Align edge of one object to the edge of another object

[stevesideas]

I've looked through max's tools and scriptspot but cannot find anything capable of doing this. I've attached an image that shows what I need. I don't want to align the objects together based on rotation. I need to align the objects based on the edges. So the dark purple plane would align to the light blue plane based on the two edges that are facing.

[joconnell]

Ah - most of the time if there's a weird edge, I'll turn on vertex snap and then drag a tape helper object from one vert to another on the blue object and the start of the tape object will get an axis that I can align to.

[Franx]

I think this will do exactly what you need :
http://www.vg2max.spb.ru/download.html
Get the "vgpack" scripts pack at the top of the page.
It's the one called Advanced Rotate in the zip file.
Objects must be snapped together by one corner, just like your image.

[flino2004]

It's incredible that you have to use an script to do a basic operation that any application has a default tool.

[stevesideas]

Thanks Franx. I totally agree flino. These tools should be part of max already. Oh well, thank goodness for coders

[Morne]

I sometimes wish they would add some autocad functions into max, some stuff is just so much easier in autocad, this being one of them. Autocad's loft is also 100 times better

[rivoli]

yep, it's quite absurd to have to resort to any workaround or script for something as obvious as that.. in those cases I usually use normal align, which I find quite fast as workaround. if the objects don't have actual faces where I need them to align, splines or planes, I extrude or shell and then get rid of the modifiers. annoying but it works..

[Neilg]

either select both, shell modifier, normal align, delete modifier.

or do a center-end-end arc and subtract the from and to values from each other to get the rotation amount.

The first method is hardly a workaround at a handful of clicks and 10 seconds, less if you're quick. If you have multiple ones to do copy the shell modifier to cut that down by half.