CompuServe Messages

James, more labeling in 3DS… If you follow Professor Iglesias' Valuable Instructions about using objects for text, you can use VARY.SXP to animate the text color. In addition, I often use text as objects when I want to create a bitmap containing the text. First create the text as objects, as Alan suggested. Then scale and position the text precisely on the scene geometry (bend and stretch as desired). Hide everything but the text and render the scene from an ortho view (i.e., Front or Top) to a bitmap file. You can then hide the text objects and use the resulting bitmap as a texture map. You can use this map tiled (render with an appropriate background), or as a decal (remember to render with alpha ON). It's easy to get the mapping icon correct: using the exact view in the window you just used to render the bitmap, fit the icon to the bitmap, then position and scale until it just fills the view and apply – the map should fit the object perfectly the first time! This method works especially well to create a map of text that must be curved or bent to fit some object (for the front of a frisbee, for example). Also, if the surface of your object is not flat, such as a globe, the map method is easier. A free tip: use the same bitmap as bump map and you have a quick way to apply embossed letters to any surface. JKJ