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3d staircase with smooth underside?


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Can anyone help me figure this out? Im creating a staircase for a client in 3d, its straight for about 6 risers, then it curves around and eventually comes back on itself. The staircase is going to be only 500mm (ish) thick the whole way up so that if you stand to the side of it you can see a smooth underside running from the top to the bottom.

Im well stuck on how to do this in 3D. Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance!

Chalk

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Chalk, it sounds like you have a couple different issues here. The first is that it "curves around". You can do this with the STAIR PIO if, in the Object Info Palette, you set the "config" to "L(or R) even double" and then check the "curved landing" box just below. The problem you will run into is if you require "fantail" steps which are part of the landing. If this is the case you will need to use two separate sets of stairs, one for the top and one for the bottom, then you will need to model the landing portion from 3d extrudes. It takes a bit of time but is very doable. As far as the "smooth underside" goes, I think you can get what you want by setting the style to "standard", however there is no adjustment for the thickness, so if the Stair PIO is too thick, you may be forced to create a new object. If you start with a side view, then draw your stair profile, then extrude it, you will have a good start. Hope that helps.

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Thanks for the input.

The first 5 treads of the stair are no problem because thats just a simple extruded polygon, it's when the stairs start to turn and then turn back on themselfs that gives me a problem (with regard to the underside beind smooth) Would you use different working planes to subtract from different angles on each step and just hope they all match up exactly when rendered?

Im sure there must be an easier way. Islandmon - i'm not that proficent at NURBS but had an idea it might be the way to go. Would each step be a group of nurbs then? And would i use the 3d reshapetool to bring the inner edges down to meet and form a smooth underside?

Thanks again for the help. I'll experiment with all this a bit later [smile]

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I think NURBS is the best option for you chalk .... I was very aprehensive about using them the first time untill I worked through the tutorials .... its amazing the shapes that can be created using them

It sounds like you need to create 2 NURBS curves that follow the underside, outer and inner edges then loft between them

just plod through all the tutorials and things will become very clear

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