MAYA Moving multiple faces along their normals

[imagika]

Hi,

I am prepping an Architectural model for prototyping and have run into a problem with the windows, currently they have been extruded out from the surface, I need to inset them all from the surface.

I have resigned myself to making a selection of all the windows ( several hundred ) , but i can't
for the life of me work out how to set them all back locally.

Essentially i need the functionality you would get if you were to Extrude the selected faces but without adding any faces.

I am using Maya 2009

Please help, need to get this finished ASAP.

Thanks in advance!

 

[samwich]

Not sure if I entirely understand your question, but do you just want to move the faces back relative to their current position? You could try the MEL script for move

http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/info/maya/manual/Commands/move.html

So, you would select your faces and type something like
move -relative -1 0 0. That would move all the faces relative to their current position back 1 unit on the X axis.

I apologize if this isn't what you meant.

 

[vizfxman]

Are all of your windows in a group, and is the group node zeroed out?

My thought is that you adjust the group node's Tx channel.

Another thought is that you center the pivot of that group before you make the translation, though I'm not sure if that will matter.

 

[mBox]

Are all of your windows in a group, and is the group node zeroed out?

My thought is that you adjust the group node's Tx channel.

Another thought is that you center the pivot of that group before you make the translation, though I'm not sure if that will matter.

yea if they are grouped then it will inherit the top nodes axis.
gotta love Extrude in Maya
Can you do a follow up as to how you fixed this?
Im not sure how you lost each faces local axis, unless you accidentally pressed on Insert then moved without knowing.
Yep done that a few times