#3DS Fonts
7 messages in this thread
>> Can you give us some suggestions on the most efficient fonts on the WCTK
>> and in 3DS to keep the vertex/face count down.
Actually "ALL" of the fonts are as close to totally refined as you can
get for efficiency purposes. The .fnt fonts were hand tweaked by Mr.
Yost himself if memory serves me correctly and the .pfbs were hand
created by yours truly specifically to make them as efficient as
possible. I'd say your best bet is to just utilize the more standard
font sets, swiss etc., and make sure you keep your path steps to
zero. Don't cap the back faces, and make sure that your shape step
settings are set as low as possible without compromising curve
integrity. That is if you plan to extrude them. If extrusion isn't a
necessity, you can accomplish really nice font effects by simply
pulling the text into the editor as a 2D entity and offsetting it a
little bit ahead of the object in question. This can either give a
nice type quality for signage without texture maps or it can create a
nice raised text effect like you find in so many architectural and
design firms. Either way you don't take the hit of 3D text with lots
of faces and vertices but you do achieve a really great anti-aliased
type.
Have Fun, If you need anything just yell.
Paul
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the useful info, it will be passed on to all involved later. I
finally printed out the sample.gif files of the .pfb's from the WCTK. They're
kinda blurry because of my printer, but give a pretty good idea of what are the
most "linear" fonts.
Feel free to join the project any time, if interested.
I too am glad to see you back. When I was new to Asoft I learned a lot
from your messages.
"I'll take the center square… oops!"
Paul S.
>>hand tweaked…
Yup… like the nutcases that we are, we hand tweaked them. Before r1
came out, I rented a Mac II with a 19" monochrome monitor and spent
two weeks rebuilding every one of the characters in those .fnt
files. And that's just a TINY little bit of work compared to what
you put into those .pfbs. (Thanks AGAIN.)
See ….. this is a perfect example of what I'm always telling
people.
The sheer fact that as head of a development team, you actually sat
down in front of a monochrome Mac II and hand tweaked fonts so that
your end users would have the best possible data to work with, serves
as a testament to your unbelievable committment to the actual users
of the program. I know of no-one else in the industry who has that
type of dedication. Everyone else tends to just arbitrarily throw
everyday, unrefined crap in.
The thanks all go to you. When people talk about why 3DS excels as it
does, the vast majority of the reasons lie in the phenomenally high
standards that the Yost Group commits itself to establishing and
maintaining. You totally destroyed the competition. What else is
there to say?
How could I possibly add anything to that?
But seriously, I was even more impressed by YOUR dedication to 3D
Studio, considering that you tweaked up all of those fonts in a pure
act of giving, because you wanted to share them with everyone else.
– G
Thanks!
Lets see if I can't contribute something just as useful in R5. 🙂
Your moral support is just fine!
– G