Lofting?

[Devin Johnston]

I'm trying to loft a handrail on a spiral staircase; I'll draw the profile of what I want with a line and then loft it along another line. As the lofted shape moves up the staircase it begins to deviate from the lines path and doesn’t hug the outside of the stairs but instead moves toward the center. I've tried every way I can think of but it doesn’t seem to matter nothing will follow the line precisely and I get all of the strange shapes. I can't believe this is the way lofting is supposed to work, so what am I doing wrong?

[gfa2]

Have you tried the sweep modifier?

[Devin Johnston]

No what does it do?

[gfa2]

Extrudes a shape (predefined or custom) along a path...and it has pretty nice controls with it too. That's what you're trying to do right?

[kainfury]

Maybe you need to raise the number of steps in the Loft options?

 

Not sure, but maybe it is worth a try!

[danb4026]

What about your pivot point? Have you adjusted your pivot point so that a specific vertice or point of your profile follows the path?

[amer abidi]

...or break down your path spline into 2 or more

 

.. or reverse the loft sequence; ie, path>pick shape Shape>pick path

 

.. or cntrl-click on shape when picking to reverse..

 

I dont know, an image would really help here.