Railworks America

How are you guys making your handrails in blender?
I have made some but they seem to take forever to do.
Is there an add-on like you could get with 3dcrafter or any other pipe builder?
The technique i've been using is to connect the ends of tubes with bridge end loops but it normally means editing a bunch of vertices and edges.
I would just build them in 3dcrafter and import them but i'd rather be working with just one program.

- create, scale, place a 16-24 sided cylinder. You can experiment with how many sides you want, as the Smoothing function will round it off.
- select the end faces and stretch the cylinder to the desired length. You could also extrude the end, but this would break your rail into more polygons.
- where you want a bend, say where the rail goes down to the end sill, extrude the end face of the rail by 150mil or so. With the end still selected, press the "R" (rotate) key, then the "X" (horizontal axis) key, then rotate the face using your mouse. On the pull-out to the left side, type in how many degrees you want to rotate, such as 7.5d.
- Continue this until you have turned the handrail to the desired direction.
- Select the end face and stretch to the next bend.

TIP: You can vary the length and degree of bends to taste. 150mil/7.5d will give you a sharp but smooth turn in the rail. 500mil/7.5 will give you a large bend. Use smoothing after you have built your rail, and the Edge Split modifier if you have sharp edges that need to be preserved.

Yes, this is the long way to do it, but with practice, it will take no time at all to get the hang of it and move more quickly.

P.S. - If you are using blender, chuck 3DCrafter into File 13. The ability to quickly make a pipe is insignificant, next to the power of the Blend.

Thanks Jerry that's the kind of info i was looking for

I think i've used 3dcrafter once since i made the switch, Blender i just so much faster and easier to use.

Sorry to bump an old thread but i've found a blender equivalent to the pipe building tool for 3dcrafter.
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showth ... ost2783290
The tool is no way perfect but i have found it very useful and quick for building complex brakepipes or handrails.
You build an outline of the shape you want with a cube using the edges then just select the edges you want and a pipe will follow the edge.
You can adjust the amount of sides to the cylinder and the size then smooth.
There are some limitations that are easily worked through though. To set the pipe diameter i've found that placing a cylinder the size you want in the centre of one end of your pipe then scale up or down the pipe till it's the same.
You may be a mil or two out but i doubt even the most eagle eyed rivit counter would notice.
You also can't edit or extrude the ends of the pipe but that's something to do with the path it uses(i don't know the proper name).
You can adjust the length though by the paths vertice.
In a nutshell it is worth a try. A pipe that took me litrally an hour to build with Jerrys technique took five minutes with the tool.
I've only been using it a day so no doubt i've not discovered all it can do. The limitations could just be my lack of skill with the tool so far.