Curious, I've noticed that when you put objects on to a sphere they are not oriented consistently in tangent space unless you you “fix” the up vector with a rotation of “33”.

Is there a reason for this?

Markus

P.S. I attach a simple example file (apprentice) showing the problem and solution.

It's not that “33” is anything special because the default values for $UPX, $UPY, $UPZ are all 0, you're actually using an up vector (0,33,0), which is (0,1,0) when normalized. ie. if you delete the channels on the up vector parameter, and put in (0, 1, 0), you will get the same result. In your other example, you've given the Copy SOP no up vector, so that's why they're not fully oriented.

Got it. Thanks.