Scale Constraint

Learning > General > Scale Constraint

Scale Constraint (Scale Controller)

A Scale Constraint causes an object's scale to follow the scale of an object or averaged scale of several objects.

An Scale Constrained object can be any type of object that inherits its scale from a target object. Once constrained you can not scale the object manually. You may move or rotate the object as long as its not constrained in a manner that affects the object's position or rotation controller.

The target object can be any type of object. The scale of a target object drives the constrained object. Targets can be animated using any of the standard translation, rotation, scale tools.

Multiple Targets and Weighting

A constrained object can be influenced by several target objects. When using multiple targets, each target has a weight value that defines the degree by which it influences the constrained object, relative to other targets.

Using Weight is meaningful (and available) only with multiple targets. A value of 0 means the target has no influence. Any value greater than 0 causes the target to influence the constrained object relative to other targets' Weight settings. For example, a target with a Weight value of 80 will have twice the influence of a target with a Weight value of 40.

Interface

3ds max smartanim animation rig toolkit controller scale constraint

Once you assign a Scale Constraint, you can access its properties on the Scale Constraint rollout on the Motion panel (On the Motion panel PRS Parameters rollout, click the Scale button).

Add Scale Target

Adds new target objects that influence the constrained object.

Add World as Target

Scales the constrained object to the world axis. You can weight the amount of influence that the world target has on the constrained object as you would any other target object.

Delete Scale Target

Remove targets. Once removing the target, it will no longer influence the constrained object.

[target list]

Shows the targets and their weights.

Weight

Assigns and animates weight values for each target.

Keep Initial Offset

Preserves the original scale of the constrained object. When you turn off Keep Initial Offset, the object adjusts itself to match the scale of its target or targets. Default=off.

Transform Rule group

When a scale constraint is applied to an object that is part of a hierarchy, this determines whether the local node transform or the parent transform will be used for the scale constraint.

  • Local –>Local When chosen, the local node transform is used for the scale constraint
  • World –>World When chosen, the parent or world transform will be applied, rather than the local node transform.