#Animated Text
5 messages in this thread
Jerry,
I am trying to do an opening title in Lightwave. I brought in a still image as
a background. I then brought in some text. However, I am having problems with
the surfaces and the colors.
I brought the text in through modeler and used the macro to extrude it. When I
go into surfaces, the menu shows that the text has two sides. FRONT & SIDE. I
made the SIDE black and the front I tried to make red, but the color is not
strong enough to hold up against the background.
The background is an outdoor shot of a school yard. There is almost white sky
above, then trees, then grass. Red may not be the best color to use, but it is
the schools color.
I have tried using the different types of surfaces, brushmetal, marble and
tried apply a color to that. Maybe that is not the way to do it. When you
select a color after you load a surface from the LOAD SURFACE button, does one
cancel out the other?
I finally tried to use a solid blue color. I turned red and green down to 0 and
blue up all the way. None of the other attributes are selected. I turned the
ambient light down to 10%. Changed the light to a spot and brought it up to
100%. I then moved the light so that it is coming from above at about 45%
angle.
I have five lines of text. The top line comes out as a rich blue. The next line
is a dark blue. The following three lines are again different shades of blue.
I know that I am doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what. I would really
like to have the letters red. But red against green is not working. I even
tried copper and gold, but again the background is brighter than the letters.
I took the ambient light down because I thought that the ambient light was
lighting up the background. It didn't make a difference.
Whatever color I end up with, I would like them to have a 3D look. Kind of like
a drop shadow. Right now they end up being straight on to the camera. Maybe I
should tilt them.
What do you suggest?
Fred
P.S. I am going to send you a copy of the video you did the animation for. I'll
try and ship it out monday. The client and me were very happy.
Fred,
I'd love to see a copy of that video; thanks!
First, no light settings will effect the background image in LW.
On the surfaces issue, I fight things like this all the time, and it mainly
involves a lot of trial and error for me to get it right.
Once you've loaded a surface, changing the color does not effect the other
settings involved, like specularity, etc. Try playing with the luminosity and
diffusion values to get the logos looking like you want 'em to.
Jerry
Jerry,
Thanks for the tips. So, there is no was to effect the background? I was hoping
to do it with the FOG controls, but the first time I pressed the FOG button,
the text dissapeared.
Just to make sure I understand this, if I, for instance, set the surface to be
copper and then go in and change the color to blue, will I still have whatever
attributes the copper surface had, but in a blue color?
I'm going in again the afternoon to give it another try. I thought I might try
setting up a second light and light from each side. I was looking for an easy
answer, but I'm beginning to see that a lot of this is trial and error.
Maybe if John Gross is reading this, he'll plan an article on this subject.
Fred
Fred,
<< Thanks for the tips. So, there is no was to effect the background? >>
Lighting and such does not effect the background image.
<< if I, for instance, set the surface to be copper and then go in and change
the color to blue, will I still have whatever attributes the copper surface
had, but in a blue color? >>
Yes. The only time this would not be true is in the event that you were using
an image map to texture map the surface (from the color setting spot on the
surface menu.)
<< but I'm beginning to see that a lot of this is trial and error. >>
You got that right!
Jerry
For a unaffected background, wrap the picture on a flat plane or canvas
object, turn the luminosity to 100 and everything else to 0. For Logo
lighting, I like to put point lights virtually inside the object where
they do the most good. Try to always use bevels on the text, in the text
Macro the option is called chisel.
Joe Clasen
Joe's DB&G