Making dynamic blocks

[sheherezade]

Do you need to use the join command on an object before making it into a dynamic block?

I have these stairs I need to scale down to fit my floorplan, but when I place grips on it in order to scale them down, I can only scale of the block while the rest becomes totally distorted.

[Dadgad]

Don't use grips, just scale them.

Or you could wblock them, and then scale them along an axis.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Dadgad

[sheherezade]

My stairs are supposed to be 1849x1950mm. I use the reference point option on the scale command, but if I manage to scale the length down to 1849, the height also changes proportionally, and vise versa if I scale the height. How do I work around this so I get the size I want?

[supercell]

Do you want to keep the 1849mm and change the 1950mm? If so make the stairs into a block and with the block selected open the properties dialog box (ctrl + 1 will toggle it on and off). There will be a x, y, z, scale variable. Adjust the appropriate one to create a NUS Non Uniform Scale block. You will need to do a little math to work out what percentage to scale it by. Ie To reduce it by 50% in the Y axis would be X=1 Y=.5 Z=1

 

Otherwise you could create a dynamic block with a linear parameter and a stretch action. There are some good dynamic block tutorials on youtube

Hope this helps