengine/latest/INT/Engine/Actors/Transform/index.html#actorpivotadjustment

That’s what got me confused (ALT-Dragging is mentioned there)

Cheers,
Michael

8

The position of the pivot can be changed momentarily with middle clicking , but it jumps back to its default position when you deselect and reselect the mesh again .
Isnt there some "Save pivot to prepivot " button for saving the new position of the pivot , like UDK ?

9

Middle-clicking in the ortho views is used for measuring in my setup of UE4…Does this do something different for you?

10

in Orthographic views middle click used for measuring , in perspective view , when you are selecting something , notice there is a white ball in the middle of the Translation widget , if you middle click there you can change drag the pivot to anywhere you like . further you can use snapping e.g by pressing V key to snap widget to vertex .

but if deselect the mesh and reselect it , it goes back to its default position. i’m wondering if there is an option to save the modified pivot…

11

I think he is asking “How to permanently change the pivot of a static mesh?” In other words ie: to make a hinged door.

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Also interested in a more permanent pivot adjustment, that being said, I would also like to add that if you so wish to change the pivot position along one axis only, as opposed as selecting the middle point and move it in all axis at the same time, you need to Alt+middle click+left click on the axis pointers.

13

Yes ! I wish they’d kept those features. Move Here Snapped and Save to Prepivot saved me a lot of hassles while working.

14

I’ve being doing a kind of cheating too.

I created a composed blueprint adding my meshes and also adding another one too small to be seen just for me to move the pivot that’ll be on the center of my meshes. So I use this small mesh to balance the size of the blueprint doing so… not a good solution but that’s what came to my mind when I faced this problem

15

Like others here I was looking for a “save prepivot to pivot” on the context menu as well, from a vague memory of using UDK in the past.

To reiterate IMX’s question - is there also a way to move pivots in the orthographic view? I understand MMB is used for measuring at the moment.

One more thing I noticed is that the Alt+V+MMB workflow for snapping pivot to vertex is a bit clunky - depending on the camera angle used it often doesn’t snap the way you’d expect. This is one case for being able to move pivots in the orthographic view IMO.

16

Finally found it. If you right click on your object in the scene outline you’ll see your good old UDK style ‘save pivot to pre-pivot’ and a host of other useful pivoting options.

Not sure if I missed this earlier in any of the video tutorials/documentation. Now if only I could get move pivot to work in orthographic views and I"ll be very happy :slight_smile:

17

but where i still cant find it there to can u post a screen shot of it

18

Screenshots below are from build 4.2.1 however I upgraded to 4.3 today and found it’s indeed missing in that build :frowning:

://i.imgur/fT6xgcr.png

://i.imgur/PfLJRUP.png

Even in 4.2.1 this option is only available in BSP brushes and not static meshes. Even for BSPs this feature was not useful at all because the brush would reset to default pivot/scale/loc/rotation the moment you change even a single brush attribute in the details panel.

Hope someone can clarify whether being able to save pivots is on the cards at all!

19

My reply from yesterday wasn’t posted for some reason (it had images) so I’ll try this time in just text…

I found this option in build 4.2.1 however I just got 4.3 yesterday and you’re right, I do not see this option available in 4.3

Even in 4.2.1 the option is limited to BSPs only, no such option on static meshes. It would be great to have some official word on whether pivots can be saved at all in 4.3 onwards!

20

It was posted but it was waiting for Moderation for whatever reason. I approved it and you can see it now. :slight_smile: