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I want to lay out several pieces of a barrier along a race track, but the barrier must have openings and it is generally made up of multiple non-connected pieces. So I thought of making a Bezier curve in which certain segments are missing, then making a mesh representing a single barrier unit, and finally applying the classic Array-Curve modifier trick.

However, when applying the modifiers, only the length of the first part of the curve is considered. Even if I switch to "Fixed Count" to set the number of items manually, the Curve modifier only considers the first part, then goes on in a straight line.

Do I have a way to keep the Bezier curve intact (a single object with many non-connected parts) and use it as the base of my repeating mesh object?

EDIT Here is a file that demonstrates the issue:

I'd like "Cube" to follow along "BezierCurve", but only the first part of it is used by both modifiers.

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  • $\begingroup$ Can use several array modifiers (if I understand well... you should show some screenshots here). $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Commented Oct 3, 2020 at 6:09
  • $\begingroup$ @lemon I have thought of that, but I can't see how I could "select" different parts of the curve as the target of the array modifier: it always sticks to the "first" part, and I can't understand how the selection works. I'll post screenshots later today. $\endgroup$
    – Simone
    Commented Oct 3, 2020 at 7:50
  • $\begingroup$ Are you sure that you uploaded the correct file? The file linked contains neither Cube nor BezierCurve. $\endgroup$
    – Nathan
    Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 20:24
  • $\begingroup$ @Nathan You're right, thank you, I uploaded the wrong file. It's fixed now. $\endgroup$
    – Simone
    Commented Oct 4, 2020 at 20:48

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You can't use multiple, separate curve segments to curve modify an object. The curve modifier will only use the first curve it finds. This is just not a technique that works with Blender.

You can create divisions between barriers by giving it both a relative and a constant offset:

enter image description here

If you want regular intervals of undivided, divided, you can have a relative array followed by a relative + constant array:

enter image description here

You could make a boolean cutter, with a curve modifier to follow the same curve, and use it to cut shapes out of your boundary with a boolean modifier:

enter image description here

It wouldn't be impossible to make an array that followed multiple curves-- you'd need to UV offset the arrays, then use the UV as a mask texture for a vertex group edit modifier to divide the array into multiple bits with different vertex group weights, then use those vertex groups to specify which particular curve object to follow for a particular bit of the array. Not impossible. It would be complicated and totally impractical though.

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  • $\begingroup$ So my only option is to create separate curves out of the loose parts, then create multiple duplicates of my base object and assign the array-curve modifiers to each, am I correct? $\endgroup$
    – Simone
    Commented Oct 5, 2020 at 12:45

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