Extruding a shape along a straight path (not a curve)

[JML]

I know it's something very simple, but a friend asked me how to do that,
and i could not answer him..

i know it's very easy to extrude a shape along a curve, but what if I want to extrude a shape along a straight shape ?
like for example, i create some points and joint them 1 by 1 , it won't extrude because it's not a curve...

any ideas?

[meshmaster]

and then move the new point out and join it to the other one...

[riki]

mmmm good question, I'm sure there must be a few ways to do it.

[kevman3d]

Might need to just add extra points on a spline curve to tighten those edges... Similiar to subd's - Just add a point, on one side of a corner point to make the corner sharp.

Kev.

[hunter]

ummm,
If you're going for just a straight path can't you just use the extrude tool or even just a 2 point spline or are you talking about a path with straight sections in it but does contain corners like a square?
Maybe you could post an image because I can extrude along a straight line three different ways.:)

[wacom]

I've found a few plugins on Flay that do that job well and can even do more...I'll try and find the names out for you. One works more like rail extrusion in Rhino...

[kevman3d]

Originally posted by hunter
If you're going for just a straight path can't you just use the extrude tool or even just a 2 point spline

Hehehe! Funnily enough, that was my first thought as well! :) 'Extrude on a straight path? You mean just extruding in a straight line? That's what, eh, Extrude is for!'

My guess is sharp-cornered paths (I'm guessing ideal for say modelling stuff like the Pentagon building by extruding a profile around a shape with sharp corners?)

Like I said, just adding an extra point next to a point on a curve will make the corner 'snap' sharply... But I'd be curious what other tools and approaches people come up with!

[riki]

If you have any sharp corners it's going to get messy pretty quickly, especially if your extruding and odd shaped poly.