Rotate copy and paste for NOOB watch designer

[Rob11]

Hi, Just trialling Designer for watch dial design. Failed at first hurdle. Triangle at 12 o'clock, want to copy and paste every 30 degrees (every 5 minutes)  around the dial. Put the centre of rotation in the dial centre and 30 degrees in "R" in transform. This just moves the triangle to 8 o'clock. What am I doing wrong?

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Rob11

Can you give us a full-screen screenshot showing us what you can see directly prior to you attempting to rotate the triangle?
And can you then tell us – step-by-step, click-by-click, keypress-by-keypress – exactly what you are doing to rotate the triangle?

[Ron P.]

Is this what you're trying to do? If so, I think what you're missing is the Power Duplicate, CTL/CMD + J

 

[Rob11]

Hi, Thanks for all replies. Yes this is exactly what I am trying to do. The problem seems to be that putting 30 degrees in "R" in transform moves it TO a random place on the dial (see screenshot) not BY 30 degrees (12 o'clock being 180 degrees according to Affinity).  (later) I have now recreated the circle in another file and 12 o'clock is now 0 degrees (?!) With you up until the first copy is created at 30 degrees, how are you then creating all the others in 30 degree increments?. By the way, I find that shift and rotate moves the triangle in 15 degree increments (why 15 degrees?, is this a parameter I can change?), might be very useful. Just to add, could this have been caused by my flipping vertically by accident? - in that case, my bad!

Edited July 1, 2022 by Rob11
Addition

[GarryP]

Unless I’m not seeing the full picture I can’t tell where you have rotated the shape from (the original position) so I can’t see how far the shape has been rotated or from where.

Can you show us a before image (with the shape selected) and an after image (with the same shape selected) so we can see what you had before the rotation and what you have after the rotation?

That 15-degree increment cannot be changed – it’s ‘baked’ into the software. (People have requested a change to this.)

[Rob11]

Hi, Triangle at 12 o'clock was selected, copied, pasted (see file1) and then 30 degrees typed in "R" and enter (file2). Cheers

[Dan C]

Hi @Rob11 

6 minutes ago, Rob11 said:

Hi, Triangle at 12 o'clock was selected, copied, pasted (see file1) and then 30 degrees typed in "R" and enter

The triangle you have shown in your screenshots is already rotated 180°, which is why when entering 30° the triangle 'jumps' to this location, as this is 30° from 0°, which would be the 6'oclock position.

In order to rotate the object from it's current location, you need to reset the bounding box (and therefore current rotation value) of the triangle.

Please see the below screen recording for how to achieve this -

I hope this helps!

[GarryP]

The shape is already rotated to 179.7 degrees (why not 180?) so when you type 30 degrees as the rotation value the shape is being rotated to absolute 30 degrees around the centre point which you have specified.
Try typing r-30 or r+30 into the rotation value field instead; by doing so you are specifying a relative rotation rather than an absolute one.

[Rob11]

Hi, Thanks, the r+30 relative/absolute did the trick, I wasn't aware that existed. The 179 degrees was me creating a rushed file. I will make sure in future that 12 o'clock is 0 degrees, don't know how it became 180 degrees. Impressed by the help other members are willing to give a noob, looks like Affinity will be my tool of choice.

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Rob11 said:

could this have been caused by my flipping vertically by accident? - in that case, my bad!

A trick to get the 179/180 rotated "V" set to 0 degrees is to select the "V" and do a boolean Add on it alone. This will make it 0 degrees while retaining the V orientation instead of an "A" which is not what you want.

[Alfred]

16 hours ago, Rob11 said:

Triangle at 12 o'clock, want to copy and paste every 30 degrees (every 5 minutes)  around the dial.

1. Put a second triangle, rotated 180°, at the 6 o’clock position.

2. Group the two triangles to give you an object whose centre of rotation is the centre of the watch dial.

3. Duplicate the group with Cmd+J on Mac or Ctrl+J on Windows.

4. Keeping the duplicate selected, rotate it by 30° for the 11-o’clock/5-o’clock pair.

5. Press Cmd/Ctrl+J again for 10 o’clock and 4 o’clock.

6. Press Cmd/Ctrl+J again for 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock.

7. Press Cmd/Ctrl+J again for 8 o’clock and 2 o’clock.

8. Press Cmd/Ctrl+J again for 7 o’clock and 1 o’clock.

[Rob11]

Excellent, I finally get it. Control J was the missing piece that I didn't understand, this now makes it so easy. Also the Boolean add was very useful in resetting 12 o'clock back to 0 degrees. A combination of all the replies have resolved my problem. Sure I will be back on this forum.