Scaling down part of a cylinder

# 1 19-12-2013 , 03:13 AM

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Hello,

I'm attempting to follow instructions from a book to scale down part of a cylinder (See attached photos).

To quote it directly:

"Right-click the cylinder, and choose Face from the marking menu. Select the end
faces, and scale them down a bit as in Figure 4.43 [ATTACHED]. This gives you the main part of
the boiler."

Originally Posted by

I can't get it to scale the way it is depicted in the photos. I tried selecting the faces and simply scaling, then I tried selecting them and using "Extrude", then scale, and that did not work either.

Attached Images

Last edited by newuser; 19-12-2013 at 03:15 AM.

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# 2 19-12-2013 , 03:36 AM

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Hi newuser, The scale should work for this (I know because I've made the steam engine following along to the same book!). When you say selecting the faces and scaling them doesn't work what exactly do you mean? That they don't scale whatsoever or that they scale in a different way to the picture in the book? If you zip up your scene and load it on this site I'm happy to have a look at it for you.

Cheers, the Yeti.

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# 3 19-12-2013 , 08:13 AM

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scale it in just the Y and X axis / Y and Z axis (depending on what position this cylinder is in)

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# 4 19-12-2013 , 03:36 PM

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I am not familiar with the tutorial you are working on.

Can you link an image of what the result is you are seeking or describe it because I cannot tell what the issue is based on your screen shot?? From what I see you are scaling all the selected poly faces as I would expect so I don't know how to help.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 5 19-12-2013 , 06:22 PM

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Okay I think I figured out what you are trying to accomplish. I am not at my system so I will just describe it.

1. select the faces and press R-Key to scale
2. hold the ctrl-key and then middle mouse button click on the y-axis and drag.

This should scale only in the x-z plane which I believe is what you are trying to do.

PS- This assumes you are in the local-axis for the scale tool and it is aligned with your cylinder along the y-axis.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 6 19-12-2013 , 11:52 PM

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Thanks for the responses, everyone. Sorry for my late response. I was waiting all day to receive e-mails notifying me of a response (since I thought I was subscribed to the thread) but never received any, so I had assumed no one had responded.

My problem is depicted in the three images below:

-The first image is the original cylinder, non-scaled, with all the end-faces selected
-The second image is the cylinder with all the faces scaled up. Notice that the entire cylinder scaled up along with it, which is not what the book wants.
-Same problem with the 3rd image, only this time I scaled down.

In the images in my opening-post, the end-faces on the right are scaled down slightly without changing the size of the faces on the left, and the middle-face is slanted down to bridge the gap. I've been unable to get my cylinder to scale the same way, so far.

Attached Thumbnails

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Click image for larger version

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Click image for larger version

Name: Scaled_down.PNG
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Size: 38.8 KB
ID: 55148

Last edited by newuser; 19-12-2013 at 11:56 PM.

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# 7 20-12-2013 , 12:52 AM

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Hi, your problem is that you have soft select activated for your scale tool. That is why the vertices along the model have turned yellow. You can turn this off by going to the scale tool options box and unchecking soft select or by pressing the B key on your keyboard which is the shortcut for toggling it on and off (you probably accidentally hit this to turn it on in the first place).
Soft select lets you make tweaks that affect a greater part of your model than selected depending on the falloff.

Cheers, the Yeti.

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