Curved Steps

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

I'm having trouble creating curved steps with the stair tool. I can bend the treads and risers but not the stair strucutre.

The aim is to create steps similar to the attached images.

Thank you very much for the advices

[Barry Kelly]

natmax wrote:
I'm having trouble creating curved steps with the stair tool. I can bend the treads and risers but not the stair strucutre.

You are on the right track.
You can only curve the risers and treads.
The front (riser) portion of the structure can not be curved.
Of course the baseline (path) of the stair can be curved (as in your example on the left), but the structure steps are always perpendicular to this baseline.


Barry.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the answer.

Regards

[Lingwisyer]

Hm... I should finish my stair extrusion object...

[Laszlo Nagy]

Maybe the faster way to model this would be to create the Stair Profile in the Profile Manager and place it as a curved Wall or Beam. Of course, in that case, you will not have the Numbering, Walking Line, Description, etc., which you would have to do manually.

Another option is to model let's say, 1/16th of the curve (I am talking about the Stair on the right image above), curve its Risers and Treads, then use the Multiply command to rotate the other 15 copies in place. Then the structure would well approximate the real curve.
Of course, you would have to take of hiding side edges and displaying the Walking Line only on the middle instance, Numbering only on the side instance, etc.

[JohnJay]

hmmm, the steps shown above aren't exactly revolutionary...

isn't this a major oversight in what is a (relatively) new tool?

i need to model some curved garden steps like in the image above and having to do them manually is less than ideal.

[runxel]

JohnJay wrote:

isn't this a major oversight in what is a (relatively) new tool?

i need to model some curved garden steps like in the image above and having to do them manually is less than ideal.

While it's indeed a bit unfortunate that the new stair tool can't change the structure of a stair I am not as confident it is actually affecting you in this case. All garden stairs I know and am aware of do not have any structure underneath their risers and treads but are backfilled with soil/gravel.
Even if your case is different:
Make a stair, show only risers and treads, no structure.
Instead make a morph, best from a section, and then rotate that morph along a curve – thus building your bend structure. Shouldn't take you longer than 2 minutes. 🙂

[JohnJay]

TBH i'm not that fussed about the technical side of it (the structure). i'm at the design stage of a large pool/garden project which has multiple levels and needed to come up with and present various options.

5 different stairs and 3 different levels options means 15 stairs total, and that's just the final 15. in between i was experimenting with different levels so workarounds like this add significant time but more importantly they break the train of thought so instead of focussing on designing i'm having to think about workarounds...

i used profiles in the end but the process was similar to the one you suggested. still a train of thought killer though

but there are other inconsistencies in the tool too - the fact that you can reshape some parts of the 'finishes' but you can't reshape the main structure. is it me or is that another oversight?

in plan view you can curve some of the parts but then you switch to 3d and the stairs is still straight. then you realise you're actually bending the 'finish' even though the stairs has the Finish box unchecked - surely that shouldn't happen?

i'll admit i'm still getting to know the stairs tool but initial impression is that it hasn't been well thought out and there are numerous inconsistencies.