Get an overview of the group nodes in VRED and outline transform groups as an example.
Please note, there may be differences between your version of VRED and the video. See the video captions below for updated instructions.
Video captions: This tutorial will give you an overview of the group nodes in Autodesk VRED Professional and will outline transform groups by means of an example. In this sample, we use a cube that you can create over the main menu. Please select Scene in the main menu bar and create a box, via Create Geometry. The values you can set for the size and resolution of the to-be-created geometry are prompted. For sides along all axiis, we choose a value of 10 and keep resolution at its default value. To achieve an overview of the geometry, please open the Scenegraph via the Quick Access Bar.
Autodesk VRED creates a cube which is now available as polygonal geometry, which is designated as a symbol consisting of a blue area shaped by three connecting dots. To zoom in closer and center our cube in the viewport at the same time, we use the Frame All command. For this, we activate, with our geometry selected, the renderview, by clicking it with the left mouse button. Please continue by using the shortcut, F, for Frame All.
As next step, we create a group and subordinate the recently created cube to it. Autodesk VRED offers us the possibility to make this happen with the Create menu in the Scenegraph. For this purpose, please open the Scenegraph menu with the right mouse button and select group under the Create option. The name of our group is automatically highlighted in grey and can be changed. We change the name to Box_GRP and append it to our cube geometry. Now we select the cube and drag it, via drag and drop, onto our group object. All new modifications will now take effect on all subordinate objects of the group and not just exclusively to the selected group.
To demonstrate this more clearly, we now move the group in any direction and additionally scale it freely. With the selected group in the Scenegraph, we activate the renderview by selecting our window with the left mouse button and then calling upon the transformation commands that can be activated with the shortcuts, Shift+W or Shift+R. With Shift+W we can move our object and with Shift+R we can scale it along the available axis. Please move the cube along the Y axis, with the Shift key held down, and scale it in all axiis of a value of your choosing. The icon of your group changes to one illustrating the axis of a coordinate system, which indicates a modification of the group’s transformation node. It will only become visible after we update our Scenegraph with the left mouse button, upon which the symbol will automatically be refreshed.
The next step will be moving our cube geometry, or more dragging it via drag and drop, to the outside of the group. As you can see, the geometry is no longer subordinate to the group and switches to its original size and position, your original transformation coordinates. Put differently, the transform information of the group is no longer taking its effect on our cube but is still stored. If we assign our cube back to the group, the translations will again be applied to our geometry.