Really simple question -> moving components on grid
 

:banghead: This is really annoying me now ->

I have a very simple polygon model, looks like a pillar with two flared ends - I want to make the pillar taller by moving the vertices/faces of one end further from the other. I am able to do one of two things, both of which are not what I want:

1) Move one end without grid snapping - vertices end up some uneven distance away.

2) Move vertices with grid snapping - except they all snap to the same plane.

How do I move these things snapped to the grid, keeping their relative positions constant??

I hope to build very simple poly models for use in UT2003, using Maya 4 PLE - if things as basic as this are this painful in MAYA, I may well give up completely.....

If you go into the move tool options, you can check "Keep Spacing" and they won't snap to the same plane, but still snap to the grid.

If I under stand you question correctly, you just want to move like the top part UP and keep the other half where its at? Just > right click on the object and go to >Vertex> click and drag a selection around the part you want to move> Hit the (W) key which will bring up the move tool and drag in the direction you want to go.

Oops..too late:D

@R-Tillery
Yep - this is my problem, doing that just moves it without the grid.

@mtmckinley,
Hmmm - I am using MAYA 4 PLE, which dosn't seem to have that option. I just get a choice between object, world, local and normal.

I can't believe something this basic can be so hard to do....

is your object centerd on the grid? if not do like I said but grab all the vertex and then hold the X key down and snap it to the center and then try it

Yeah, that option is a 4.5+ thing. Sorry.

What is the X key supposed to do? It doesn't seem to have any effect.

X is the shortcut key for Snap to Grid.

Ah. So same problem as before.......

Since they are for a game, they really need to be an exact size. Grrrrrr......

Ah well, thanks for your help.

If you are talking about UT2003 you can scale it down in the uneditor as well, so build it to a farly workable size then import it over and work with it in the editor.

I'm not worried about overall size - thats the easy part, UEd has a drawscale attribute for that.

I'm griping about moving parts of the model around to get the shape right. If the whole model is say 16 units wide, and some feature on the object needs to fit with other objects to buil larger structures, it needs to be a specific size in relation to the overall model size - ie have the right proportions. You can't acheive that by dragging things with the mouse and not using a grid-> it might look like 24 units, but it might be 24.073874832 or 23.99034734. I'm so used to UEd - to do what I want in Ued you just select the vertices, right click the one in the selection you want to snap to the grid, and drag them where you want. MAYA seems not to have that feature unless you either have it at work or spend $6000 on a recent version. Neither is an option for me. Its daft that the version they supply with UT2003 (thats how I got PLE) makes things like this so difficult since they are needed so often for precise polygon placement.

It's only $2k for recent versions... Don't know what to tell you. Maya DOES have the capability you want, just not in your version.

Can´t you change your Units in PLE?
And then grid snap those vertexes?

Your Version has the Ability to do what you want, you just need to know how to do it, If you never been to this site .DigitalTut go here and watch the videos to figure how to do it, It sounds like you need to grab one end and drag it to the next grid by the vertex (I’m not sure) but take some time and IT will come to you, Im in 2 Mods and doing the same thing and Imported a lot of models using the same advice, Maya is the beat tool out there (For Me anyway) I just had to take some time to learn it. But Look at the videos or download the tutorials on this site,,which will really help you out