Local Ruler Scale SubDivisions ARGH!

heyas;

okay, i've had enough of this!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!

i'm trying to size a bunch of things the same proportional amount. so i turn on local ruler mode, so i can get relative sizes, like 1.25x etc etc. the size i want to use however is not 1x or 2x or 1.25x, it is 1x plus "three clicks" or three little lines up from 1x.

which is fine, except depending on linden-gods-know-what, there are a DIFFERENT number of intermediary lines between 1x and 1.25x! its which corner i pick, or the camera angle, or i dont know what, but it is driving me BUGNUTS!

does anybody have a trick for making these local ruler scale subdivisions all coming out to the same number of little intermediary ticks???

a calculator works for me

A calculator won't do it. What you're seeing is a distance adjustment (and maybe a camera angle adjustment as well -- I've never been quite sure). There are more small divisions on the ruler bars in local mode the closer you are to whatever you are measuring. That's so that you can make very fine adjustments on small things that you zoom in on, and don't get swamped by a zillion divisions when you zoom out on something much larger. It can be frustrating if you are in the awkward middle ground between close and far, true, but it's a great advantage most of the time.

In World mode, of course, you can set the grid divisions in meters as fine as you like and they remain the same regardless of how much you zoom in or out.

Here's an easy workaround. Create a second object, precisely one third the size of the one you want to move, and use it as a reference. Simply select the new object, and hit shift-G (with chat closed), to reference it. The ruler units will now be increments of that object, rather than of the world or of the object you're moving.

Note, zero on the ruler will be the center of the reference object. So make sure you've got it lined up where you want it before you reference it. An easy way to do that is to first reference the other object, and snap new one to align with its center. Alternatively, you can snap the new one to the old one's edge, then set the ruler to Local mode, and move the new object over by half its own width, which will put the edges of both objects precisely flush. Now reference the new object, and you'll be able to move the old one the way you want.



As for the calculator suggestion, I'm not sure why you're saying that that wouldn't work, Rolig. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, there's no reason one couldn't use plain old math to determine where to move the object. That's how we did it back before the rulers came along, and it's how many people still do it (presumably because they don't quite understand how to leverage the three ruler modes).

Oh, calculators work fine. I use mine all the time. Pencil and paper too. That's not the question the OP asked, though. He wanted to figure out why the divisions on the ruler bar in local reference mode aren't always the same, and wanted "a trick for making these local ruler scale subdivisions all com[e] out to the same number of little intermediary ticks." Telling him to use a calculator instead expands his toolkit, but doesn't address the question. That's why I discounted the calculator response. Your advice was right on target, BTW. Neither of us could give the OP the little trick he wanted -- SL's ruler bars are immutable -- but at least you and I were focused on ruler bar answers.

OK, I get what you meant now.