The Tips in detail

 "Placing objects on faces."

Make your sphere.

Make a smaller cube.

Translate the cube so that it is in the place you want it to be (ie: right outside the surface of the sphere)

Go into the hierarchy menu and chose affect pivot and align the pivot point to the center of the sphere. Now when you rotate the cube, it will spin around the outside of the sphere.

Assign a EulerXYZ controller to the rotation of the cube so you can control the rotate of different axes independently

Animate the rotation of the cube around one axis (ie - x-axis) of the sphere so that it makes one revolution in 10 frames. Create a loop for this in the out-of-range controllers. Then animate the z-axis rotatation so there is one-half a revolution (180 degrees) in 100. This will animate the cube moving over the surface of the sphere and also cover most of the surface area (rather than just covering one path that would be equivalent to running around the equator. Think of the motion as similar to Superman flying around the Earth to reverse the rotation and save Lois Lane - only you would be covering the polar regions too. Whew --- I hope that made sense.

Okay --- next step. Select the cube and use the path array to create a whole bunch of cubes based on the frame numbers. All the cubes will be on the surface of the sphere and aligned with the normals. AND each sphere will have its pivot in the center of the sphere and can be independently animated. You can now delete the intial sphere with the animation on it.

Voila et Voici

Now --- if you want to get fancy and be able to have the cubes rotate on their own center - then .....

Do the steps up to the point where you adjust the pivot point. But keep the pivot in the center of the cube. Instead, create a dummy and align it to the center of the sphere.

Link the Cube to the dummy.

Create the rotations that you did for the cube, but this time do it to the dummy.

Create the path array like before.

You will have to create a dummy for each cube, however --- this could get confusing when you start to animate, so get to be friends with the Select By Name box. Or you can select the cube you want to animate and hit the Page Up key to move up the hierarchy to the proper Dummy.

Now - you can have the cubes moving around the surface of the sphere, but you can also animate the rotation of the cube around its own center. Its similar to the Solar System. The Earth orbits around the Sun, but it rotates on its own axis.

I hope this all makes sense.

from: Thomas Edison <ducky@maxinkcafe.com>