How do I make a 3D-Object of this Xara-Shape?

[Wolfgang]

Hi everybody,

after an hour of trying, I totally failed in what I thought to be very easy ...

I am trying to do a 3D-rendering of the enclosed shape in Bryce 6 (it will get a texture too in the end)

First I tried it by creating a symetrical lattice in Bryce using this a a height map.
And while it principally worked, the quality is very poor and it also slows Bryce down quite a bit.

So I thought, I "quickly" extrude the shape to a coin-like 3D-Object and use this in Bryce.
Only that I could not manage to do it ... ;-(

I tried importing it into Sketchup to extrude it, but it did not work at all.
I also can't import it into Bryce and extrude it there.

Does anybody know of an easy way ... an Online-Service or a Freeware program perhaps ... to convert such simple shapes (or maybe even text) into 3D-Objects by simply extruding them along the y-axis and saving them in a common format like .obj or .3ds ??

I am totally inexperienced in the 3D-world, I really can do only simple things and I don't have any other programs than Bryce and Sketchup. Well, I have Blender installed, but no idea how it works ...

My first choice would be a helpful hint how/where to do it.
If that's not possible with what I have, maybe somebody could fix me a .obj of it and post it ??

Thanks a lot and Happy New Year !!!

Wolfgang

[masque]

I know nothing about bryce and I'm not sure what you are trying to do but I've attached .xar file of the object extruded to a flat 3d shape.
If this is not what you are after I apologise. I assumed you wanted the tick on the surface of the object, again if not then I'm sorry.
Derek

[Wolfgang]

Hi Derek!

thanks for your effort, but what I need is a "real" 3D-object.

Meaning an exported mesh-file (I believe this is the term?) in a format that Bryce can read, like .obj or .3ds

Such things can not be produced inside any Xara-program.

I would need a program that can export one of Xara's vector-formats, then extrude it (give it height) and export it as a 3D-mesh.

I also enclose a newer version of the shape, I checked your example and it seems by adding shaped I had missed some stuff in the background.
This version should be a clean simple shape ...

Wolfgang

[Soquili]

Hi Wolfgang,

To get a clean path I edited your .xar and removed the purple shapes behind the black shape.

I exported from Xtreme as Adobe Illustrator .ai which I opened in Cinema4D.

The .ai path was rotated to lie in the x-z plane.

An Extrude Nurb was put in the work space and configured to extrude the path 20 meters in the y direction and to put caps on both beginning and end.

The .zip file contains a wavefront object of the result.

[Wolfgang]

As usual ... Bill to the rescue ;-)

For some strange reason, I can't download the file at the moment.
But by your description I believe it is just what I need, so the immediate crisis is solved ...

Sadly, I don't have Cinema4D or any other of those fancy programs.
I need such things very rarely, I have no idea how to use them and also they are much too expensive for my little fiddling around. I bought Bryce a while back and for my simple tasks it works well enough.

But I really would appreciate a small program or something, sort of a One-Trick-Pony, import shape, extrude, export, presto!

Xara 3D with the ability to export in "real" 3D would be more than perfect!
Anybody knows such a tool ??

Bill, I'll have a glass og champagne real soon and it will be in your honor !

Wolfgang

Edit: I tried downloading in IE and it worked like a charm. For some reason, in Firefox it doesn't ...

[Soquili]

Glad you were able to download the file Wolfgang.

There was a very inexpensive 3D program that you could have used, but it seems to be no longer available.

[Soquili]

Truespace 7.6 could be a good alternative, now that it is free.

http://www.caligari.com/downloads.html

The learning curve is steeper than for Cool 3D but Truespace does much more.

You can download the Truespace manual from http://cdn.caligari.com/download/tS76PDF.exe