I just can't get this staircase to curve right, no matter what! :-(

Support Modeling
1

So, I’m working on a “virtual dollhouse” model – specifically, my enhanced & elaborated version of a 3D model I downloaded from Sketchup 3DWarehouse of Dr. Jekyll’s mansion in “The Pagemaster”. It’ll have a full decorated interior with many rooms, & will serve as a visual guide/reference for my “Pagemaster” fanfiction stories & fanart (many of which feature Jekyll/Hyde, his family, & his friends). :slight_smile: Here’s some pictures of the work in progress:

https://i.ibb.co/6RWv0hT2/Jekyll-Manor-Outside-Front.png

https://i.ibb.co/5gHmm4KL/Jekyll-Manor-Outside-Back.png

https://i.ibb.co/kVRTMXQ2/Jekyll-Manor-Outside-Side-Profile.png

https://i.ibb.co/VY3CBsF9/Jekyll-Manor-Almost-All-The-Rooms-As-Seen-From-Outside.png

https://i.ibb.co/Yw6DhYM/Jekyll-Manor-Two-More-Rooms-The-Upper-Floor-Hallways-As-Seen-From-Outside.png

https://i.ibb.co/Rk1cbJty/Jekyll-Manor-What-The-Rooms-Hallways-Look-Like-From-The-Side.png

https://i.ibb.co/3mBwXmzZ/High-Angle-Cross-Section-Of-The-House-s-Living-Room.png

And, of course, the house also includes the staircases to the second & third floors, the former of which empties out into the living room via an antechamber (which will resemble the way it looks in the original movie, as per my reference photos):

https://i.ibb.co/fYJbqGrh/Where-The-Stairwells-Are-Meant-To-Be.png

https://i.ibb.co/Kjjq2Cby/An-Even-Better-View-Of-The-Stairwell-Set-Up.png

https://i.ibb.co/MyCrJCjL/How-The-Stairwell-Area-Is-Ultimately-Supposed-To-Look.png

https://i.ibb.co/Wrj6ZTm/A-Closer-Look-At-The-Stairwell-Set-Up.png

The staircases will fit neatly inside this tower:

https://i.ibb.co/xqRSwQcc/The-Staircases-Fit-In-This-Tower.png

https://i.ibb.co/cKkqWbXH/How-The-Staircase-Is-Supposed-To-Fit-In-The-Tower-As-Seen-From-Ground-Level.png

Now, I have downloaded a simple staircase shape, & made a sort of layout design &/or placeholder for it in my model…

https://i.ibb.co/Z6kjcxtx/This-Is-My-Staircase-Mesh.png

https://i.ibb.co/xkW3JGT/Stairs-Placeholder-Area-With-Reference-Image-Floor-Landings.png

And I wish for it to follow this curve line (seen from overhead)…

https://i.ibb.co/gL4bFXyR/The-Little-Curve-Line-Not-Highlighted-So-You-Can-See-It.png

…while also covering the whole white part of my “stairs” layout picture. The bigger curve line in this screenshot, goes through the center of all the steps in the staircase layout, & I want my stairs mesh to look precisely like that.

https://i.ibb.co/fz4fm7Gc/This-Big-Curve-Line-Shows-Exactly-How-The-Staircase-Should-Look-In-The-End.png

https://i.ibb.co/1JZm8qvJ/Close-Up-Of-The-Big-Curve-Line.png

The meet-up point for the staircase & curve line is here:

https://i.ibb.co/nhZ7zqb/The-Stairs-Mesh-Little-Curve-Line-Meet-Up-Here.png

From the side, it should look something like this (forgive the crappy shape of the curve line as it goes down – it was one of my earliest attempts at the staircase):

image
image1366×768 134 KB

Which brings me to the crux of my problem: I can’t get my staircase mesh to curve alongside the curve line! :frowning: And I have tried literally EVERYTHING that people & posts on this website, Reddit, SuperUser, & Google have recommended to do, following every single instruction right down to the T, over & over & OVER AGAIN!!! :frowning: AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WORKS!!!

I really, REALLY can’t keep wasting my time with this stairwell – I have FAR much to do in my life! – so if anyone could make it successfully work for me, that would be greatly appreciated. :slight_smile: Here’s the 3D file with just the staircase…

2

If you have less than $20 handy, just get the Stairs Maker Add-on. Or the ACS Stair Generator.

Youtube has a bazillion videos about making stairs. A very good one is Justin Geis’s How to Create 10 Kinds of STAIRS in Blender! tutorial.

3

That might work. :slight_smile: I’ll ask my mommy & daddy about it. :slight_smile:

EDIT: Money’s a little bit tight right now, so I’ll have to wait to buy the Stairs Maker add-on. In the interim, however, I did find some free building addons that include customizable stair-making as a feature, so they might also work. :slight_smile: I’ll let you know how it goes!

4

OK, so, I installed Building Tools, HL Building, & Stair Generator addons into my Blender; I’m working with the Stair Generator right now, & it’s looking pretty good so far. :slight_smile:

image
image1366×768 502 KB

Only, how can I get the width of the staircase to be consistent all the way around? I don’t want any tapering.

5

Alas, I am not interested in learning Blender for you. This is something you have to do for yourself. Making stairs isn’t the simplest thing to do, but it is a fairly basic thing to do. I have linked you a fantastic tutorial for modeling stairs. Many more exist.

You will quickly discover that even for dollhouse/non-realistic stuff, modeling a house (and things like stairs) require a lot of planning and use the basic math you’ve been learning in grade school.

For reference, real-life stairs follow the 7-11 rule, which is that a step will rise about 7 inches and must have a tread about 11 inches. You can vary those somewhat to make things work, but not much.

A building like a hotel and the like will typically have about 12 feet between levels (from flooring surface to flooring surface), making you need (12 feet) × (12 inches per foot) ÷ (7 inches per step) = 20.57 → 21 steps between levels. Each step must then be 12 × 12 ÷ 21 = 6.8571 inches high.

Again, for 21 steps with a minimum tread of 11 inches, your central radius must be at minimum (21 steps) × (11 inches) ÷ π [from the formula for the circumference of a circle] to give you 73.53 inches = 6.127 feet.

None of this is going to be drag&drop easy, and no one is interested in modeling a stairwell to fit your needs for you (unless you go to the Jobs section and offer money).

BTW, have you considered checking out places like Sketchfab.com?

6

Oh, I LOVE Sketchfab! :slight_smile: Why do you ask?

Also, you gave me lots of good advice, BTW. :slight_smile:

7

All of us here love to help you learn and understand better. (A lot of us need that push ourselves from time to time.) Keep working at it! A lot of it is just not giving up, and eventually your brain makes sense of it. :smile:

8

Not many people do your job for you.
It can be easily solved with a little effort.
You may be in trouble because you don’t know the current method.

I think it’s more complicated if the method presented is different from what you want.

If you are having trouble generating curves, use the basic Addon.