CompuServe Messages

Jeff, >>text morphing… Generally, the best way to make foolproof morph objects is by modifying an original object in the 3D editor until it is in the shape of the desired morph target. You can loft different shapes to morph between, but it requires more care. I just got done with some beveled text morphing last week. I don't know if what I did will help you, but just in case: I had to morph between the word "NEWS" in a straight block font to the word "News" in a curved stylized font (both fonts came from CorelDraw thru the AI method). I brought the shapes for "NEWS" into the shaper and froze them. I positioned a copy of the "News" shapes approximately over the "NEWS" shapes. Then, one vertex at a time, I repositioned the vertices of each letter of "News", adjusting the segments until "NEWS" was traced precisely. By lofting the original "News" and the adjusted copy "News" (now in the shape of "NEWS"), I had sets of objects which morphed perfectly. (Good news, but confusing, huh?. <g>) Two things to watch out for using this method: First, when a curved segment is repositioned, even if adjusted to make it appear linear, it must remain a "curve" so the number of vertices will come out right. (Also, each segment which started out as linear in one font must remain that way.) This may require planning ahead by creating some linear-looking curved segments on the source shape. Note that when you adjust a vertex between a linear and curved segment, the linear segment may accidentally be turned into a curve and must be re-"linearized". Second, I had to morph between a lower case "e" (with a hole) and an upper case "E" (with no hole). This required cutting the morph target "e" at an appropriate point and spreading it to create the morph object. Note this is not a particularly quick or easy thing to do! It took me hours from start to finish, including some bumbling around. I was using two shapes (an outline) for each letter so I could loft bevels, so I had to do each letter twice! Cutting the beveled "e" was especially entertaining. <g> JKJ PS: Sunday eve disclaimer: There may be a better idea for this but I didn't have it.