My Ultra Simplistic Stairs Tutorial.

useroperator

As far as I know, there is no tutorial out there that makes stairs this simple. So I will share it with you. It takes a few steps, but these steps are pretty simple, and the great thing is this method gives you full control over all aspects of the stairs.....including the amount of stairs. You could create 10 stairs or 10,000 stairs with the same amount of work!!

Create a cube primitive. Select the upper top and right line on the face of the cube in the orientation shown. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste the line. The cube can now be deleted, it is no longer needed.

Since stairs are typically twice as long as they are high, we set a simple size change in the properties panel. Since size is relative, any number will do as long as the length is twice as long as the height. I typically choose 5 and 10 or 2 and 4.

http://i.imgur.com/ItKzl3r.png

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Go to Utilities > Multiple copies. Choose as many copies as you want stairs. In the properties panel set the X axis offset to the length of the object you set earlier, except with a negative sign in front of it. Do the same for the Y value relative to the height you set earlier, except in positive. Validate the changes (never forget to validate). This will align the copies into what you see in the image.

http://i.imgur.com/wDqxEj2.png

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Now we have a group of lines, but we can't do much with them. We can't ctrl+pull on an axis to create flat faces because they are non-connected lines just grouped together.

So to get around this what we do is go to Vertex Modeling > Average Weld. This will turn the grouped lines into a single form, which we can then use to hold down ctrl+pull on an axis to create the faces we need.

http://i.imgur.com/e31kRHD.png

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But these stairs obviously don't have any sides or bottom....you can add thickness to it, but that won't change anything. You need stairs with sides and bottoms right?

Well that's simple too!

Select the lines shown in the image below.

http://i.imgur.com/fCrUr29.png

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Go to Vertex Modeling > Bridge, to bridge the two lines with a face.

http://i.imgur.com/ZzfSeeA.png

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Select the line shown in the image below. Perform an extract along by going to Vertex Modeling > Edge tools. For simplicity sake, just try to extract and pull the line to the center green dot.

http://i.imgur.com/k6svvI4.png

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Now what you need to do is take the value of the Y coordinate of the line at the bottom of the first step, and the X coordinate of the line at the end of the top step by selecting the lines and reading the properties panel, Re-select the line you extracted, and set those coordinates to that line.

http://i.imgur.com/I2CbQn0.png
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http://i.imgur.com/jObwhGt.png

The new line will now be perfectly aligned.

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Finally, you just select the model, go to Vertex Modeling > Close to close up the sides, either by manually clicking each side after, or by clicking the 'A' icon in the properties panel to close all open areas automatically.

http://i.imgur.com/JlmZpK7.png

What you end up with is a perfect set of stairs you can manipulate any way you like based off 2 lines as a starting profile. This can also be used to create stairs following a curved path if you set the offsets properly when creating multiple copies of the profile, but that's a whole 'nother tutorial on its own.

patience55

Thank you very much :-)