Attached Link: http://www.ac3d.org/

I couldn't think of anywhere else to post this. Please bear with me, and don't post til the tut has been completely posted (it's several pages long, with pics. :-))

BTW, if anyone is interested, you can get an overview of AC3D V6, and a 14-day time-limited trial at the above link. AC3D is a modeller only. It doesn't do much else. But it's simple and easy to use, it's shareware (relatively cheap) and includes a manual... (.PDF file). And it has greebles..:-))

This is a method to make a spiral staircase, in AC3D, for absolute beginners.

Some basic, introductory info:

When AC3D starts up, it defaults to "Group" selection and "Move" mode. That's just fine for now.
You can select objects you create by clicking on them. What you actually select depends on the selection mode (the top 4 buttons on the LH side).

The 4 modes are Group, Object, Surface and Vertex.

Once something is selected you move the cursor into the bounding box and the cursor will change shape. If you're in Move mode (default), the cursor will change to a "cross-with-arrows".

Click and drag to move something.

(This mini-tut. will only be using Move mode).
You can modify the size and shape of the box by dragging the bounding-box "handles" (the green squares).

You can also select by dragging the cursor to create a selection-box.
If "Select through" is off, then only visible things are selected. If Sel-thru is on then (especially in Vertex-selection mode) all vertice that are within the selection box are selected (visible or not), More on this later..

You can deselect by clicking on any unselected part in any of the views, or by selecting something else, or via the "None" button in the tool-bar at the top of the screen.

You'll see (and use) some of the above in the following mini-tut..

On to the tut...