So, I recently managed to make a tiled path in Blender that followed a curve by creating a couple rows of tiles and giving it a "fit curve" array modifier and a deform to curve modifier, and I've been wanting to do the same thing with stairs.
Unfortunately, it's proving far harder.
If I try what I did before, the steps get deformed.
If I try do it by creating a series of planes which each emit a step as a particle with the velocity or rotation as a tangent, certain parts of the stairs can end up being 90 degrees off of the angle they should be at, and having the curve bend in all three dimensions ends up rolling the stairs.
Any Blender wizards know what to do here?
use array?
>>502485
Doesn't allow me to guide it with a curve though.
>>502486
try to apply the modifiers
or use an extra array like in this
>>502488
I still want to make it fit a curve though.
>>502495
There's a modifier specifically for following a curve. I can't remember what it's called though
>>502499
I think it's just called "Curve", and is under the deform section.
But the problem is, it deforms!
If you just used Maya this would be piss easy. Attach to curve, duplicate special, offset along the curves local axis and offset on the up axis by the height of the step.
>>502505
Look up "object constraints", I'm pretty sure there's one that does exactly what you want. I think that by default it makes the object move along the curve but you can change that.
>>502518
There's "Clamp to" which is curve exclusive but I don't know how I'd use that for this.
>>502520
Check some video tutorials, iirc I learned about it when I wanted to learn how to make the camera follow a curve.
>>502523
I'd be surprised if a video tutorial relevant to this matter could show me a Blender feature I don't know, I just need to combine what I do know in a tricky way.
>>502524
The videos can show you a new way to use something you already know. Be open minded.
5 min of google showed me how to do it.
http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/510/how-can-i-duplicate-a-mesh-along-a-curve
after this I just used constraints to keep the step from rotating with the curve on all axes except z.
>>502541
Still a very sloppy technique a lot of the time, especially if the curve origin isn't a straight section or it contains a segment of a helix, but unless someone can figure out how to do the particle method properly, I guess this'll have to do.
