9.5.2

COORDINATE MANAGER • 745
16. Coordinate Manager
You can also set the position, scale and rotation of objects using the Attribute
manager. In addition, the Attribute manager’s context menu enables you to
animate these and other object properties directly, without having to open
the Timeline. See Chapter 21, ‘Attribute manager’.
The Coordinate manager allows you to manipulate objects numerically. It displays information relating
to the tool you are using. For example, if you are using the move tool, the position, size and rotation
values of the selected element are shown. Once you have made changes to the values, apply the
changes by clicking on Apply.
You can use the drop-down list in the bottom left corner to determine how the values are interpreted.
If the menu is set to Object, all the values relate to the object’s (immediate) parent system. If the menu
is set to World, the position and rotation values are converted to world coordinates. The rotation
values always use the HPB System.
The drop-down list below the middle coordinates column species which object size is shown.
Size shows the size of the object not including child objects. Size+, on the other hand, shows the
size of the active object including all child objects. Scale shows the axis length for each axis of the
object coordinate system — the default values are 1/1/1. The size or scale is also specied in world
coordinates, although along the local axes. For example, if a cube with a side length of 100 lies askew
in 3D space, it still has a size of 100 units in world coordinates.
When an object is added as a child of a parent, the scale of the child’s axes are adjusted so that the
child appears normal with respect to the world axes. For example, if the parent’s X:Y:Z axis scale is 4:
1:1, then when an object is made a child of the parent, the scale of the child’s axes will be 0.25:
1:1.
You can also enter relative values. CINEMA 4D has a parser which enables you to include mathematical
operators. For example, you can append ‘+100’ to an existing position value. The active element will
then move 100 units relative to its initial position. CINEMA 4D supports many other functions — see
the Appendices for a complete list of valid operators, functions and constants.
As previously mentioned, the type of information displayed in the Coordinate manager depends on
which tool is active. For example, if the Camera tool is active, you can enter the focal length for the
lens instead of its scale. Some values must be entered as relative, such as for the rotation of points.
This is because points do not have their own independent coordinate system, so CINEMA 4D cannot
keep track of previous rotations.