I could find no easy way to extrude a complex shape in right-angle directions whilst maintaining the shape profile, so I've written a little add-on to do it, available on the scripts page. The Constrain Rotate add-on has no operator button, although it can be enabled in the python file, and is instead run with the ctrl-shift-R key combo. Basically the script allows a face in edit mode to be rotated whilst contstraining all vertices of the face to movement on only one axis. You can for example rotate around the y-axis whilst keeping the vertex movement constrained to the z-axis.
When using this key combo in edit mode with a face selected the following options are presented in the mesh tools panel or by pressing F6:
- Rotation axis. The axis around which the face is to be rotated.
- Constraint axis. The axis the vertices are allowed to move in.
- Rotation point. The point of the face to rotate around.
- Degrees. The degrees of rotation.
A video would tell a thousand words, but takes 57 times longer to put together than this blog post. I'll do one when I can though. Operation is, however, pretty self-explanatory.
Hope it's useful.
Star Shape Extrusion
