Hi everyone.
Can’t seem to scale the head on this. It’s parented to the sphere empty. Took me ages to complete and trying to get it as right as I can before 3 hours of animation render time.
If anyone can help.
At a lost. Tried. Origin to G, tried scaling, tried collapsing modifiers and then the above.
Thank you, really appreciate a place to find help.
New Materials Working2.blend (2.6 MB)
Hi, The scaling of the head sphere control works fine at my end.
New Materials Working2(tested fine).blend (2.7 MB)
It’s when I try to scale it up it goes creaeeaaazy.
As in select empty or object and scale.
I think you need to apply the Array/curve modifiers to be safe (specially that you are using Fit curve and one of your array is using an object as relative offset) my guest is you don’t need them to be procedural anymore.
New Materials Working2_applyARRAY.zip (1.1 MB)
here is how it scales (hope that’s your issue)
if you need them procedural you have to move the origin of the curves to the same origin of the empty (parent) you’re using for scaling so the curve scale relative to that point point too (if you do now your arrays results will go crazy and you have to rework them unfortunately… which mean origin of the object relative to the origin of the curve and so on, i guess you know this cause you did it already) and try :
fixed count VS fit curve
absolute offset VS relative offset
nice work BTW 
Briliant.
Thank you. I don’t understand what you’re saying but I’m gonna try and learn/figure it out 
I often wonder, do you collapse all modifiers at the end of modelling or just leave them there. Is there any speed benfit to that?
That’s what I thought. Modelling is done, I can apply them.
I’ve just come back to Blender after 3 years, remember a lot suprisingly.
When you apply modifiers is it bottom up, top down or do you just have to realise which modifiers need to be applied first?
yes speed difference. if you apply a modifier blender don’t have to evaluate it every time to come up with the resulted mesh and that can be less calculation => faster
so the question is do you still need them procedural as i said before (non destructive) which means you can go back and tweak the number of instance in the array for example with one value change. cause if you apply the modifier. it’s done (destructive). up to you and your need. if you think it will never change i will apply
sometime i worry i may need a change but i want to apply. i duplicate the object. apply modifiers in one and hide the still (procedural one - with modifiers) for just in case later.
sometimes you need your modifiers they can even be animated and part of the scene
there is no one straightforward answer. better keep in mind the stack gets evaluated from up to down down which means the result of this modifier will be in the input of the one under it. and work your logic
sometimes blender don’t let you apply something cause other depends on.
but the order can give you different results in some cases and it doesn’t matter in others:
as an example two array modifiers to make a grid doesn’t matter which one goes first.
but the array => curves the order is important
the array will create a long straight line of instances that will go to the curve and it will deform it following the curve
if you flip the order the curve modifier will deform one instance then the array will take one deformed instance and duplicate it in a straight line
Yeah.
Always keep a before modifier applied file, but I don’t need them once I know I have set the scene, set the scale set the everything.
But it’s always nice to go back.
I’m still struggling with lots of different things, getting there but this scale thing is pissing me of. Most thing in Blender seem to come down to scale and geomrty positioning, but at the same time it’s working out what is going wrong. Now I know it’s something to do with scale or origin half the time.
Thanks for your help. Still learning, still struggling 
Another question is…
I didn’t like the shading in the tutorial, so I thought I’d come up with my own.
I just wanted a simple gradient colour. It just didn’t work, not only that. Once I had it in the viewport and it looked good, after reloading the file it had completely disapeared and gone back to the the previous saved shading.
Also. If I added a cube and applied the same shading, it worked. I understand that it was probably to do with a lot of the modifiers, array, curve e.t.c but it complexes me.
It was the dragons body in particular. I reset everything that i could but still couldn’t figure it out…
Maaaan. Blender is complicated
gradient is procedural too and how it is mapped to you object. so you have to understand the same way as geometry scaling and origins 
again it’s math/logic not blender’s fault
your answer resides here:
take your time read the texture mapping and texture coordinate nodes, and UV mapping
I recommend creating a new thread for a new issue to keep things organized for future reading
Thank you so much for your help.
I know it’s not Blenders fault, it just pisses me off
Blender is frustratingly Awesome.
Managed to sort it. Thanks. It was just to objects in the head not scaling properly and I changed to mout to Fixed count and added in the x number of segments.
Not fully sure I understand it completely, but time will tell.
Thanks again.
I always forget that people here are brilliant with help, hopefully one day I can return the favour.
Cheers. Render here we come.
