Coordinate 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 or pressing the Return key.

The (local) object properties Scale, Position and Rotation can be changed and animated directly in the Attribute Manager’s Coord. tab (e.g.: Example).

You can use the drop-down list in the bottom left corner to determine how the values are interpreted.

3 modes are available:

Object (Rel): The relative object location without frozen coordinates (same as the main coordinates in the Attribute Manager’s Coord tab)
Object (Abs): The relative object location as a combination of Object (Rel) and the frozen coordinates.
World

The drop-down list below the middle coordinates column specifies 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.

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.

The size or scale is also specified 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.

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.

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.

Note that you may be changing the axes of child objects unintentionally when you change the axes of the parent. Try to avoid using world coordinates for animated rotation. CINEMA 4D converts all world coordinates into local coordinates, which can lead to unexpected behavior if you do not use local coordinates in the first place.

UV Elements

Selected UV points’ and polygons’ position, scale and rotation can be modified numerically. The position is always relative to the center (i.e., the center of gravity) of the selected elements in UV space. Values less than 0 and greater than 1 can also be used, whereby the (tiled) outer work space will then be used. Scaling and rotation (whose values will be set to 100% / 0° after the transformation) will also take place around the center of gravity.