Hi all, newbie here!
I would like to make the staircase structure rounded like the handrail. I am not sure how can I explain my self - but I would like to have the staircase structure reflecting the handrail contours.
Attached skp file
COMMON AREA.skp (1.3 MB)
Your staircase and your rail are not solid components. Inspector revealed nested components, border holes, internal faces, stray edges, and such. I started to work on making components solid but I’m thinking it would be better to start over and make one component at a time without nesting. Have you looked at the Sketch Up fundamentals course and the Square One series on U Tube? That might be a good place to start.
The risers for the straight runs need to but up to just the straight line part of the rail, and the curve should touch only the landing. I’d keep the winders to just one per landing, or at least make the winders converge on the center point of the quarter circle curve.
That´s the best I could do with your stairs, They´re very irregular and making a handrail was complicated, I had to fix some geometry otherwise the handrail was going to be floating. hope it can help you.
Hi Francis,
Thanks for this. I have managed to create it, however I need to resolve the following:
I need to close up these holes
And how to create the complex spiral at the end of the handrail - I tried using curve maker, however I couldn’t get hold of it.
COMMON AREA.skp (1.4 MB)
On the file I sent those gaps are closed, it was a challenge to do it given the unorthodox shape of the stairs.
Also on the file I shared on this post and on your previous post, you can see two models on each, there’s the subdivided and the un subdivided rails, I can make a small tutorial showing you how to make the spiral using native tools and how subdivision surface works. You should check the file I shared on your other post.
Just some thoughts. If this stairs are going to be built, I’d redesign them to find a better solution to make the rounded interior corners, if they’re already built, it will take a lot of time and effort to make the rounded corners and that kind of handrail if you want to make them look decent, you’ll have to extend some parts of the stairs and trim other parts that’s going to be a nightmare, an steel hand rail would be a lot easier, you can make the rounded shape with a tube and steel supports that adapt the shape of the stairs to the rounded hand rail and finally if it’s just a practice, it’s a complicated one for a beginner.
Heres how subD works.
And here how to make a Helix with native tools, I use mostly shortcuts but its basically just rotate and copy, you must select the rotate tool and press Ctrl in Windows or Option on Mac, then without leaving the tool type * or x followed by the sides of the circle, in this case 36, then use the move tool and make a copy as well, it will create 36 spirals, select the one that connects with the curve copy using CTRL+C, select everything and paste in place, I used a shortcut for that, you can do it from the edit menu. finally just draw a line, delete the part of the helix you dont need and with the arc tool make a smoother transition from the helix to the straigth.
I did the same to model the rail but with a lot less geometry then I use Vertex tools to make a surface out of the curve and SubD as on the videos I posted above.
The stairs I also modeled using quads and the corners have just three sides, I used creases almost everywhere so the stairs dont look like a marshmallow and used the same amount of subdivisions for the handrail and the stairs.
Heres what i mean for creases, you can see that the faces are green, its because i activated the quad analysis overlay, its created automatically when you install the Quadface Plugin from ThomThom, Quads are green triangles are purple and N-Gons(figure with 5 or more sides) are red, for subdivide you should have quads mostly, some triangles wont hurt depending on the shape but N-Gons must be avoided. On the video i Show you how the crease tool works on a subdivided object but you can apply creases even with the model unsubdivided, it´s even better to do that, when you have a big model and try to make some creases the tool either wont work or it will take a lot of time to do it.
Hi Francis,
Thanks for your in depth reply. I wanted to ask, so you have used the subdivision even for the staircase? I understand that the handrail requires SubD, but I’m not sure why you added creases to the staircase as well.
Hi Jose, if I don’t add creases to the stairs it looks like a marshmallow like on the video I posted.
But is the staircase subdivided as well?
Also - how would you address below staircase to match the contour of the handrail?
Do you have the extension SubD? If you activate it on one of the models and show hidden geometry you’ll see the lines that are added to the stair case, the easiest part to check that are the corners, they have 3 edges on the unsubdivided geometry and 8 on the subdivided geometry.
I’ll send you a file and a video showing how I would do that.
Are you going to build that or is it already built? If it’s not built I would remodel the stairs making a better distribution and easier for it’s construction.
Thanks for all your help. No it’s not built. I have re-constructed the staircase more accurately, if this helps.
Re-SuD - I understood, so you subdivided-it so you can
COMMON AREA.skp (2.0 MB)
round the corners.
Is this a real project? If so, then there are some basic things in the staircase planning that should be corrected before you go to the construction of the railing and some adjustments also with regard to the planned railing. Just a side note…
Hi there, thanks for your reply.Is there anything in particular that needs correcting?
I would say
Depends where you are, but similar here in the US: minimum tread at the narrow end of a winder, minimum treat at the walk line, consistent riser tread ration, etc.
Making that was more complicated than what i expected, the layout of the stairs make simple tasks something quite complicated for beginners, I had to pull some trick out of the sleeve to be able to do that, I wanted to do a video but it wouldve taken a lot of time and post production, it required the use of Fredo Spline and curviloft mostly. As I`ve mentioned and asked without having a response, if its not built yet, it would be better to redesign the stairs layout so it could be easier to model and to build, the actual design is going to be a nightmare for construction.
COMMON AREA (1).skp (3.5 MB)
