#Text Morph Probs.
14 messages in this thread
Hello, I'm attempting to morph some text, and am having a few
problems. I'm using Barrel.fnt, but when I morph the text, things
look pretty bad. I know that each morphed object must have the same
# of verticies, so I am adding verticies using "refine" in the 2-D
Shaper, lofting with optomise off in the Lofter, and I do end up with
the same # of verticies using this method, but it is the numbering
of the verticies which seems to get messed up. I've tried messing
with "choosing" the first verticie in the 2-D Shaper, but have had
no luck. Is there a method to the madness of morphing text with
a different # of verticies? Thanks! Oh, I'm trying to morph on the
"letter" level, not the "word" level…
Jeff
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.
John, thanks for the info. Sounds like an involved process, but it
makes sense. I'll try it out. Some of the morphs I need to do are to words
of different lengths, posing still more problems. Sheesh.
Jeff
Have you thought about doing the morphs on an image level? You'd be surprised
at the quality-versus-ease of use ratio.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
As JohnT says, if you're morphing words of different lengths, you should
probably do the morphs on the image level. 3D morphs require the face/vertex
lists to match (as JohnJ described), which can make morphing between dissimilar
objects incredibly difficult.
– G
Yeah, 3-D morphs can indeed be difficult. Any plans to add
dissimilar Verticie #s morphing in r4?
Jeff,
<< morhing dissimilar # of verts in R4 >>
I'll add it to the wish list.
jonas[adesk]
I know of at least one IPAS developer who's working on this for an
IPAS3 plug-in.
Sounds like a 2D morphing program would make your life a whole lot
easier right now! We use BlackBelt WinImages:Morph, and love it! May
be the best $199 you spend this month! <g>
Greg, yeah, I'm going to check out the 2-D Morph thing. BTW, just
stopped by Pyros the other day to get Nancy Fulton's book. Seems
really informative. Anything else on the press I should know about?
Jeff
Jeff:
Sorry I missed you when you stopped by! Are you coming to the open house
tomorrow? (Wednesday, 10:00 -> 5:00)
Inside 3D Studio should be shipping later this month, 3DS Tips and Tricks
series is excellent, maybe I should add descriptions of these to IPAS.TXT.
In fact, I think I will!
Greg Pyros
sounds like a good technique. I hope you were payed well….
>>paid well…
Oh my! If I started getting paid well this would all start to seem like work
instead of fun. Ack!