How do I align objects in a parcel?

[IvyTechEngineer]

Hello

I would like to align an object to the parcel x, y, and z orientations inside a building that is rotated. Most of the time I just use trial and error to align objects but is there a better way?

Thanks

ivytechengineer

[Lindal Kidd]

This is why almost all buildings in SL are NOT rotated, but are aligned with the world's XYZ axes. If you rotate your house, you then have to rotate everything in it, from the cat's litter box to the pictures on the wall.

It might be easier to start with your house aligned to the world axes, place your objects, then SHIFT+Drag to select everything and rotate them all as a group.

If that's not an option, or you only want to align a few objects, then what I would do is to first select the house itself and note the rotation(s) in the edit window. Then select your object, and manually set the same rotation(s) in the numeric windows. Repeat for each object you wish to align to your home.

Note that many objects are already rotated, and what is the Z axis for the home and the world may not be the Z axis for the object. If you rotate something and it turns around an axis you were not expecting, use CTRL+Z to undo the rotation and apply the correct numerical rotation again, but to a different axis.

All of the above is to align an object to another object (a house) that is not aligned to the world axes. If what you want to do is to align an object in the house TO the world axes, that's much easier. Just select and Edit the object, and set the rotation values in the numerical boxes to 0 (or possibly to 90, 180, or 270, depending on how you want the object to be facing).

When rotating something, I will often manually rotate it into the approximately correct position, then note the numerical readings and correct any of them that are close to 90, 180, 270, 0 or 360 by typing in the final value to nudge it into exact alignment.

.

The boxes I've circled in yellow are the ones you want to be using for all of this.

[Rolig Loon]

On 10/13/2022 at 11:33 AM, Lindal Kidd said:

If that's not an option, or you only want to align a few objects, then what I would do is to first select the house itself and note the rotation(s) in the edit window. Then select your object, and manually set the same rotation(s) in the numeric windows. Repeat for each object you wish to align to your home.

Notice that if you do that, the rotation will be applied correctly but you will still need to move the objects.  After all, items that are not linked to the house will not have turned around the house's Z axis when you rotated it.  They will still be right where they were before.  So, applying the new rotation to them is not enough.  As Lindal says, the easiest solution is therefore not to rotate unlinked objects individually.  Instead, select the entire house and all of its contents and rotate them as a coalesced object so they they all rotate together.

[Love Zhaoying]

When aligning items in a parcel, the Axes are your Allies.

[Lindal Kidd]

On 10/13/2022 at 12:33 PM, Lindal Kidd said:

If that's not an option, or you only want to align a few objects, then what I would do is to first select the house itself and note the rotation(s) in the edit window. Then select your object, and manually set the same rotation(s) in the numeric windows. Repeat for each object you wish to align to your home.

To clarify what I meant by this...

Let's say you have a house that's not aligned to the world axes. You check the Edit window and see that it's rotated to 30 degrees on the Z axis.

Now you want to align your sofa to the house's wall. You first plop the sofa down as normal, and its rotation is 0,0,0. So you change the last number to 30, to match the house. Or, depending on which wall you're putting the sofa against, 90+30 = 120, 180+30 = 210, or 270+30 = 300.