clone mod - rotation and grouping issues

[gusar]

Hi,
congrats for such a great plug...it is VERY useful to me...
but I have some problems with rotation part...it doesn`t allow to set the center of rotation...I have tried to adjust pivot, but it doesnt respond, as it is allways using "reseted" pivot....
another thing is cloning groups, it works fine as long as all group parts have same orientation, but when they dont, clone will not work...ie it works but objects are spreaded "all around"
eh, and yes, another thing I would like to see is cloning shapes, tho when I put editmesh mod on shape it works...
anyway, thanx again for this great plug...
G

[iToo]

Well, really not any modifier uses the pivot point, because these type of plugins work at 'object' level, and the pivot is stored in the 'node'. For example: if you create a copy of an object as an 'instance', the same object (with all its modifiers) is used in two different nodes and each of them has its own pivot point.

It's the same problem when cloning groups. Clone (as all modifiers) has not information about the pivot point, the plugin is applied before the nodes and group calculations will be performed... i know this is not easy to understand, but is part of the geometry pipeline system of 3D Studio.

To modify the center of rotation, the modifiers must implement a 'Gizmo' at sub-object level, but by now Clone has not this feature.

We have a lot of ideas for the next release of Clone (including support for shapes and polys too), but we must to finish other projects before.

[gusar]

thx for ur response...
so far, I have found solution for rotation this way...
clone translation + bend mod....but it is very hard to control, and when u change number of clones or distance or whatever, need to tweak bend...and result is never precise as it would be if submod gizmo for rotation is available....
then again, some of my scenes contain more than 50 % of ur clone....and now, I wouldn`t know what to do without it...pricele$$....wonder why it is free....suppose ppl didn`t understand it`s value....good for me, hehe....