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I'm entirely new to Blender and am learning as I go, so I need a bit of step-by-step guidance please.

I'm working on some voxel based graphics, creating them in MagicaVoxel, exporting as .obj files and then importing into Blender. Most of the graphics are easy enough, however I have a railway line which looks like this:

Rail object

In this case I want to 'bend' the railway line to become a curve, I need to make a number of curved sections in this way. I want to use these as 'tiles' within a game design environment (Unity) and so the rail needs to stay flat to the 'ground' of course and I want the straight and the curves to fit together, like pieces from a model railway would.

I've looked at some online videos and so on and ended up playing with the Simple Deform - Bend modifier, but I can't get to grips with it at all, the results I'm getting are nothing like my expectation!

Can anyone please provide me with some advice to help me understand how to approach this? Any guidance would be gratefully received. Thanks.

Barry Neville
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  • I'd recommend using an array modifier and a curve modifier. See my answer here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/2867/599 – gandalf3 Feb 08 '15 at 09:52
  • a lattice could also do the trick. – Bithur Feb 08 '15 at 10:52
  • Bithur - Can you provide any pointers on that? – Barry Neville Feb 08 '15 at 10:57
  • basic (but good) tutorial on lattice from blenderDiplom : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_kcXMzASds – Bithur Feb 08 '15 at 11:05
  • @gandalf3 Using a curve modifier has the disadvantage that in general the railroad ties will not be square anymore after bending the object along a curve. – maddin45 Feb 08 '15 at 11:44
  • @maddin45 This can be worked around by arraying a plane object, then using duplifaces to put ties on each face of the plane (http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/5910/599). However with reasonable curves (for a railroad) the distortion on the ties is quite subtle to begin with. – gandalf3 Feb 08 '15 at 12:10
  • curving a mesh will result in...a curved mesh! if tou want the wood part to keep rectangular, you'll have to separate them. – Bithur Feb 09 '15 at 00:38
  • My inexperience with Blender is proving to make working through these suggestions rather slow work for me, I haven't managed to achieve what I'm looking for as yet. I appreciate your help so far everyone. If anyone is able to put up a video of how to do this I might find that a better way to understand what to do. I'm finding that Blender is a rather overwhelming tool for a newcomer to 3D editing work. – Barry Neville Feb 11 '15 at 09:28

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First apply an array modifier to the train tracks. With a distance set to one, this will make the rail segments touch, and iterate. Then, add a bezier curve. Select it, press tab to switch into edit mode, and then manipulate it to get a good shape. Apply a curve modifier to the rail, and set the object to be the bezier curve you created. The rail will curve to match your bezier curve. An invaluable resource in blender is the modifier encyclopedia on Andrew Price's website. Great tool for reference. Hope this helps!

Luke Taylor
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  • I didn't manage to follow these steps completely; when I get to the point where you say 'Apply a curve modifier to the rail, and set the object to be the bezier curve you created' Blender says 'Modifiers cannot be applied in Edit mode' - what does this mean? – Barry Neville Feb 11 '15 at 09:09