Scale uniform vs move along normal

hi there,

as I am fairly new to 3D and nvil, I got a question:

What is the difference between move along normal and a uniform scale?

I watched a tutorial and a cage wa made from a lowpoly model to bake a normalmap.
The cage was created by copy the lowpoly and then all the verts were selected and "moved along normal" (Maya or 3d max201X). At first glance, the same result could have been archived by just
scale up the lowpoly, uniform.

Any ideas?!

Cheers!

What is the difference between move along normal and a uniform scale?

When using "Uniform scale", the direction of the movement of the vertex is calculated from the angle of the vertex position to the point of uniform scale(manipulator position). Move along normal ignores manipulator position and moves each vertex in its "normal" direction.

Ok - so, when the manipulator-point is in the center of the object... will it be the same as move-normals?

Best Regards

It is possible, depending on where the vertex are positioned around the central point, but generally no.

Make a quick test.
Create a box primitive with segments. select all its vertex. Use the scale manipulator (at box center) to uniform scale. The vertex will move out radially from that manipulator position.
With that same box, with all vertex selected, use streamline tool "Tweak_NormalMove"(hotkey default "Z"), you will see the difference as the vertex follow the path of their normals (In vertex mode, look in the visual tools window, there is an option "Normal" which will show the vertex normal directions)

Oh wow! Quiet a big difference... I tested with a six-sided cube (no segments) before and did not notice a difference, hehehe.

But cube wih segments transforms differently!


Thanks again, Steve!