#Titling and 3DS
22 messages in this thread
I am trying to understand 3D Studio text creation with an eye to doing titles
for video.
I legally own my copy of 3DS, and I've tried hard to find the solution on my
own — so if this is a RTFM-type of question, my apologies in advance.
I find it difficult to create large quantities of text of a consistent size
such as would be required for a long title crawl. When I tried to use Corel
Draw 5 to create the text objects and import them as Adobe Illustrator splines,
the characters were not suitable for lofting (they self-intersected, weren't
closed, or both).
How can I most efficiently enter and loft several hundred lines of
evenly-spaced text?
Even as I ask this question I am CERTAIN I've missed something. Nonetheless,
it remains asked.
Thanks..
Dov Paquette
>>use Corel Draw 5…Adobe Illustrator splines
When you do this, make sure that the text objects have no fill and the thinnest
line setting. After you import in the .ai file, select all the vertexes and use
modify\vertex\weld. That should close the shapes and take care of most of the
vertexes. Use shape\all and check; the vetexes in red are ones that you'll have
to zoom in and edit. If text characters overlap, boolean them together. For
really large amounts of text, you may need to break them up into smaller chunks
of text. Hope this helps.
John Stetzer
JWS
One thing to keep in mind when creating text in the 2D Shaper is to make
sure each text entry contains (what's the word?) high and low letters, like a p
and a b. Otherwise, by scaling the text uniformily upon creation with the ctrl
key, any "short letter" entries will be scaled up to fill the space, ruining
consistency.
Paul S.
Dov, For doing several hundred lines of text I would definately not use 3DS.
Text isn't exactly its strong point. Take a look at the star wars style text
crawl in the intro to the '93 Siggraph reel. The Yost Group used Altamira
Composer to create the text as a bitmap which was then mapped onto a long
rectangle – with an opacity mask. This would seem like an ideal solution for
you – especially since you can get Composer for $149 right now. I don't have
any more info on that though. Photoshop or something else would probably work
also though.
DM
I like the idea of a opacity map on a long polygon.. I imagine this reduces
render times as well. Hmm. Thanks.
PMJI Is there a ph. # where this deal for Composer can be found?
Hi
> since you can get Composer for $149 right now<
Do you have any idea where they have it at that price????
Thanks
-DC-
Call DTPdirect at 800-890-9371.
Dave
I wouldn't recommend investing in Composer, as version 1 is the first & last
(hence the low price). Alvy Ray Singer went to work for Mr. Gates & Composer
is being composted!
-Scott
Who's "Alvy Ray Singer"?
– Jack
Jack,
O.K., O.K.! Draw & quarter me already!! That's what I get for watching too
many Woody Allen movies.
-Scott
<< Alvy Ray Singer >>
*Smith*, not Singer. Everyone involved in CG should know this name, as he was a
co-founder of PIXAR.
BILL
>>Everyone involved in CG should know this name, as he was a co-founder of
PIXAR.<<
Pixar, Shmixar! All I know is Composer has decomposed.
-Scott
I met Alvey Ray Smith ( AKA Singer <G> ) at Siggraph where he gave me a 40 min.
private demo of Composer. What a cool guy.
Even if it's dead in the water, Composer seemed to be a very useful program. At
$150 it seems to be a bargain. Are there any problems / bugs etc. that would
make it not worth even the new low price?
Thanks
-David
David,
>> Even if it's dead in the water, Composer seemed to be a very useful program.
<<
Well, I think its predictions of demise are way premature… I just read
Microsoft is coming out with an NT version, so I'd say get in while the getting
in is good, there's bound to be an upgrade path… 🙂
John
John:
/_______________________From your message________________________\\
I just read Microsoft is coming out with an NT version,
__________________________________________________________________
Yowsa! Where did you catch this great news? I'd love to check this article
out. At SIGGRAPH Alvy was keen to mention all of the code which is already in
Composer for editing a pile o' TGA's. I wonder if Microsoft was able to polish
off this part of the program for its NT release. Did the article mention a
target release date? Where did you get all of those titles? <G>
Bob
Hey Bob,
I don't know whether you can trust the media or not, (I say that as a student
of the Fifth Estate <g>) but in this month's Advanced Imaging there's a "First
Look: Imaging on Windows NT!".
Its a pretty impressive list. It also has an interesting article on the CD
Interactive Dylan.
Anyway it says on Pg 67…
"Altamira (Mill Valley, CA), the commercial still image processing firm
recently acquired by Microsoft, in now shipping Altamira Composer for Microsoft
Windows NT, a native 32 bit version of their full color, desktop application
for image editing and composition."
This is the second time I've seen something about this, so who knows?
>> Where did you get all of those titles? <G> <<
Through the trials of life… <G>
John
Yo John:
/_______________________From your message________________________\\
This is the second time I've seen something about this, so who knows?
__________________________________________________________________
Thanks for the update, I'll keep my eyes open for more info. This could be
good.
Bob
David,
>> Are there any problems / bugs etc. that would make it not worth even the
new low price?<<
First of all, Alvy Singer was Woody Allen's character's name in one of his
films, I forget which.<g>
As for Composer, don't get me wrong…it's an O.K. program. The main thing
it's useful for, however, IMHO (O.K., everybody..get ready to pounce on me) is
for compositing TGA's. As a paint tool, you won't want to use it as a
Photoshop replacement. But it has an unique way of dealing with layers,
they're always active & easy to manipulate. However, the interface is
overly-complicated & far from intuitive. I gave it a 🙁 & put it out to
pasture.
Perhaps Mr. Gates will salvage the code, feed it to "Bob", add a few "wizards"
(and a new interface) & come up with a winner, who knows?
-Scott
>Alvy Singer …
Annie Hall (For a while it was my favorite movie next to "A Clockwork Orange")
Thanks for the info…., with some of the 'Pros" and some of the "Cons",…. I
have no idea what to do… <G>
See Ya
-David
David…
Annie Hall, ah yes! Thank you, thank you. That's been driving me nuts.
Speaking of Woody Allen & Clockwork Orange, could you imagine Woody playing
Malcolm's role in Clockwork? That would truly be surreal!
Regarding Composer, if you don't have Photoshop 3.0, get 'Shop. Next, if you
don't have Fractal Painter 3.0, get that. KPT is also great. Finally, if you
still have $150 burning a hole in your pocket, go for Composer. Then let me
know how often you actually use it.
-Scott
Woddy as Malcolm? That's the coolest thought this year, but now, thanks to you
, I'll never get that image out of my head. <G>
Hmmmm…..I already have Photoshop 3.0,Painter 3.0, KPT 2 (and I just won a
copy of Premiere 4.0, lucky me <g>) so whadda ya think, maybe I'll just save
the money and put it towards that new DPS gizmo.
Thanks
-David