This was good but I'd have wanted to loft a custom shape around the bezier spline. Is that possible? ie what if I wanted a flatter ribbon or perhaps a square leather loop rather than the perfect circle the bevel generates
I guess you mean something like this?
I don't think you can create a surface from the curves themselves unless you use geometry nodes, but you can easily loft meshes using the Bridge Edge Loop tool. You'll need to convert the curves to meshes, but once you do that then you can bridge and use the following settings:
You would use a curve as the loft path(path). Then use a curve as the profile(profile). Then you can adjust the spin of the loft(tapper). To do this select the path curve and in properties editor under curve tab expand geometry panel. Under bevel change it to object the assign it the profile curve. You can adjust spin cut by selecting the tapper curve under taper object which should be above bevel if I remember correctly. At some point they added a profile option which allows you to create a profile without having to use another curve. I think it was 2.92.
Wow. Thanks all! Yes this is exactly what I was asking.
I didn't realise all my comments showed up in the forum - I thought they'd only be seen in the context of the comment on the tutorial. Now I know this I'll be a bit more judicious when asking a question. Don't want to annoy anyone!
