EZ Stairs
Yea, I know there's a spiral stair in the presets. But what does that teach yea? And
what if you want to add a handrail or straighten it out. There's a distinct lack of stairs
in 3d artwork and they are found in almost every building, often the focal point of the
house. Let's try to whip up a few!
Begin by starting a new scene, sized to your liking. Create a "brick-oid",
you know, the small horizontal rectangle. Use the default size (5.12x5.12x20.48) and leave
it un-rotated and at the world center. This will be our 'step'.
Next, create a cylinder. Use the wide vertical one so you don't have to rotate it.
Re-size to approx. 1.02 x 1.02 x 18.60 (not critical).This will become our
"balluster". Center this balluster on the brickoid and then move it to the
right, just back from the edge of the step. Duplicate the cylinder and move the duplicate
left with about the same distance from the edge. You should have something like
this..............
Next, the trickiest part, the handrail sections. Create a cylinder using the small
horizontal cylinder. Size it so that it's a little wider than the balluster and
about as long as the short dimension of the step. Rotate it to align with the short
dimension of the step. Move or use the align buttons to get it to the top of the right
balluster.
Once positioned, duplicate this handrail and move the copy to the top of the left
balluster. (note, these handrails determine the shape of the handrail system so you could
also use ovals or squares for a different look. We will stick with the cylinders for now
though)
Select the right handrail and picking the "A" for attribute box, enter the
value shown below in the Z rotate box. Dis-regard the other values shown in the picture
below, yours may or may not be the same.
Next select the left handrail and do the same. Please note, depending on which way you
rotated your handrails when created you may have to rotate them 180 degrees to get these
figures to match mine. Otherwise subtract my figures from 180 for the inverse figure.
Also note that these figures are for a stair that turns to the right as it goes up.
Just as in real life stair construction the rate of rise on the outer radius handrail must
be different than the ROR on the inner radius. If you would like your stair to go right
you can flip my figures or just mirror a left handed stair.
If you would like a carpet runner, select the step, duplicate, and resize the runner in
from the ballusters a bit and larger on top and in front of the step.
One other thing to do, select the right balluster and handrail and move them both
towards the front of the stair just a little. This keeps the next set of steps from
cutting the balluster off.
Now apply your materials to your objects. You must apply now or you will have alot of
picking to do later. When thats done be sure to GROUP all the objects together. This will
not work if you don't group. Once grouped it's a good idea to save your starting step to
the presets so you don't have to go through all this again.
Make sure your group is selected and enter the above values in the multi-replicate box.
In our example we are making a stair with 18 treads and are turning 90 degrees to the
right. (18 x 5 =90) You may adjust the quantity and the rotation degrees for diffent
angles of turn. ie a 45 degree turn with 9 treads would be quan. 9 rotation 5
etc..........
We also must offset a couple of units so that there are no cracks between the treads as
we rotate. Hit the check mark and BOINK!!!!!! there's your stair.
If you would like a straight stair, do the same process but use 0 as a rotation value.
You will have to adjust the angles of the handrail pieces to be equal and lined up so that
the sections don't show.
Here's a couple of examples.........
As always, I hope this inspires you to experiment. The multi-replicate function is a
very powerful tool once you get the gist of it.
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