Stair Struggles


Rich_Winsor
 Share

Recommended Posts

OK all of you stair gurus. I have been wrestling with this 

innocuous little pour all weekend. This is the door stoop

of a local historical landmark I am rendering so I need

the model to be as accurate as possible. It looks simple

enough until you get to the details. The stairs are poured 

concrete with rails cobbled together with 4 x 4 newels,

1 x 4 balusters and 2 x 4 top and bottom rails. Note that

the stairs not only are flared? splayed? outward from the

top of the porch but the treads are also undercut to give 

the effect of having a tread overhang. Any ideas, thoughts,

approaches as to how to model these would be greatly

appreciated. So far I have got a pretty good facsimile by 

beating it out of the program with brute force but I was

wondering if it is possible to make Chief do the work.

 

 

Image5_zps1kfmthbl.png

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rich I tried making it using P-solid, but it takes time and lots of tweaking, basically its a pain in the A$$... Still not perfect and need some more tweaking  so it looks perfect at all angles, but its doable if you want to spend time on it.. I'm not that good at it and this is the first time I tried doing that...Maybe someone else can do it better, in less time doing it another way, but here is what I got

 

The treads and risers are individual p-solids, the side stringers are also... If you want to make it enclosed all you have to do is lower the back to the terrain level. 

post-4069-0-37650100-1437387418_thumb.jpg

post-4069-0-99155700-1437387426_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have done this using slabs (p-solids are fine too). For the top round handrail, I would use a 3D molding polyline so I could break it and angle it down. You might have to do those balasters manuals too or create your own fence panel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the input guys. Here is what I have come

up with so far. All the cement is built up from slabs. I

used wedges on the front of the stairs (see vector view) 

to make the undercut effect. I couldn't get any type of

railing to generate the look I needed so I made a section

of railing (see thumbnail) which worked fine on the flat

portion of the porch but I couldn't make it follow down

the stairs as in the actual construction. Basically I built

the descending rail portions from scratch. I had a play 

with attaching the rounded portion of the hand rail on

top by using a 3d molding polyline and it is doable but

will take a lot of niggling to pull off. All in all it's looking 

pretty decent in Standard View which is all I really need

for now. Vector View is a little messy in spots but can

probably be cleaned up with a little more precision in

the plan and some touch up work. At least I can see

the light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately I didn't 

do this mockup to scale so I will have the delightful

experience of doing it all over again using actual dims.

 

I'll bet that when they built this stoop in 1930 they

never imagined what a pain it would be to generate

in Chief. ;)

post-126-0-93063800-1437428785_thumb.png

post-126-0-67560000-1437428804_thumb.png

post-126-0-42593100-1437428826_thumb.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the input guys. Here is what I have come

up with so far. All the cement is built up from slabs. I

used wedges on the front of the stairs (see vector view)

to make the undercut effect. I couldn't get any type of

railing to generate the look I needed so I made a section

of railing (see thumbnail) which worked fine on the flat

portion of the porch but I couldn't make it follow down

the stairs as in the actual construction. Basically I built

the descending rail portions from scratch. I had a play

with attaching the rounded portion of the hand rail on

top by using a 3d molding polyline and it is doable but

will take a lot of niggling to pull off. All in all it's looking

pretty decent in Standard View which is all I really need

for now. Vector View is a little messy in spots but can

probably be cleaned up with a little more precision in

the plan and some touch up work. At least I can see

the light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately I didn't

do this mockup to scale so I will have the delightful

experience of doing it all over again using actual dims.

I'll bet that when they built this stoop in 1930 they

never imagined what a pain it would be to generate

in Chief. ;)

Good job, Try ramps. I explained it in earlier threads.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How did you make the Railing section Rich? just curious as the ones I made in the other thread followed the stairs no problem using a manually drawn straight railing ( auto railing off ) and the Balusters set to Panel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK, so here's the deal. I haven't really spent any time

on the railing so far because I'm sure I can get the look

I need. What I can't do is get the stairs tools to generate

a slab step/tread like the ones in my picture. Forgive the

use of a rogue 3D program but here is a 3D model of what

one of the stair steps needs to look like. I have exaggerated

the tread undercut for clarity. Can this look be achieved

using Chief's stair tools or should I just stick to my first

approach of stacking slabs together?

 

post-126-0-02734800-1437718028_thumb.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share