Understanding Move to Sketch Plane

[tomwmarquis]

Hello, so I am struggling a bit with a lofted form. For discussion sake, let's say I lofted a pear shape. You might have 3 closed splines that are offset, a beginning, middle, and end.  I need to edit my middle spline but I can not do it unless I perform the "move to sketch plane" but then it breaks my loft for some reason when I edit the spline. Is that because when I first built my loft I just drew 3 splines on one or two sketches and then moved them into 3D space on the z-axis without first drawing them on construction planes that were offset first? 

[davebYYPCU]

Did you read what you have said back to yourself?

Your guess would be better that ours, cause you can see what you described.

Form as in Sculpting?

I need to edit my middle spline ,

that is likely to now be a 3d sketch, use the Move Tool on the Spline Handles.

I perform the "move to sketch plane" but then it breaks my loft , 

Cause it is now a 2d sketch, should be able to reselect the middle sketch, when rebuilding the Loft (if it is a shaded profile)

Did you see the video tutorial for the Lofted whiskey bottle on YouTube?, no 3d sketches in that one 

Loft is so finicky I recommend a new 2d sketch for each profile, and separate sketches for Rails that touch at a common point.

That said, without a Picture, File or Screencast, - you have my best guess from reading between the lines.

Might help....

[tomwmarquis]

Ha, sorry yeah I wrote that as I was rushing out the door. I was trying to get a quick answer to the question. Does every sketch need to be placed on a construction plane before lofting? But apparently, it's not that simple. I'm not familiar with the concept of a 3D sketch so let me dive into that first and see if I can come back with a more specific question. Thanks!

[jeff_strater]

Loft is a bit strange.  Here are the rules in a nutshell:

• for Solid Loft, each profile must be either:
  • planar, or
  • a face of another solid - this face does not have to be planar
• for Surface Loft, a profile can be either 2D or 3D
• If you use a centerline rail, that centerline must be tangent continuous, and intersect the plane of each profile once, somewhere in its
• if you use non-centerline rails, those must also be tangent continuous, and must also intersect one of the curves in each profile precisely.

There's more, but that's the basics.  Move to Sketch Plane will force the selected objects onto the sketch's plane, turning the objects into 2D curves.