Bowling Ball and Pin Dimension problem

Richard_Rayer · July 5, 2019, 4:35am

I have a question about the dimensions you set up for the bowling ball. When I appended the bowling ball to this file (and in its original file as well), the Dimensions showed 2.158 BU for X, Y, and Z. The Scale showed 1.079 BU for X, Y, and Z. Is this correct? Shouldn’t the Blender Units in the Scale fields be set to 1 for both the pin and the ball? The Pin’s scale dimensions are X=1.000, Y=1.000 and Z=1.000 but the ball is set to X=1.079, Y=1.079 and Z=1.079. That doesn’t seem correct to me.

Paul_Nagami · December 19, 2017, 4:31am

I just tried opening the attached file, and I’m seeing scales of 2.6, 2.6, and 2.6 and dimensions of 5.2 x 5.2 x 5.2 for the ball. I’m new, so my advice might not be the best, but here goes…

Did you scale in Object Mode or Edit Mode? If I recall correctly from an earlier lecture, scaling in object mode can cause weird behavior if the scaling isn’t applied with control-A and the apply scale command, especially when exporting.

If we push Control-A here and apply the scale to the ball object, it does switch to 1, 1, 1. Again, newbie here, so take any advice I have with a grain of salt.

(There’s also the issue that the 52-cm bowling ball is too large, but that mistake was part of the lecture and can be fixed quickly.)

Richard_Rayer · December 19, 2017, 1:49pm

Thanks Paul for the comments. I am not sure which way I scaled (in Object or Edit mode) but your suggestions make perfect sense. I will give it a try.

Also, I am not comfortable working with metric as opposed to feet and yards. I know the size of the bowling pin and ball in inches not in cm. I will have to research the ball’s size in cm.

Thanks again.

Paul_Nagami · December 20, 2017, 12:16am

Richard,

I had a similar problem, but in the opposite direction (I’m more comfortable with metric units). One quick trick I used if you’re not familiar with it:

If you type in the following in a Google search (or a Chrome/Firefox search bar), at the top of the search results you’ll find an instant unit conversion from cm to inches:

26 cm in inches

This even works with combined feet and inches:

3 feet 4 inches in cm

…correctly returns 101.6 cm

I use this tool all the time!

Richard_Rayer · December 20, 2017, 5:11pm

Thanks for the additional information. After your last message, I did exactly what you suggest here and went to Google for Conversion and it has a great tool for that.