June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara

June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara

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When you pose a 3D cube or rectangle shape, the most you can hope to see are three sides. Unless the cube is partially transparent! This month Gary shows you how to use the Extrude tool to make a reference model, how to create backside planes for your own cube, and how to apply transparency and color to make a drawing that looks as though it was created in a modeling program. If you think the power of Xara to the second power is awesome, wait until you see Xara cubed (X³).

Enjoy the flick (about 12 minutes) and then show us your cubes.

There are actually four parts to this tutorial: getting an extruded cube posed so it looks visually interesting, calculating one line to arrive at three backfaces for your own cube, playing between transparency and linear fills so eventually you can see all six sides of the cube—sort of like a glass cube except there are no intense and sharp specular reflections, and finally how to fake a shadow cast from the cube.

This is do-able for every skill level and I think it's a pretty neat thing to be able to do.

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My Best,

Gary

I enjoyed this tutorial, and here is my cube. I decided to make mine red and it reminded me of strawberry jello so I did a second version with a little wobble

Frances, aren't you going to stain the carpet without putting a plate under that Jell-o™ ?

I love it! Three thumbs up.

If enough interest is shown in shading cubes (over creating them), I'll supply some "wireframes" later this month.

Well done, Angelize.

Actually a well done cube of Jell-o™ would look puddly and burnt. You get what I mean, though. :)

-g

By the way, there have been 233 visits to the Giveaway—the cloud PNGs that I sweated over (now don't go feeling guilty or anything...), and no art posted, no comments.

This is good stuff, folks!

Get the background composition element of your dreams right here

See what you can do here by mixing and matching Xara Xone tutorials?

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Hmmm?

My Best,

Gary

The clouds are top notch Gary and I will get to do a post with the cloud, I'm just finishing the semi-trans. cube, which is an excellent video and tutorial.

Stygg

Well I've got some where to display my gallstone now ;)) Joking apart I have tried to follow this tut. to the letter, apart from some transparency changes and I must admit I had some difficulties at times trying to follow the various changes Gary made as the cube progressed, but that's probaly me not being as sharp as I use to be :D Anyway I overcame the problem by taking video snaps of the changes, importing into my document and got, I think, the changes that were shown, at least it was easier than swapping to and thro from vid. to my document. Hope after all that I've done justice to Gary's tut. and work. Much appreciated Gary for a very interesting and well worth knowing technique.

Stygg.

Sorry guys but I think this one is a slight improvement over the first trans.cube :o Ahh! the beauty of ageing, it's a darn nuiscance :D

Stygg

I apologize for those who had a hard time with the values.

1. I thought I'd left them onscreen for long enough, and

2. I actually wanted you all to experiment, make up your own values for both color and transparency, and learn and retain more from experimenting than by following a "recipe".

Stygg, and everyone—

You don't have to screen capture the values for the transparency or color at all.

Download the zip file; it's got the finished piece in it as a *.xar file,and you can just ungroup the cube and get the values off the Color Editor.

Hint: if you want to make a green cube or other color, change the Hue of the colors on the cube, but not the Saturation or Brightness. Use the HSB color model in the Color Editor.

My Best,

Gary

Gary no need to apologize to me about the values, they were on screen long enough but I do use vid.snaps to aid me, just my little quirk :D Also I do experiment with a finished tut. but first I always follow the "recipe" first so I know what I'm doing and why, it's no use me experimenting if it's not right in the first place, which is quite usual for me :D

Stygg