Problem with units

[CCS]

I have a problem that has occurred a few times, that I've just finally isolated. I've had others reproduce it in VIZ. Wondering if anyone knows what's up.


I was testing some materials this morning. I started by creating a plane visually that ended up being about 3000' square. (Wasn't paying attention to size at the time.) Later realized how big it was, and scaled it down to 7%. (Now roughly 200' sq) Then I applied a material and a planar UVW of 20'. I could see that it was not correct - the uvw gizmo was teenie.

If I measure the gizmo, I can see it's way off. If I select the plane in the mod stack, it still shows it as 3000' sq. !! Almost like scaling it was a modifier rather than actually changing the geometry.

I've tried a bunch of things, but same result. Anyone know what's up?

[RErender]

You can use the reset xform in the utility panel, just reset it and collapse to base geometry. Or in the future do you scaling in subobject mode.

[CCS]

Ok. Thanks.

Seems weird though. Is this intended behavior? I mean, what if I want to scale a large group of objects x12 or something?

[dejaVu]

The answer has to do with 3dsmax's object dataflow.
Here's how it goes:
1. Master Object
2. Modifiers
3. Transforms
4. Space Warps
5. Object Properties
6. Object appears in scene

As you can see Modifiers are evaluated before any Transforms, such as scaling, so when you scale and then add a UVW Map modifier, 3dsmax follows it own logic and dataflow and therefore ignores the order in which you did things and in the above example, evaluates the UVW Map mod first and then does the scaling. So you are essentially scaling the UVW Gizmo as well as the plane.
Best way to get do this sort of operation is either to resize by using the orig paramters, or perorm your transforms at SO level as suggested, or add an XForm mod to the stack, thereby capturing your transform in the stack and then add your UVW Map mod.

[Dynedain]

If you brought up the scale paramaters, you'd see that your scale setting was still applied. So if you make a 40' object, and scale it down, it is still a 40' object (just with a scale applied to it) instead of a 5' object.

[Da_elf]

usually what i do when im working with editable poly objects is rather than scaleing the object down ill just go into vertex mode then select all then scale it down that way. this way the object is still at 100% scale but its smaller. this however can be a pain in the ass when dealing with 100 objects i guess. possibly what you can do is convert your entire scene to editable poly and attach them all together then you can rescale your whole scene as 1 object in vertex mode i think someone answered a post of mine on memory consumption with groups by saying it takes less memory for one huge object than 100 small objects. but im just guessing here