I had the same issue of controlling rotations on an object with their local axis transformed. I looked into Quaternions and just decided to go the lazy way: use a container per rotation axis. I would do something like:
RotationXContainer > RotationYContainer > CubeContainer > Your 6 Panels. Then you can just control rotations using the individual containers. I used a custom cube like object for this project: http://www.wemakedotcoms.com/portfolio/stc/porfolio/STC_Portfolio_loader.html And this is the project I had to use containers for rotations: http://www.wemakedotcoms.com/_projects/stc09/locationsMap/STC_Locations_Map_3D.html I ported a PV3D example for this 3D earth thing that used Quaternions and since I didn't get it (I have a smallish brain) I used containers. This containers (or handles) technique is an old 3D trick. Its especially useful for orbiting objects! Finally, I would do a container on the Panels too! The container is where you rotate the panel and you use the actual Plane to translate only (move). That way you can easily animate it using tweens too! Since you don't have to worry about local transformations (especially rotations) you know that to move any panel away from the center you just increase its plane y. Cheers, Jerome.
