Now that you’ve become familiar with some Blender tools, it’s time to talk a little about how you can use them to create something outstanding from a single object, for example, how to make stairs with the Extrude Tool.
Let’s begin by pressing three (3) on your keyboard to go to the Right Orthographic View Mode and then, go into the Edit Mode. Now, go to the top panel of your screen. You will find different types of icons: the first one is the Transformation Orientation, next to it, is the Transformation Pivot Point, and the third option, which is the one you are going to use, is a magnet icon which is the snap toggle (you can also turn this on or off by pressing Shift + Tab on your keyboard) that will help you to be more accurate while editing your model. Moreover, when you click on it, you can find some options for transformation tools and unless you have a very specific reason for you to want another snap setting, you can leave the default suggestions.
To make the first step of the staircase, you need to select the whole model and press G to drag up your object just on the X axis. Then, go to the Wireframe view, press G + Z, drag down the face to the line of the Z axis to make it thinner, and repeat this process on the Y axis.
Remember, in Blender, the optical measurement is represented by those gray squares you can see since you open the program. This is the reticle that allows you to control the size of what you are creating. Thus, now that you have the first step, select the right side and press E to extrude at the same width distance as the first one. After that, pick the face you have on top, and press E to move up at the same height distance as the primary step.
Once you have the first two, it just remains to repeat this process. You select the two faces at the right, drag at the same distance, and extrude up as you did before.
That’s it! You just made stairs from a single object!
