From the course: 3ds Max 2026 Essential Training

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Prioritizing rotation axes

Prioritizing rotation axes - 3ds Max Tutorial

From the course: 3ds Max 2026 Essential Training

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Prioritizing rotation axes

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- [Instructor] In the chapter on cameras, we saw the importance of gimbal coordinate system and the priority of rotation axes. Now we need to revisit that. Anytime we build a hierarchy, we need to make sure that we set up the axis order for predictable rotations. And additionally, we always need to animate using gimbal reference coordinate system. With the rotate tool active and the reference coordinate system sent to local, I'll select the shoulder right object. We see that the pivot point is aligned with the geometry. Well, let's go deeper. I'll right click on the rotate tool and that launches the transform type in dialogue. If I rotate the object around, let's say it's X-axis in local coordinates, we don't see any change in the transform type in area. The values are always at zero. Okay, I'll undo that with Ctrl + Z. The object is always going to be rotated zero degrees relative to itself. It can only be rotated to some non-zero value relative to something else, it's parent. And if…

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