pivot manipulator
 

Im working through some of the excercises in introducing maya 7 (by Dariush Derakhshani) and Im trying to learn some basic animation, by following a step by step guide to throw an axe at a target. Ive made the axe no problems but I have to move the axes pivot point to be able to animate it realistically, by I cant figure it out, and the book isnt very helpful. It says pressing insert will bring up the pivot manipulator, but when I do, nothing happens. Any suggestions how to move the pivot point for my axe?

first select the axe with the move tool (W) on the keyboard then hit the insert ket on the keyboard(usually the 0 on the number pad or to the right of the backspace key), you will see the box at the center of the manipulator change to a little circle (this indicates you are in pivot mode) next move the pivot to where you need it and lastly hit insert again to complete the move operation.

thankyou jsprogg. This has worked. But do you know...or does anyone else....I built the axe from two parts, a cube and a cylinder. I selected both and Edit>Grouped them, which has attached them in the outliner, but when moving the pivot point, I believe i only moved the pivot point of the cylinder, and when i use the move tool, i can move the cylinder(axe handle) independently of the axe head. So I assume the axe heads pivot point is still independent of the cylinders. What would be the best way to attach these two objects so that there independent pivot points become one?

You did group them but you selected only one piece of the group appearently. When you group objects they can still have individual pivot points, but hit if you hit the up arrow key, you'll go up a step in the hierarchy, in this case, the entire group, or just select the group in the outliner/hypergraph whatever.

right, so this is where the hierarchies business comes in yeah? Ive tried regrouped the two parts a few times now so in the outliner, the two shapes belong to group 3 which belongs to group 2 which belong to group 1. I have made a target which consists of 4 parts, 3 cylinders and a cube, ive grouped this once so in the outliner theres the four parts, all belonging to group 4. Is this what all that parent node business is about? Are the individual parts of each group the children, and the group as a whole is the parent?

And so now I should get in2 the habit of working via the outliner to be able to select whole groups rather than just ending up selecting individual parts in the workspace?

To your first question, yes, the children are the individuals under the parent node, the parent + children make up the group.

Not letting the outliner get out of control will save you from headache later, you can select groups in the workspace, all you have to do is select a piece and hit up on the keyboard as stated above, some people find it easier to just have have a split view of the outliner though.

right, aahh, this is good :-) somethings that were fully daunting and confusing to me not so long ago have just become alot clearer. The book i'm working from has explained about selection handles (?) which looks like another option.

dsahtraefd