Move multiple 3d Objects together?

JH
Posted By
Jason_Hurst_Frye
Jan 13, 2009
Views
629
Replies
2
Status
Closed
First off, I am quite pleased with this expansion of the 3D toolset within PS CS4. It is *not* a 3D app, which is fine, but it does make texturing imported 3D objects considerably easier. It essentially simplifies the ZApplink workflow using ZBrush while maintaining your layers [rather than flattening to export back to ZBrush]

Now for my question…

I have imported 3 separate OBJ files as 3D layers. Is there any way to move all 3 objects on the canvas together? As it is, I can only move them independently which throws them out of registration with each other.

I have tried selecting all of the layers at once [shift-click] but the manipulation tools get nulled out. Same thing happens when I group the layers together. I am also not seeing any way to link the layers like you can with a pair of 2D layers.

Suggestions welcome!

[also… in order to get all three objects imported with the same scale and registration, I exported a pair of planes above and below each asset to create a bounding box.]

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M
Mylenium
Jan 13, 2009
No, that’s not possible. PS understands 3D object files as "scenes" rather than objects, it will only allow to merge item entities as they are contained in 3DS or Collada files and then you could move them in unison, but not otherwise. Well, perhaps in CS5… 😉

Mylenium
JH
Jason_Hurst_Frye
Jan 13, 2009
Thanks for the response.

That’s a bummer – it’d be nice to nest said "scenes" inside a larger "scene" that gives a global manipulation control.

I was really looking forward to the idea of turning on/off visibility on certain objects [layers] in order to paint underneath on the meshes below them.

ie: paint the area of a shirt underneath where a tie draped in front of it is obscured.

In the ZApplink approach, I would just mask off the tie in ZBrush prior to dropping it on the canvas and kicking it over to PS.

Still quite a nice step forward.

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