Is It Possible To Array Objects Perpendicular Along A Curve With Sharp Corners?

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1

After a few days of research into this question, I think I’ve ended up with the conclusion that this currently is not possible in default blender. Before you jump to a conclusion and say you can please take a look at my pedantic problem bellow.

By all means, if I’m missing something please do let me know as I would LOVE this to be possible.

So this is part of the much “loved” question of how do I array along a curve without deforming except with an extra bit which is how do I keep my axies perpendicular to the curve.

arrays along curves
arrays along curves1586×1135 368 KB

( A ) This is the point where most just add an array and a curve and then start looking how to do it without deforming so this question has been answered in my mind.

( B ) Using a plan to array along a curve and then using “face” instancing to put the cube along the curve without deforming (The usual answer) BUT Take a look at the top left corner cube of B. It’s not perpendicular to the curve it’s on… This here is my problem. I’ve tried adding more resolution to the curve, making it a bezeir curve and making the handles really short, I’ve tried making the plain smaller/bigger and even different rotations to no good result.

( C ) Using a single vertex to array along a curve. By all means this sort of works BUT… I now lose all perpendicularity to the curve with the cube as a vertex does not technically have a rotation…

SO here I am seeing what the great blender gods of this amazing forum have to say… I really hope there is a solution and it’s just me being silly. I am very much looking for a default blender way of doing this and not using a paid addon or preferably any addon at all.

Here is my file if you want to give it a go.
The question file.blend (790.7 KB)

Thanks for taking a look at this.

2

The cube is doing a 90° turn. It does not jump from 0 to 90. You can manually change the rotation with change the length of the control points of that curve segment.

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I’m 100% aware how to do it manually the key thing here is how to get this result with modifiers and I really thought that the length of the control points was a thing too but as I say in my post I have tried shortening the handles the “control” of the points to no good result.

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Afaik there is no way to slove this with modifier only.
Just making the control handles short is no solution, that will just change the speed of the 90° turn, but you can control the turn of the cube.

5

What is this please tell me because I can’t understand it.

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Thanks for your input Rigoletto. I’m not going to stop searching just yet as it seems silly that this would not be possible. As I said before, manual changes are not an option here. Yes, this example is very simple and it’s just a 90° change, but I like to achieve precision modelling in much more complicated models and I just find it silly that we can’t stay perpendicular to a polyline…

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The question is to make cubes near 90° angles turn to 0° or 90° without iter from 0° to 90°.

The corner cube should be at 0° or 90° angle
The question file-1