Scaling inward?

[mindbend]

I'm not sure I can describe this, but here goes:

I want to know how I can scale a an object face relative to the object's shape, not relative to the pivot point.

For example, I'm building a wall that isn't straight. It bends, banks, turns, etc., but is perfectly vertical the whole time. The catch it that the top of the wall is narrower than the base. Other than that, the top and bottom follow the same path.

I started by plotting the base using the Create Polygon tool. I then extruded it vertically using the Extrude Face tool. So now I;ve got the wall, except the top is the same width as the base.

If you scale the top face, it scales toward the pivot, which means it's now off center from the base. Is there any way to scale the top of the wall so it moves in on itself instead of toward the pivot? Did that make sense? BTW--moving the pivot doesn't solve anything because it just changes the direction of the scale on the whole.

Granted, if the wall were a perfect rectangle or square, the standard scale would work, but since the wall angles here and there it doesn't apply.

One last little decription that may or may not help in describing this. In Illustrator, if you use the Stroke option to change the width of a line, the line effectively scales relative to itself, not relative to a pivot point. That's what I'm talking about here.

Thanks for any help.

p.s. My novice-user solution is to manually move each vertex at the top of the wall. Not too painful for this little project, but seems kind of silly.

[jason-howey]

yeah, you can do that pretty easily. when you were doing your extrude you were using the manipulator tool (hot key T) that tool can do translation, rotation, and scale. (the kinda scale that you want). hit T and then select the extrude from your contruction history of the wal, so you're editing the extrude again, now just scale the way you want to using the manipulator tool. also remember to "keep faces together" checked on in the extrude options. If you don't have your construction history on, you'll need to do the extrude again, and make sure to scale while editing the extrude, hope this makes sense!
good luck