The polygon editor’s Scale Tool Group consists of the Scale Element Tool, and the Scale Normal Tool. Scaling polygons happens uniformly by default, using the selection center as scaling center. However, scaling can also take place along a standard axis, relative to a selection normal or along a custom grid or guide. Scaling polygons, vertices and edges generally produces the same results.
Rotation for any element (polygon, edge, vertex) is;
1. Free-form, Uniform
2. Perpendicular to grid
3. Along standard axis (X, Y, Z)
4. Along custom axis/guide
5. Relative to selection normal
6. Scaling single edges
1. Free-form, Uniform
2. Perpendicular to grid
3. Along standard axis (X, Y, Z)
4. Along custom axis/guide
5. Relative to selection normal
6. Scaling single edges
Tools are organized into tool groups. Each tool within the tool group can have its own key, but can be cycled to via a ‘tool group’ key. By default, the K key cycles the tool group, but also activates the current tool within the group when another tool is currently active.
Scale Element
Tool
Scale Normal
Tool
Scale Element Tool
1. Free-form, Uniform
By default scaling is uniform. The active grid is used to interpret mouse movement but otherwise doesn’t affect the result of the scale operation.
The Scale Element tool takes the selected elements and scales them uniformly around the selection center, but relative to the active grid. This can generally be thought of as simple scaling mode.
The center of scaling can be changed to center of grid/guide by pressing Shift+Period.
Top, Scale around selection center.
Bottom, Scale around grid center.
Bottom, Scale around grid center.
2. Perpendicular to Grid
Perpendicular to grid guides allow for scaling perpendicular to the current active grid.
To use, simply set the desired grid then use Shift+Command(Ctrl) to enable this guide mode. This is particularly useful when using custom grids.
Y grid active. Scaling is perpendicular to grid with Shift+Command(Ctrl).
X grid active. Scaling is perpendicular to grid with Shift+Command(Ctrl).
3. Along a Standard Axis
Standard axis guides allows for scaling independently of the current active grid.
When modifiers for these standard guides/axis are held, a line (guide) appears indicating the scaling direction. A guide appears both at the center of the world grid and also in icon form at the world trident. To rotate around the:
X axis, hold Shift+X
|
Y axis, hold Shift+C
|
Z axis, hold Shift+Z
|
Y axis, hold Shift+C
|
Z axis, hold Shift+Z
Z axis guide activated. Even though the X grid is active, holding Shift+Z causes the Z axis to be the scaling axis.
X axis guide activated. Even though the X grid is active, holding Shift+C causes the C axis to be the scaling axis.
4. Along Custom Guide
Once a guide is assigned (in this case to an edge), transformation takes place along this custom guide regardless of the active grid. Pressing Shift+Period will enable or disable guide center relative operations.
Refer to the section on Custom Guides for more information on their use.
When BLUE, guide origin indicates the center of scaling is at the selection center.
When RED, guide origin indicates the scaling center is the guide origin.
Scale Normal Tool
5. Relative to Selection Normal
The averaged normal of the selection will be used for the scaling axis. In the left example the single polygon has a normal, indicated by the green line. The polygon is scaled around this.
Press Shift+Period to switch between center modes. Note, the origin will only turn red to indicate grid/guide center activation while in the Rotation and Scale tools inside Edit Object mode.
Selection normal. Scaling happens around the selected polygon normal.
Group selection normal. Scaling happens around the selected group normal.
6. Scaling Single Edges Using the Scale Normal Tool
For edges, the Scale Normal tool has some nuanced functionality depending on what is selected.
If a series of unconnected, single edge ‘islands’, is selected, each edge will be scaled along its length.
If two or more edges are selected forming a loop (2 edges can be a loop), then a group normal is calculated for that loop and scaling happens around that normal direction (basically like a polygon).
The Scale Normal tool scales lone edges along the edges current ‘vector’.
