Blender Tutorial - The Difference Between Applying Your Transforms And Clearing Them

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In this tutorial, we will be comparing the apply tool with the clear tool, and how these affect the transforms of our model.
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[@alfredborg8689]

Good tutorial. Question: If one does not apply nor clear the Scale, what would be the consequences further down the road?

[@blenderbasecamp]

Many tools use the dimensions of the object to calculate the effect, but this always assumes the scale is set to 1,1,1. Scale can also impact the ability to rig models to armatures, creating challenges for animation.
In general, the scale values of the object change the way many other tools affect 3D models, which has the potential to alter your workflow as an artist.
Another area that is greatly affected by scale values is the creation of UV maps, which are used for texture application.
If you create seams with a cube, for example, and then scale it up, the UV map generated using the unwrap tool would be different depending on if we applied the scale before unwrapping the object.

[@alfredborg8689]

@@blenderbasecamp I did an experiment, I went to the UV Editor and I discovered that both objects had the same UV map and when I applied a texture image, the result did not show any difference between the object that had the Scale applied and the one that did not. Any clarification would be appreciated.

[@blenderbasecamp]

@@alfredborg8689 To best view this effect, try the following experiment. Mark seams across a cube object to separate the top and bottom faces entirely and add one more seam on a side edge to create a clean UV set up.
Before creating the UV map, scale then cube on the X axis by a value of three, then duplicate the cube object.
Apply the scale to one of your cube objects and then Unwrap each of them by going to the unwrap menu and choosing the basic unwrap tool.
For the object that did not have its scale applied, you will see a message at the bottom warning you that the object has nonuniform scale and that this will affect the UV map.
Select each object in edit mode, and you will notice how the UV maps differ. The object that did not have its scale applied will be the one where each side has the same shape in the UV editor as if it had not been scaled at all.
This causes an issue where applied textures to these faces will cause that texture to either stretch or compress along that face.
Hope this helps.

[@alfredborg8689]

@@blenderbasecamp Did the experiment and see what you mean. Thanks that did clear my confusion.