Bevel question

[David O'Neil]

Maybe I'm being dumb, and overlooking something obvious, but how would you make exteraneous items become part of the bevel?

To give you more of an idea of what I am talking about, here is an example from another graphics program. My first thought was that in Xara I could make the five items a group, and apply the bevel to the group. That doesn't do the following at all.

Thanks,
David

[Edit].xar file included two posts down, to play with.[/Edit]

[Scotty]

I don't quite understand your question, but here is my interpretation, you want the different colored triangle to have Bevel, don't group them marques them separately (each it's own object) then apply bevel, an inner bevel, this will result in the pie shapes each having it's own bevel along with the oval on upper left having a bevel. Is that what you wish.
Then you can group as group and continue on.
Jim

[David O'Neil]

I want the bevel as the picture showed it: around all the objects, and including the purple object. Everything I tried in Xara resulted in each object having its *own* bevel, and the exteraneous object not being properly shaded *as part of the bevel*.

Here is a .xar file if you want to play with it. It includes a partial solution to the four color bevel, but I can't see how to include the last object as part of the bevel.

David

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi David

Try this.

[David O'Neil]

Ah! Bitmap copy - I wouldn't have thought of that. Thanks!

(No way you know of to keep pure vectors? - Just curious.)

David

[Egg Bramhill]

David,

I'm off to bed now so I can't go any deeper into it at present. As soon as you use a bevel it becomes a bitmap.

I'll give it some thought and get back to you if I can figure anything out.

[David O'Neil]

Take a look at my .xar file in the 3rd post. I figured out how to create a bevel from scratch using 'ring' copies of the original grouped objects.

Outer ring -> Linear fill, white to black.

Inner ring -> Just a ring of the grouped objects. Created it by combining shape tricks...

Then apply 20 step blend between the two. Pretty slick, other than a slight gap between two of the 4 patches, causing some troubles that I think are fixable by eliminating the gap.

I cannot see how to incorporate the fifth 'exteraneous' object into the loop. I believe your method will be about the only one to do what I wanted, so thank you. I was just curious if you could figure out how to stay vectors. I don't believe it can be done, but I am still curious.

Thanks, and have a good night's sleep.

David

[Odat]

There may be a way to pull this off where things "kinda" remain vectors, using live effects. If you group all of your shapes together, and use a live effects plugin that can produce a bevel, the plugin should be applied to group as a whole.

Technically this is treated as a bitmap. However, with such a construct in place, it's possible via the selection tool to Control-Click to select an object "Inside" the group. You can then use regular editing tools to modify parts of the shape. Once you make your change, the live effect is automatically re-applied.

I don't have any filters that can produce a bevel, but I did test the theory using some of the free and demo plugins that came on the Xtreme CD, and that seemed to work just fine.

Not as cool as Xara applying the bevels for you directly, but if you have to commit to having the elements as a bitmap, at least with a live effect it's easier to edit the underlying shapes.

[Christine Farrelly]

Add a circle over the shapes with a black outline the width you want the bevel. Convert the line to a shape (should now have an empty circle). Fill this shape with a black to white fill depending on which side of the bevel you want shaded and which highlighted. Set circular transparency and switch centre and outer transparency, adjust transparency profile to suit.

Christine

[Ron Duke]

David,
Here's my attempt. Take apart my drawing and see if that works for you.
regards,
ron

Maybe I'm being dumb, and overlooking something obvious, but how would you make exteraneous items become part of the bevel?

To give you more of an idea of what I am talking about, here is an example from another graphics program. My first thought was that in Xara I could make the five items a group, and apply the bevel to the group. That doesn't do the following at all.

Thanks,
David

[Edit].xar file included two posts down, to play with.[/Edit]