Duplicate a row of connected objects

Support Modeling
1

Hello,

I’m trying to model the parthenon of Athens and am having a problem copying and pasting the same basic model hundreds of times.

So I’ll make a triglyph or metope (some continuous patterns at the top, basically frames for pictures / sculptures with about 20 on each side of the Parthenon), then duplicate it, move it over slightly, join the objects, go to edit mode, weld (or remove double) the overlapping vertices, then repeat.

Is there a way I can just sort of ‘extrude’ a whole row of identical objects that are already connected?

I can see a lot of pain if I add a tiled roof, and have to copy thousands of repeating tiles to cover the whole thing. Much easier to just make 1 (or even 1 row), and extrude it out.

2

Array modifier perhaps? http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Modifiers/Objects/Array

3

Yes, array modifiers is what you want.
Have a look at Blenditall’s tiled roof tutorial in this thread:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showpost.php?p=911120&postcount=25

And read some more about his project in BAM #12 (“Roof Tops - Making of”):
http://blenderart.org/issues/