Scaling

 
 
 

Scaling an object changes its size. You can uniformly expand or shrink an object on all axes to uniformly change its size, or you can scale an object on only one axis to deform it.

Selected object in the Viewer window displays with Scaling handles for scaling the object on each axis

For example, in the preceding figure, the sofa has Scaling handles that you can drag with your mouse to scale the object.

In order to scale objects, you must put the Viewer window in scaling mode.

Scaling mode

When you are in Scaling mode, Scaling handles appear on any selected object. Each Scaling handle is color-coded to its specific axis. The red handle scales along the X-axis, the blue handle scales along the Z-axis, and the green handle scales along the Y-axis.

Scaling handles on the selected object

There are two types of Scaling used in MotionBuilder, Volumetric and Uniform. The following table explains the differences between the two:

Scaling mode Purpose
Volumetric Choose Volumetric scaling mode to scale your object without changing its volume. Volumetric scaling uses the same manipulation principles as XYZ, but scaling a model in Volume mode does not change the surface volume. Instead, the non-edited axes compensate for the axis that is being scaled. For example, when scaling out your model along the Y-axis, the model simultaneously scales in along the X- and Z- axes in order to keep the volume constant.
Uniform Choose Uniform scaling mode to scale a selected object uniformly along the XYZ axes, without changing its proportions.

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