User Guide

Controlling the 3D World 527
Transform properties
Use these properties to work with transforms:
Property Access Description Default
position Get and set Lingo vector object describing the position of
a transform with the value
vector(xOffset, yOffset,
zOffset)
. A model.transform position
represents the model’s position in relation to
its parent.
vector
(0,0,0)
scale
Get and set Lingo vector object describing the x, y, and z
scale of the transform with the vector value
vector(xScale, yScale, zScale).
Scaling is always applied model-relative.
vector
(1,1,1)
rotation
Get and set Lingo vector object describing the
xRotation, yRotation, and
zRotation components of the transform
with the value
vector(xRotation,
yRotation, zRotation)
, with the
rotation values defined in degrees.
This value can vary because of the
permissible types of transform operation. For
example,
translate followed by rotate
gives a different value than
rotate followed
by
translate, and the results can’t be
differentiated after the fact from the rotational
information alone.
The
rotate() and preRotate()
commands are the preferred way to modify a
transform’s orientation. Rotation is generally
relative to the object’s original orientation at
the start of the movie.
vector
(0,0,0)
axisAngle
Get and set A list including a vector and a floating-point
value that describes this transform’s rotation
as an axis/angle pair.
The vector represents the direction, and the
angle represents the rotation around the
vector.
[vector
(1.0000,
0.0000,
0.0000)
A]
x axis
Get and set A vector representing the transform’s
canonical x axis in transform space. Example:
transform.identity()
transform.rotate(0,90,0))
put transform.xaxis
--vector(0,0,-1)
Canonical means reduced to the simplest
possible mathematical expression.
vector
(1,0,0)