I'm used to being able to nudge/move selected objects within a work space using the arrows on my keyboard. Unless I've missed something, I don't seem to be able to do this in Carrara. I find the fine positioning of objects frustrating as I have to rely on either exact coordinated or use the mouse to drag a selected item which can be hit and miss. Any suggestions? Thanks.

I never used the arrows in RDS. In Carrara I either use exact coordinates (normally what I use) or use the mouse to drag the object around. I havent tried it in Carrara since I didnt use them in RDS. Maybe others use this function and can provide some input. Clint

Nope don't think the arrows work, I just use the left and front view to position my stuff or exact coordinates, its more precise

You might try using a multi-view working window like top/side/front when you drag or try working with the collision feature. There are a lot of short-cuts that seem to be missing that were in RDS & some may be an oversight in the manual. If you were familiar with the Ghost Menue in the Meatball modeler from RDS 5.5 then I did find that the "Ghost Menue" pop-up works in almost any "active" window in all of the rooms. Couldn't find info in the manual about this but it is similar to Meat-ball modeler PDF from RDS 5.5. To access (on MAC) hold down control button & click mouse (& hold a second) and the window will pop-up for instant tool and camera (some) options available in that room. Can't zoom to selection but can drag/zoom to area. Another thing is: you can use the control/arrows to rotate your 3D prview window, shader preview window, vertix model box and spline model box (this one only around Z, others all axis).

what bugs me is that you can't use exact coordinates with the sphere of attraction tool (which you can in Poser of all places...). If you do try what you get is only the items you had selected moving, and not everything in the sphere's area... making precise morph targets difficult at best (I did my elf ears using the grid and snap to and lots of constant saving and undoing...)

Many thanks for your replies. Sadly I'm totally unfamiliar with RDS and Poser, having worked in Infin-D. Being a hybrid of the two programmes, it seemed logical to keep the nudging facility from Infin-D as this was an important feature for fine placing. What I find with Carrara is that when I select a small object from the selection menu that lies within a larger object's bounding box, I can't help but select the larger object when I come to re-position the smaller object. Is anyone following this as I think I've lost the thread of the original question? If it does make sense and there are any thoughts, would love to hear them. Many thanks, IainB

If you are in Wire-frame mode you can select within the bounding box of the item to drag it directly, even if it's inside another object. Can also drag the bounding box on one of the scene window walls to constrain movement. Just click(hold) & drag the item. Make sure you don't select the "object", it must be the bounding box. If you by accident select the outer object you must deselect it and try again. Other option is to "click & hold" your pointer on the area of several objects & a sub-menue list of all objects will pop-up on your window for selection.

You can also move your objects numerically by opening the Transform panel in the properties tray after selecting the object you want to move. You can also do your resizing there as well. Dave

Iain - I don't actually think the arrow-keys work for nudging in RDS; at least they don't work for it in RayDream 3D, and there's not that much difference in the GUI's. Trying to use them to nudge objects results in unpredicted movements that are frustrating to understand. That may be why these RDS folks haven't used the feature before. You might want to send a note off to MetaCreations asking for the feature to be included in later versions of Carrara. (I'd be grateful if the feature were there when I upgrade....)

AzChip, I don't know about RDS3D but you can Nudge objects in RDS Studio with the arrow keys. They will move the object one "grid space" in any direction and is based on the hot point for the object. For veticle movement hold down the option key. Good idea about letting MC know about this for bug/fix for Carrara, they mention it in passing in the manual but I think in refference to the "ghost menue" being so much easier (it's not).