3 Ways to Move the Pivot to the Origin in Maya 2019

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A lot of things are done best in Maya using pivots. And one of the most common pivots we need is the origin (0, 0, 0). On this tutorial you’ll learn how to move the pivot to the origin, each has its pros and cons. Take a look.

1. Resetting the object’s transformations

If you don’t care losing your object’s position, rotation and scaling information, this is the easiest and fastest way to do it. Don’t worry if you think your object will lose its parenting configuration because it won’t.

To reset the pivot to origin but also resetting the other transform attributes

1. Press and hold W, click anywhere in the viewport and drag it to the left to choose the World Axis orientation in the Move Tool marking menu.
2. Select the object you want to modify
3. Choose [Modify > Reset Transformations]

2. Typing in the value in the transform node using the Attributes Editor

If you not feeling like moving the pivot around using the mouse you can type the values.

To reset the pivot to origin using the keyboard

1. Select the object you want to modify
2. Open the Attributes Editor (Ctrl+A)
3. Choose the transform tab (usually the first one)
4. Type 0 in both local and world space values

3. Using the mouse, snapping to the grid

For completion this method of doing has been added too. This is the simplest way to do it.

1. Be sure you’re in object mode (object and component mode can be toggled by pressing F8)
2. Hold D and X, drag & drop the yellow marker to the center of the grid, it will snap.

4. (BONUS) Using a MEL command button (or shortcut)

This way of doing it has been added as a bonus simply because using scripts is sometimes felt like an overkill. But, if you see yourself doing this time and time again, creating a script and associating it with a new button in the shelf can save you some precious modeling time.

Running the command using a button

1. Open the Script Editor [Windows > Script Editor]
2. Type xform -ws -a -piv 0 0 0; in the input box
3. Save it to the shelf [File > Save Script to Shelf…]
4. Enter an appropriate name, I suggest Reset pivot to origin

Optionally you can also customize the icon and position of this button

Right click in the just created button of the shelf and select Edit

Change the position of it by pressing the up and down arrow icons

Change its icon by pressing the M maya button

Running the command using a shortcut

If you don’t mind spending a hotkey combination with this action you can do the following to create a shortcut for resetting the pivot to the origin

1. Open the Hotkey Editor [Windows > Settings/Preference > Hotkey Editor]
2. Select the Runtime Command Editor tab in the left pane
3. Click New, type xform -ws -a -piv 0 0 0; in the big input box, give it a name and save.
4. Back in the right panel, click Choose a category… and choose Custom Scripts, assign a hotkey combination for it.

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