The Array Modifier

Blender has many modifiers that can be very useful while modeling. In this mini lesson, you will learn how to use probably the most basic one, the Array Modifier.


So, start a new project and scale that initial cube down until you have a long, skinny board. Then make a duplicate of it by pressing Shift and D. Then hit Y to constrain movement to the Y axis and move it over a little bit.

There we have the two beam for our ladder. Now add a new cube mesh and scale it down until you have a rung looking shape and place at the foot of the ladder.

The next step is to create all the other rungs of the ladder. One option is to duplicate this wrung about 5000 times :) Or we can just use an Array and adjust a couple setting then just type in how many duplicates we want. We'll go with the second option. ;)

Head over to the properties panel on the right and click the Modifiers tab (looks like a wrench). Make sure just your ladder rung is selected. Click Add Modifier and choose Array from the menu. Basically, what the Array will do is create duplicates of the selected object (however many you choose) and place them a certain distance apart along a axis or curve.

Go ahead and uncheck Relative Offset and click on Constant Offset (we want the distance between rungs to be constant).

The offset determines in which direction and how far the duplicates will be from each other. First, we need to figure out which axis to put the offset on. In my example, the ladder is running along the X axis so we're going to put the offset on the X axis.

In the X axis offset, set it to 14 or -14 (any number around there is good) depending on where you're starting the rungs.

Now you should see a copy of the rung slide out along the X axis on the ladder. If the copy goes in the opposite direction, then change the offset to -14.

That's great, but typically you want a ladder with a couple more rungs. In the Array Modifier, slide the Count up until you have enough rungs to complete your ladder.

That's pretty much the basics of the Array modifier. Of course you can put the array along a curve or something fancy like that, but we'll leave that 'till later.