Scale offset? or how to expand an object or loop of edges.

#1

Hi, I have a couple of issues I would like to know how to solve but I don’t know how to do it without doing a lot of manual work.

I’m building an object with an intricate shape and I need to extrude it to give it some thickness and bump it’s shape with even steps, I have no problems extruding since I can use the offset to keep the form while I create the steps. But my problem comes if I want to change or add to these shapes, so is there a way to select a loop of edges and do an offset scale?.

My second thought is about creating a sort of cage for normal maps, so I would like to take an object and scale it with it’s shape adapted or offset so it kind of expands around the shape evenly.

I found someone asking something similar over a year ago and didn’t receive replies, he posted this image so i’m posting it since it’s basically the same question I have.

#2

I’m not sure I’m understanding correctly the first question. For the second one though, you can select the faces you need to scale and Ctrl+Mmd drag them, or apply a transform component and translate the local z axis.

#3

Thank you so much VanDerGoes that was it, I never played with the transform component before since I thought it was the same as the manipulator.