Curviloft vs sandbox

[alcohorse]

Hi all!

First of all, many thanks to Fredo6 for another superb plugin, I think he may have even surpassed the incredibly useful 'stretch' tool!

Curviloft seems very useful indeed, I just had a couple of questions....

1. For forming a surface from a series of contours what are the advantages of using this over the 'from contours' button in the sandbox tool? Is it simply that curviloft gives 'smoother' 'more elegant' results?

2. Is there a particular circumstance when one is more appropriate than the other?

3. Is there a tutorial for the third 'skinning' button?

4. I dont seem to be able to loft between 3 splines that all meet at their verticies:

Sandbox is able to skin them though. Is it just the case that the splines must not meet at their endpoints for curviloft?

Any thoughts would be well appreciated, and once again, many thanks Fredo!

[charly2008]

Hi Ben,

to your fourth Question. If splines meet at their vertices I make separate groups. Curviloft has more options for the shape of the loft. I think Fredo can explain this better.

Charly

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[pilou]

You have also Ferrari who is not so bad
And the Extude Edges tools set by tig

[alcohorse]

Charly

Thanks for the reply. I can get the splines to form 2 skins as per your example without the need to group them. The trouble is that you have to do it by picking 2 splines and forming a skin and then picking the other 2 and forming another skin. The result means you get 2 skins with a clear ridge/edge where they meet rather than a single, continuous surface:

[TIG]

EEbyRails will do in in parts that your explode and rejoin into one group, but you need to add so 'profile' curves to determine the flatness/bulge of the sides...

[alcohorse]

....If I try to select all three splines in order, nothing happens.

However....if I seperate them and then pick them in order following the same process, curviloft produces a nice, smooth, contiunuous single surface:

Just wondered if this was possible with verticies touching?

[alcohorse]

Thanks to you as well TIG and Pilou.

I have downloaded extrude edges as well but not tried it yet. I have yet to try ferrari but am unsure if this brings anything else 'to the table' or whether it is doubling up with some of the other tools. Had also heard it was a bit unstable?

Thanks again for your responses!