In this video,
we'll discuss stretch planes and stretch zones in Chief Architect,
including using stretch planes to transform objects, using stretch planes for
smart resizing and using stretch zones.
The examples I'm going to show you are pretty extreme as far as how far you
would resize an object,
but just keep in mind I'm doing that so you can really see what's going on with
the stretch zones and stretch planes.
But even if you're resizing an object a small amount,
stretch planes and stretch zones are very powerful and useful to help you
restrict the areas that will be stretched and squished when you resize your
object. All right,
let's say I wanted to change this nightstand into a wardrobe.
I'll just delete these accessories off the top and stretch it out.
But as you can see with no stretch planes being used,
the entire symbol just stretches uniformly and that's not what I want.
So let's try this again.
I'll hit the undo button and then right click and choose open symbol and go to
the sizing tab.
And here is where I can add stretch plains and stretch zones.
A stretch plane tells Chief to allow your object to stretch only where the
stretch plane intersects with it.
It is restricting what area of your object is allowed to stretch with the new
features that allow us to see the stretch planes and stretch zones and manually
move them. It's not as important to know how these numbers are working,
but it's still helpful to know. So we will go over them.
Stretch planes in the x axis intersect left to right and effect your width.
The y axis deals with the depth of your object and z,
the height. When you put values in these boxes,
Chief places stretch planes and these values correspond to amounts you are
moving away from the origin of the object.
When I click on the show origin button, you can see that in Chief,
the origin is in the back middle bottom of the object.
X shoots off to the right.
So a positive value in the x will move your stretch plane to the right.
While a negative value would move it from the middle to the left.
Notice the y axis is shooting off away from us.
So to bring a stretch plane into our object,
we will need to enter a negative value and
Z is moving up.
So a positive value will move a stretch plane through the height of your object.
Now these numbers might make more sense as you can see that the values you enter
in are the amount that they move from the origin of the object.
But thankfully with the new tools,
we can now see the stretch planes and manually move them with real time
feedback. Let's make this nightstand into a wardrobe.
Now I'll resize it and get the results I was after instead of the whole thing
stretching uniformly like this.
Okay, let's say I wanted to make one of these chairs into a bench.
I'll clean up the scene and then in my plan view over to the left here,
I'll just pull the chair out increasing its width.
But now it looks cartoony with these stretched out legs.
I'll hit control z to undo and let's right click on it and select open symbol.
Okay,
I want it to stretch only in the middle so the legs don't stretch when I resize
it. All right, great.
And I think it should be shallower in the seat area as a bench.
So I'll decrease the depth and let's pull it across.
But now I don't like how the legs got squished thin,
so I'll hit control Z to undo a couple times and let's select open symbol again.
Let's place a stretch plane in the y axis for the depth,
and move it to the middle of the seat so that the legs do not get squished into
thin legs when I decrease the depth of my object.
And now when I resize my chair,
it only stretches and shrinks where the stretch planes are intersecting,
so the legs are not effected. Beautiful. Okay,
so we've covered stretch planes, but what about stretch zones?
Let's say I don't like this cow patterned ottoman and I want one that matches my
long bench.
I'll use the copy and paste in place tool and drag out my new copy of the bench,
rotate it, and shrink it down to the right size.
But now if you look,
the legs are thin and it looks like that ottoman will break if I put my feet up
on it.
So let's open this symbol up and add some stretch planes. Okay
so I could just, uh,
add two stretch planes here and here.
But when I shrink down the width of all those nice tufted details,
they are not going to have anywhere to go.
And so they will fold over on each other and make a mess like this.
So let's use a stretch zone.
We'll go over and click the box under "uniform stretch zones between" and this
creates a stretch zone between my two stretch planes.
Now instead of restricting the stretching of my object to only the places that
my stretch planes intersect with the object,
the entire space inside of my stretch zone will stretch when I resize my object.
Stretch zones are great for encompassing parts of objects that have a lot of
detail that you want to stretch together. Now when I decrease the width,
the legs are not effected because they are outside my stretch zone.
We use stretch zones when we are importing cathedral or arched cabinet doors.
But you can see in this example that a simple stretch plane works great in the z
axis for when the height gets changed on this door.
The rails of the door on the top and bottom will stay the same.
And with the stretch zone,
the styles on the left and right will also remain the same size when the doors
width is changed.
But it will allow the arched area in the middle to squash and stretch.
So now we've seen how we can use stretch planes and stretch zones to smartly
resize objects in Chief Architect. And that concludes our tutorial.