How can I scale a duplicate mesh to evenly first the mesh?

Question

I have a snowflake mesh that I want to place on top of a scaled duplicate of the same mesh but when I do the points are not equidistant from their counterparts.

This first image is the scaled mesh on top of the primary mesh. ]

This next image is a rudimentary manual movement of each vertices that I hope to end up with.

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:57

The easiest way to do that, is by deleting all but one of the fingers of your snowflake, and using modifiers.

snow flake mesh

As you can see I made that snow flake with an array modifier, and an Empty as the object offset (same way as in this answer), that way I only have to model (and then change) one.

There is no easy tool to do this like scale, or even shrink/flatten. So here is how I would do it.

With the pivot point set to 3D cursor, and the 3D cursor set to the base of the snowflake (that is so you only have to reposition it down, not both directions). Scale S up the entire finger until it is as wide as you want. (I have the original snowflake in the same spot as the one I'm scaling to be able to see the difference.)
Now move G the entire finger, except the bottom vertices in to its proper position. We are looking to get the left and right side centered here.
Here is where it gets clever, select everything, and extrude it to give the snowflake some thickness. (Don't worry this is just temporary.)
Select the two sides on one of the "branches" on the snowflake's finger.

Now press ShiftNumPad 3 to move the view to be aligned with the faces.
Change the Transform Orientation to View.
In another 3D view select the end face. Back in the view which is now perfectly aligned with the branch, press G XX to move the end face along the view's X axis.
Repeat steps 4-6 for the other branch. It should now look like this:
Delete the extra faces, by going to side view and box selecting B the top half of it, then Delete > Vertices.
Finlay move the top vertices down till they are the same space apart as the small side branches and the new side branches are.

Here in animated gif form are all the steps listed above.

Whether it isn't better to use Edge Slide in step 6 (moving that face a little backwards) instead of extruding, using View and deleting extrusion ? Probably there would be a little less accuracy in movements though as Slide tool sometimes is strange. — Mr Zak, Dec 19 '15 at 20:12
@MrZak it sure seams better, I really did not even think of it because for some reason, I was thinking it would not work there. I guess I will edit my answer, that simplifies a lot of it. — David, Dec 19 '15 at 20:17

Qutorial · Answer 2 · 2015-12-20T03:17:21.637

2

I don't think you want to scale the snowflake, I think you want to use the solidify modifier.

Play around with the Thickness and Offset values until you have what you want (+1 or -1 offset will go entirely inside/entirely outside of the first surface).

You may also want to check High Quality Normals and Even Thickness.

edited Dec 20 '15 at 03:17

answered Dec 20 '15 at 03:07

Qutorial

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 21 '15 at 12:26

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You could use Inset Face (I) and delete the outer edges using Alt + RMB to select the external edge loop.

You could draw a flat snowflake, then add a thickness using a Solidify Modifier.

answered Dec 21 '15 at 12:26

parameciostudio

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PGmath · Answer 4 · 2016-01-05T14:47:12.150

I was able to do this by first giving the flake some thickness (to give it some rim faces whose normals point outwards) and then extruding (E), and scaling with Alt+S. You can then delete the extra thickness afterwards if it is undesired.

enter image description here

Note: for some reason the Alt+E Extrude Along Normals option did not work, for this reason I extruded the rim faces first, canceling the extrude with a right click or Esc, then scaled along the normals with Alt+S.

How can I scale a duplicate mesh to evenly first the mesh?

4 Answers4