Center Manipulation

Center manipulation lets you move the center of an object without moving its points. This changes the default pivot point used for rotation and scaling. You can transform the center interactively, or you can move it to the geometric center of selected points.

It's important to note that center manipulation is actually a deformation. As the center is moved, the geometry is compensated to stay in place. In the explorer, you can see a Center deformation in the object's operator stack. For this reason, it is sometimes necessary to freeze an object's operator stack after moving its center in certain situations, such as if you want to use it as a cage deformer.

Because it is a deformation, you cannot manipulate the center of non-geometric objects. This includes nulls, bones, implicit objects, control objects, and anything else without points.

Note

For non-geometric objects, Center mode is ignored. The object is transformed as if in Object mode.
You cannot animate the center. However, you can animate the object pivot which is used for playing back animated scaling and rotations. See Working with Object Pivots.

To transform an object's center

Select an object.
Activate Center on the Select panel.
Scale, rotate, or translate the center as needed.
When you have finished, turn off center manipulation mode by clicking it again, or by activating another filter on the Select panel.

To translate an object's center to the center of selected points or cluster

Select one or more points or a cluster.

If you select an object, its center moves to the geometric center of all points.
Choose Transform Move Center to Vertices.

The object's center moves to the geometric center of the selected points or cluster.

To translate an object's center to the center of its bounding box

Select an object, one or more points, or clusters.
Choose Transform Move Center to Bounding Box.

The object's center moves to the center of the bounding box of the object, points, or clusters.