I’ve seen some C4D users use a tool called Loft-NURBS it seemed like a good way to speed up my workflow.
Is there a tool in Blender to create a surface from multiple splines, but still have the ability to change their shape?
Loft-NURBS in Cinema4D
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$\begingroup$ I think with Blender 2.79 this Animation Nodes solution is the way to go for lofting now. animation-nodes-manual.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user_guide/… $\endgroup$ – Master James Feb 5 '18 at 12:31
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In blender this is called Skinning:
- Add a NURBS surface circle Shift+a, s, c.
- Tab into edit mode.
- Shift+d to duplicate your the segment a few times.
- Select you segments, aa for all of them.
- Press f to skin selection.
- You'll probably also want to unable Endpoint U in the Active Spline panel under "Object data" in the Properties window.
The image included in the question shows a shape with a differing number of segment points. This is currently not possible.
Note. There's work being done to give Blenders limited NURBS a overhaul (but progress has been slow).
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$\begingroup$ Thank you. What i really like about this is, that you can see in real time how the changes you are making to the curve affect the surface. Unfortunatly it only works on surface-curves and like you said, they all need the same number of segment points. $\endgroup$ – mnxd Jun 9 '13 at 11:55
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$\begingroup$ @mnxd, For lofting bezier curves with differing number of segments see this question. $\endgroup$ – Aldrik Jul 2 '13 at 4:08
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Yes you can. It is in an addon under Add Curve called Curve Tools.
Add some curves to the scene..
Then press Loft
Once you are finished, a mesh is made separate from the curves so you can continue editing or tweaking them.
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$\begingroup$ Unfortunatly cyclics are not supported yet, but apart from that it seems to work fine, thank you. $\endgroup$ – mnxd Jun 8 '13 at 22:38
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$\begingroup$ I had no idea of the existance of this addon, thanks! Now my IGS importer might get another looking at. $\endgroup$ – zeffii Jun 9 '13 at 11:41
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$\begingroup$ @ikisR i have installed the addon in Blender 2.79 but i get error when i click on loft option and after click the option disappear. pasteall.org/pic/index.php?id=119625. Is there any other way or other addon can do loft with the curve $\endgroup$ – atek Oct 20 '17 at 12:26
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$\begingroup$ @atek This is a pretty old answer and it doesn't seem this addon is maintained anymore, so none that I'm aware of atm. If either of us finds one let's update this post. Or as op commented above, maybe it can't be used on certain objects. $\endgroup$ – iKlsR♦ Oct 20 '17 at 12:40
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There Are some geometry tools built into Blender now which have some basic functionality similar to lofting.
(Curve) / Properties / Data / Geometry / Bevel
The problem is it only seems to allow a single primary shape plus a taper shape to generate the geometry along a path. I cannot see a way to implement more shapes like you can in other software where you could add dozens of different shapes to transform between.
However one of the key features of Lofting is the ability to generate your geometry along a path which might be rather intricate, and Beveling a curve allows you to do just that.
By using curves (splines) either bezier or Nurb you can assign another curve as a Bevel Object which is then applied as geometry along the base curve. There are options to Cap and Taper. see documentation: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/curves/properties/geometry.html
