Very confused with Transforms lecture using rotations

[ToroidalGames]

I’m finding the challenge of making a diamond shape very confusing. I am using blender 2.83 LTS and at one point he mentions applying the rotation and then scaling to make a diamond shape.

But he comes up with a window I can’t see anywhere or my right-clicking the cube to add a rotation which also doesn’t seem to change the rotation values.

He then changes the scale of the cube and it becomes a diamond shape.

Whenever I change the rotation it changes the values in the properties window and it scales in one direction which doesn’t form a diamond shape. I hope that makes sense.

I have just realized after watching the keys he presses that if you press ctrl plus a it adds a list of options including apply rotation, which is also confusing to me what exactly does this do. I have seen it has made the rotation in the cubes properties 0 but then when you scale it creates the diamond effect.

[FedPete]

Please add a screen shot.
Use Blender main menu > Window > Save screen shot.

[ToroidalGames]

Thank you but I’ve got it to work now after initially writing my post, although I still don’t get how this works or why it’s important to apply the scale and rotation.

[NP5]

It is a lesson all about global and local axis. (ok well not the lesson you are linked too here which is the wedge lesson) The diamond lesson is though.

Does this help explain what is going on?

Once applied, the rightmost image, scaling on X makes a diamond.
If not applied it can scale as it was before rotation.

Help requires Visual information to go on!

[NP5]

It is fundamental and important to know about applying scales and rotation as most tools in Blender, especially modifiers, use the base data as their starting point. Not the transformed data.

The first port of call to any problem/question is likely to be ‘Did you apply your scale and rotation’!

[ToroidalGames]

Thank you so I think I understand it now, so basically by applying the rotation, the scaling is still scaling in the direction of the transforms rotation which is now 0 but since the shape has actually rotated the effect it has on the shape is very different.

Which I think is because the point of origin or whatever term is more accurate is different to apply the scaling to if that makes sense?

[FedPete]

@ToroidalGames

why it’s important to apply the scale and rotation.

Because the object Cube has many properties, color, size, rotation, scale …
But also a data block called the mesh.
This mesh is what you edit when in edit mode.
This mesh has his own set of properties, including scale rotation etc.
Move blender function work on this mesh data, not the Object (scaled) data.
With ‘apply scale’ you make the scale of the object the same to the mesh.
This to avoid problems. Most beginner, forget this. Getting strange results.

Have fun, show us your progress.

[NP5]

Its more that the rot/sca in Object mode is not changing the base data inside Blender. It is sort of saying the object is as it was before Plus some rot/sca to the display. But most other tools only read the base data, and act on it. So to make the base data match what the display is reading and doing, you have to tell Blender you want the new rot/sca to become the new base data.

For example just rotated In object mode there is an ‘undo’ there until it is applied. Alt R will undo the rotation back to the base data position. When you apply the rotation, that ‘undo’ is gone. As the applying made the new position the base position.

It is a lot simpler in reality than it is to explain it!

[ToroidalGames]

I think I get it now thank you both for your help.

[crispycweed]

This really helped explain what was happening for me, thanks!
I think in the lecture it would’ve been even more helpful visually if one face was coloured or marked differently. Then we could see it still was the same face that was originally facing the Y axis before we rotated it when it comes to the step of trying to scale it up.
In my case (i didn’t know how to colour it haha, but found the bevel tool!):

[NP5]

Glad it helped you understand it.

Welcome to this site.