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I am working on a subway in blender inspired by a Blender Guru tutorial, and when making the stairs, I used an array modifier.

But, I had to eyball it to make sure that the relative x,y, and z values were making it aligned.

Is there a way to just tell blender that you want to make them joined up?Trying to get it lined up here

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    $\begingroup$ actually if you use a value of 1, the vertices of the instances should stick to each other, the Merge option make them merge, so maybe the difficulty here was that your stairs were not aligned with the axis? If it's not the case if makes things harder, you'd better begin with an object that is aligned with the axis if possible $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Commented Aug 13, 2020 at 7:45
  • $\begingroup$ The object isn't aligned the axis to start with because the stairs are going away to the right $\endgroup$
    – neptunestar999
    Commented Aug 14, 2020 at 6:35
  • $\begingroup$ Array will use the object local axis, if it is rotated in Object mode il will work fine, if you've rotated the stair in Edit mode, it makes things harder, but maybe show a picture of the stairs you want to achieve $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Commented Aug 14, 2020 at 6:45
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, image I am trying to achieve. I duplicated an edge and then made it its own object, extruded it upwards and forwards. There was no rotating involved. $\endgroup$
    – neptunestar999
    Commented Aug 14, 2020 at 6:50
  • $\begingroup$ the stairs looks like a regular one so you should not meet any difficulty, maybe share your file: blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Commented Aug 14, 2020 at 6:52

1 Answer 1

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You want your stairs to follow the corridor orientation (I put the origin to the geometry so that we can see the XYZ local or global orientation):

enter image description here

The Array will use the local XYZ to duplicate the instances (here the object local orientation is still aligned with the global orientation).

For example if you set 1 on the X axis in the Array modifier it will mean that your mesh will be duplicated on the local X axis and that the duplication will perfectly stick to the original mesh (and if you enable the Merge option, once you'll apply the modifier, the vertices of the original and of the duplicationss will automatically merge).

If you rotate the mesh in Edit mode, like you're trying to do currently, it will make the work a bit more tedious than if you kept it aligned with the local axis, because the values that you'll need won't be 1 anymore, you'll need to find them visually. In some cases you need to work that way, but in your case it would be much simpler to do that:

  • In Edit mode, align back your stair with the global axis (or recreate it):

enter image description here

  • Use values of 1 for YZ:

enter image description here

  • Go back in Object mode and rotate your stairs on the Z axis so that they follow the corridor orientation, to be more precise you can press Shift after having pressing RZ to rotate:

enter image description here

Also, this method has another advantage, if you need to make some changes to your stairs, you won't have to change the XYZ values, the instances will automatically align correctly, as they are still aligned with the local axis.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for the explanation, but how would I align the stair to the global axis? $\endgroup$
    – neptunestar999
    Commented Aug 14, 2020 at 8:04
  • $\begingroup$ do you mean you want the local axis of the stairs to be aligned with the global axis? In that case you need to apply the rotation (ctrl A > Apply Rotation in Object mode), but the Array won't work correctly anymore, so you'll also need to apply the Array. But why do you need to align local with global? $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Commented Aug 14, 2020 at 8:07
  • $\begingroup$ Your first step, the one that says "In Edit mode, align back your stair with the global axis", I was wondering how you aligned the stair along the global axis, so the object is going straight along the x-axis. Thank you $\endgroup$
    – neptunestar999
    Commented Aug 14, 2020 at 8:11
  • $\begingroup$ I just rotated your stair in Edit mode, and flatten the faces and edges with some S X 0 and S Y 0 to make sure they were aligned with the axis, but maybe redo if from scratch $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Commented Aug 14, 2020 at 8:13
  • $\begingroup$ Fantastic thanks for your help and explanation $\endgroup$
    – neptunestar999
    Commented Aug 15, 2020 at 6:14

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