Ortho Pivot is a 3ds Max tool: turn it on once and the Move gizmo follows whatever you select, lining up with its real axes — object, edge, face, vertex, spline — so you slide a wall, a beam or a coping straight along itself instead of fighting the world grid. No working plane to set up, no pivot to touch, nothing to put back afterwards. It runs quietly in the background while you work. Not sure? Try it free for 3 days — the complete tool, nothing disabled. If you buy afterwards, the same install becomes the full version. The daily friction it removes Almost nothing you model sits on the world grid. A wall at 23°, a beam on a slope, an imported facade panel, a kitbashed prop, a CAD assembly. The geometry is easy — moving it is the fight, because the gizmo only knows X, Y and Z. So you orbit the view and hope, or set up a working plane, or Affect Pivot Only and remember to put it back. What it aligns to Object — its own axes, height stays in Z. Groups sit at the centre of their members. Edge — along the edge, pivot at its midpoint. Vertex — along a connected edge. Border — an open Editable Poly / Edit Poly contour, read as its edge loop: pivot centred, axis along the contour. Face / element — on the plane of the face, pivot at the centre. Several vertices or edges — pivot centred, axis along the direction the selection forms. Splines — along the segment; on an end knot, along its line, so you extend an extremity straight out. Modifier gizmos — at a gizmo sub-object level, the Move gizmo takes that gizmo’s own axes instead of the object’s: UVW Map, Bend, Taper, Twist, Stretch, Squeeze, Ripple, Wave, FFD, Symmetry, Slice and Displace. This is what makes Max’s own Align tool usable there. Re-click the same edge, vertex or face to cycle through the other sensible orientations. Why not just a working plane It doesn’t need a face. Work from an edge, a vertex, a spline segment, a handful of points. It moves the gizmo, not your coordinate system. Nothing to reset, nothing left behind. It re-aims itself as you pick something else — no re-setting between operations. It keeps up with heavy geometry — millisecond axis detection on dense imported meshes. You can see it’s running, without looking While Ortho is on, your selection turns blue in the viewport. That is the entire interface. Switch it off and your normal selection colour comes straight back. Non-destructive Ortho only drives the Working Pivot. Your real object pivot is never modified. Toggle it off and your previous coordinate system is exactly as it was. Where it stops On a perfectly square section, the first direction is one of the two equal candidates; click again for the other. It aligns the move gizmo. It does not assemble parts and does not rotate objects. New in 1.4 Its own toolbar, installed for you. A real, dockable 3ds Max toolbar with the four buttons — Ortho Pivot, Bake, Bake in place, Face Z. Nothing to place by hand in Customize, and it comes back on every start. The main button shows when the tool is running. Bake in place. Moves the object pivot to where the gizmo sits: the centre of a group, a face, an edge, a vertex. Geometry and group members never move. Face Z. One click turns the viewport to look straight at the gizmo's plane and zooms to fit, always from your side of the plane. One click to face a tilted surface head on. Splines on a slope. A planar shape tilted in space now aligns to its own plane rather than the world one, in object mode and at sub-object level. New in 1.3 Open borders. An Editable Poly or Edit Poly border, an open edge contour, now aligns the gizmo along it. Earlier versions could not read that selection and fell back to the object. 45 degree snap at spline ends. Click the end vertex of a spline and the gizmo X locks onto the last segment; click the same end again and it turns by exactly 45 degrees, then 45 more (45, 90, 135), so you extend an extremity on a clean angle. Bake is bindable, and it steps aside. The Shift+click bake can also be assigned to a shortcut (Ortho Pivot Bake), and after a bake the tool drops back to the normal Move on its own. Rock solid on deformed splines. On a spline deep in a modifier stack (Conform, Spline Chamfer), the gizmo lands on the shape you see in the viewport, not the base shape underneath. Smoother. No flicker while tracking on heavy scenes. New in 1.2Bake to object pivot. Shift+click the Ortho Pivot button and the alignment it just worked out is applied to your object’s real pivot. The geometry does not move. A plain click still just toggles the tool: it stays one button, because that is the whole point of it.Licensing moved into a compiled component instead of the script.New in 1.1 Modifier gizmos. At a gizmo sub-object level in the modifier stack, the Move gizmo now takes that gizmo’s own axes instead of the object’s. UVW Map, Bend, Taper, Twist, Stretch, Squeeze, Ripple, Wave, FFD, Symmetry, Slice and Displace are covered. This is what makes Max’s own Align tool usable at that level. Several vertices selected. The plane you slide in is now read from the faces inside the selection, so a region-select on a flat element gives you a level gizmo instead of a tipped one. Re-click cycles through the other planes. Good to know 3ds Max 2021 and newer (tested on 2024, 2025, 2026 and 2027). Freelance licence = 1 seat (one workstation); Studio licence = up to 5 seats within one company. Activation is online and one-time, and the licence is tied to that workstation; new machine or reinstalled Windows, just email me and I move the seat over. Drag the .mzp into a viewport to install; an “Ortho Pivot Uninstall” command removes it cleanly. Try before you buy A free 3-day trial runs the complete tool on your own scenes. Nothing is disabled or watermarked, and buying later turns that same install into the full version, with nothing to reinstall.