Spiral Staircase with Automatic Duplication
by Geno Ruffalo

 

STEP 1


This Tutorial will introduce you to Automatic Duplication tecniques that can save you a
lot of time modeling structures that have repetative patterns in them. We start of in Front View
with the cursor centered and add a Nurbs Curve. Move the points around so the curve is a straight
line the rotate the line vertically. When you it exactly as is below, go to the Edit Buttons and
press the Poly button to change the curve type to a linear mode.

 

STEP 2


It is very important that you leave the 3D cursor at 0,0,0 for this step. Go to Top View
and add a Bezier Circle resizing it as shown. Then go in front view and resize the Curve Line
to 2 times the size of the Curve Circles diameter.

STEP 3


Go back into Top view and add a Mesh -> Plane and immediately delete all
vertices. Now we will draw a triangle by adding 3 new vertices with CTRL+LM. Select
the 2 open vertices and press the FKEY to connect them. Select all 3 vertices and press
SHIFT+F to add a face to the triangle. Go into front view and extrude the triangle to
give thickness to our step. Reposition the step as shown below.

STEP 4


Now it is time to do the Automatic Duplication. Make the Curve Line the parent of the Curve Circle
by selecting the Circle, then the Curve, and press CTRL+P. Press F7 to activate the Animation Buttons
and look at the parts I have highlited RED for you. The PathLen: has been set to 18 and the CurvePath
butoon has ben pushed in. Next make the Circle the parent of the step. Also set the paramters as seen below. Make sure
to also press the CurveFollow button in. After doing this go into Top View and reposition the Step if it has shifted.
This last move actually does the duplication. Select the Step and press in the DupliFrames button.


STEP 5


Go into front view to check your work. It should look like a Single Helix. This type of duplication
also is good for molecular modeling like DNA strands. If you intend to have different Materials and Textures
for the steps than for the rails, now is the time to assign them.

STEP 6


We will now add the support rails for the steps. This is quite easy to do, place the 3D cursor so
it is over the center of where the first and second steps overlap. Add a 10 vertex Circle and scale
it down. Go into front view and move the circle down into the second step. Extrude the rail up. The
rails bottom should penetrate the step below it and the top will be the support for the hand rail.
Assign a material to the rail if needed and join it to the step by selecting both, then CTRL+J.
Joining them will Automatically Duplicate the rails.

STEP 7


The stairs now need a hand rail. This uses a different duplication tecnique that is a
little more difficult to align perfectly. In Front View add an 8 vertex circle that is
aligned with the bottom step and to the most left rail. Deselect all vertices and add a
2 vertex line that spans from the top stair step to the last.

STEP 8


Press F9 to activate the Edit Buttons Window. Look at all the RED highlited
areas in the image below. Set the Steps: to 180. This will create 10 sections for
each step. If you need to conserve on polygon count reduce this number, but remember
that this will also reduce the quality of the hand rail. Make sure the Turns:
is set to 1 and the Clockwise button is NOT set. Now press the Screw Button
and then click the 3D Window in front view.





STEP 9


After Spinning deselect all vertices and place the mouse over one of the points belonging
to the center tube shape that was created and press the LKEY. Delete all of these vertices.
Now just move and rotate the rail to get it in place. This is easiest to do while in shade mode.

STEP 10


The last object to add is the center support pole which is just a simple cylinder. Add a 10 vertex circle in top view
dead center. Resize the circle, then in front view extrude the circle into a cylinder. Adjust the location of the pole.
For SciFi and Abstract stuff our staircase would look best with out any rails or other support poles.

The Final Result


Quite convincing, isn't it! The most important thing to remember
is to assign ALL materials and texture links BEFORE duplication.