Hi guys, new user here. I'm poking around in the UI trying to become familiar with it, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to manipulate an object in screen space.

In Maya, if I want to translate an object in screen space, I click and drag in the middle of the manipulator. But in Houdini, clicking and dragging in the middle transforms the object on it's local XZ plane.

I edit objects and components in screen space ALL THE TIME and love it, so I'm hoping it's just a setting I'm missing somewhere in Houdini.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

RMB on the handle and select Align Handle > View
the Hotkey “m” will cycle through the different options

Outstanding! Thanks!

shift-m also reverses the cycle - very handy!

Earlier I was also facing the same problem. Thanks it really helped me out

Just remember that the grid will force you to translate objects on the XZ plane. Hide the grid and you can move in screen space.

I find this grid constrain very frustrating and voiced my opinion on several occasions.

Another neat trick is to go to Edit, Preferences an go to Handles. Here you can change the MMB Translate handle to Drag in View Plane. Much nicer when posing character controls, as you don't have to place the mouse pointer on the handle…this can be done from anywhere in the viewport, and works fine when the grid is visible.

I turn OFF the construction plane and turn ON the XZ plane - save as default.