Transform the scale of planes or textures...

[Lovehina]

I?m sort of a beginner when it comes to more advanced 3d techniques in
Director. What I?m trying to do is very simple, the problem is I can?t find
anywhere info about this.
What I?m trying to do is change the scale of plane, but only in one direction.
Normally when you want to transform the scale of a model, you can do it
separate for x, y & z-axis or do a uniform scale transformation.
Now for example, when I try to transform the scale of a model, in this case a
plane, along the y-axis, it ?stretches? it in both directions on the y-axis.
Now what I would like to know is:
Is it possible to resize it only in one direction along an axis, sort of
having the one side of the plane move while the opposite stays still?
Now in case this simple thing isn?t possible, I would also like to know if
there?s a way to make a portion of a texture transparent, perhaps using a mask
or some other technique? In other words, what I want to do is make a portion of
a plane transparent, sort of cut it out. Now I know that this can be achieved
by using a texture with an alpha channel, but not in this case, since I would
want to animate the transparent area. Yes I could use imaging lingo, but that
would be way to slow in my case!

Thanks in advance and sorry for so much text.

[Ex Malterra]

invetigate the meshDefrom modifier; use the vertexList property to move individual vertices and you can use the textureCoordinateList to map portions of a texture to specific faces.