Is there a way to "parent" scale?

Deke

I'd like several identical objects to scale up in unison. I thought that making instances would do this, but when changing the scale of the original item, the instances don't change at all. Is there a simple way to do this or am I stuck adjusting the scale of each item individually?

Richard Haseltine

You could use the Property Hierarchy and Parameters pane in Edit mode to link their scale, or if the scene permits just parent them to a common element (such as one of the props) and scale that

L'Adair

Richard Haseltine said:

You could use the Property Hierarchy and Parameters pane in Edit mode to link their scale, or if the scene permits just parent them to a common element (such as one of the props) and scale that

I use "Group" a lot, with "Parent in Place" enabled. (You've probably got an icon on one of the bars, but you can always find it under Create in the main menu.) You can group those items temporarily to scale them all at the same… Scale, Rotate, Translate. I've even "grouped" a single item that's been rotated to make translating it easier.

A few things to remember about Groups, from my own observations:

• Adding items to an existing group will not change the "origin" of the group. (The "origin" in this case is where the onscreen tool shows up when the various tools are selected, such as the Universal Tool.)
• You can Create a new group without having anything selected and then parent items to it. This group's "origin" will be at World Center.
• You can Create a new group with only one item selected. This group's "origin" will be at the bottom center of that item.
• You can Create a new group with all the items you want in the group. This group's "origin" will be at the bottom center of the collection of items you grouped.
  • Grouping items this way often times parents all the items to the group, even those initially parented to an item you included with the group. This can be problematic if there is a prop parented to figure's hand, for example.
• If "Parent in Place" is not enabled, item(s) being parented will move in relation to the group's center. For example, if an item has X, Y, Z coordinated of 0, 0, 0 in relation to World Center and then is parented to a group that has an X, Y, Z coordinated of 10, 20, 10 in relation to World Center, the item(s) will move to 10, 20, 10 in relation to World Center, as the coordinates of the item(s) will remain the same

These are not hard and fast rules. I've come across a few items I couldn't figure out what rules they followed when being grouped, and no matter what I tried, I couldn't get them to stay in the same place when grouped; As far as I can recall, they were older props.

I hope this helps.