Where objects are created

[haskul]

When you create an object is there a way to have it appear in the centre of your modeling view instead of the centre of the scene This would be a real time saver. Any ideas? Thanks.

[gmask]

You might beable to write a script that snaps the object to the center of focus for the currently selected camera or specific camera.

[naughty]

well, by default, an object stays selected after it has been created.
All you have to do to snap the object to the center of the current viewport is click-drag the Middle Mouse Button.
As long as you have the move tool selected (press W) and grid snap on (press-hold X if not) the object you just created will snap to wherever on the viewport you clicked.

Centering the object in a perspective view isn't as simple in practice as the "center" point is actually a line of infinite length stretching off into the distance and I don't think there is any useful way to determine where on that line the object should be moved to.
so, although you could move it to an arbitrary point on that "line" it would most likely be too far away or behind the viewport and not in the world position you really want.

actually, maybe there is a way of determining a useful world-space position along this "line" based on the rotation and "Center Of Interest" values of the camera... If you converted the camera's rotation matrix into a Z vector of the same length as the "center of Interest" value you could probably calculate the position of it's target based on it's own position. My maths isn't that good though so I can't tell you how to actually do that...

does that make sense?

:nathaN

[eep]

Any way to make newly created objects appear where a selected object is? Just take the selected object's center pivot point and create the object there. Can a MEL script be created for this and/or Maya's existing "create" MEL scripts be modified to include this option?

[goli]

As soon as you have created the object it will be "selected". Simply hitting the "f" key will center the object in your currently active viewport.

Will this not suffice or do you need it in the center of your currently active focus?

[kunzang]

I'm using the suggestion made gmask to solve this one

string $panelQuery = getPanel -wf;
string $cameraShape = modelPanel -q -cam $panelQuery;
$cameraShape = $cameraShape+ "Shape";
float $transFloat[];
$transFloat = camera -q -wci $cameraShape;

xform -ws -a -t $transFloat[0] $transFloat[1] $transFloat[2];

[campbell]

Also Daniel Goupil has written a script to do just this, MoveObj2View ...and then there there were two!

c.

[naughty]

I don't think object creation is accessable as MEL script unfortunately...
I would have thought object creation was something scriptJob could pick up but it doesn't appear to be.. I'll post a query on it now.

Something I have set up which could incorporate what you want is a replaced RMB menu that has sub menus "copy&paste" with several options for copying and pasting an object's Pivot, DAG positon, or world location.
Basically if I want any object to have the same world position as another I right-click the destination object and select copy>position then right-click on the object to move and select Paste>position. This also works on multiple objects and once a position is "stored" I can continually paste>position without re-copying (until I need to copy a new location!).

:nathaN