Hi Andy, the other thing that's pretty difficult in your original one is even when the curve tangents are tuned up, the way it's set up here has a quite complex intersection between the pieces (here shown during a mesh export done to a very high density using "Divide larger than" to analyze the surface shape interactions):
It would probably help if the rail's curve tangent aligned with the z axis direction a little bit before the end of the curve instead of only right at the very end of the curve. That would probably get the surfaces to be the same shape near the top rather than the different shapes for neighboring surfaces like shown above.
re:
> Michael - how do I tell the sweep to make sure the surfaces all end on the plane for the end circle?
> It's sweep that created those misalignments.
You've got to make the rail curve to be more accurate - currently some of your rail curves have an end tangent that is out of line with the world z axis (see above screenshot). So that introduces a kind of slant into the sweep.
> It would probably help if the rail's curve tangent aligned with the z axis direction a little bit before the end
> of the curve instead of only right at the very end of the curve.
This didn't seem to work out very well. It's probably better to hack off a slice off the top of each piece before trimming them against each other, to avoid this complex zone here:
Hi Andy, here's the result from tuning up all the curve tangents, then remaking the sweeps, then slicing off the top and trimming surfaces against each other and then patching in the top part separately. Is this going to work for what you need? :
