Scale down but still snap the grid to maintain...

Thewiruz

Hello
i have a problem.I made a mesh for UDK and its way to big.I have a 16X16 segment grid.I want the mesh to snap the grid while scale it down so it maintain its ratio if you guys know what i mean?

I cant figure out how to scale the damn mesh down,it always ends up outside the grid with no precision at all.I can do this manually but then i have to guess how high the mesh should be and in the end it doesn't fit with other modular pieces

i have made a picture of the problem if that helps?



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Mark Dygert

Which part do you want to snap to the "snap here" area? The far end closest to the viewcube?

What I would do, is scale it by eye balling it as close as possible, then snap the verts to the grid in the corresponding viewports.

Thewiruz

Ahh ok!
So there is not any precision tool for this?
The best should have been if the end vertices could snap the grid in both ends while
scaling the mesh down but i guess thats impossible in MAX!

Thanks for your help.i will try that!

JordanW

I usually create a FFD and move those corner points to the points on the grid i want my object to line up

peppi

You could also calculate your scale factor manually and put that into the transform type-in field (just underneath the viewport), e.g. if the object is 28 units long and you want it to be 17 units, you'd divide target length by current length and get 17/28=0.60714

Thewiruz

Thanks guys!!!

cw

JordanW wrote: »

I usually create a FFD and move those corner points to the points on the grid i want my object to line up

+1 for this way.

Mark Dygert

JordanW wrote: »

I usually create a FFD and move those corner points to the points on the grid i want my object to line up

Thats a pretty good method, I like it.

But you do have to be careful, it does have the potential to cause a problem but if you're aware of it you can check and compensate for it.

If the vert you want to snap doesn't align with a FFD point and you snap the FFD box to the grid your mesh will be off grid.
FFD is set to the outermost bounding of the object. If you have ever worked with the selection bounding box on its kind of the same thing.

If there are off grid verts that hang over the on grid verts you could end up off grid if you move the off grid FFD box on grid, instead of the verts themselves.




If the FFD lands on the vert you want then all is good, but you might want to make sure rather than assume it's perfect. Either way you go it's a good idea to double check and make planar a few edges and verts before nudging things around.

This isn't so much of a problem with straight wall pieces but when you get into cliff faces where the tiling edge might have an irregular jagged edge it probably won't work so well.

They're all tools in the toolbox make sure to pick the best one for whatever you're working on at the moment!

sprunghunt

I'll usually just, apply an edit poly, scale the object down to the size I want then snap verts to the grid. This way I can just delete the edit poly to get back to the original if necessary.

Thewiruz

sprunghunt this was clever! I always apply a edit poly in other situations ,why not now?

r_fletch_r

xform modifier would be another choice.