Problems with Mould Function

[Bros]

Hi Guys!

I'm really new to Xara and am having a few problems with the Mould function, I was wondering if anyone could help?

I'm creating a label to fit a conical shaped container and basically, whenever I try to mould the label image to try and fit the shape I've created, nothing really happens. i.e:

Shape in background, Label in foreground:

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/9593/tg1f.jpg

Label Moulded to fit Shape:

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/4569/tg2i.jpg

As you can see above, the Label doesn't actually change shape at all - it was originally created as a .PSD but I've tried importing it as a .PNG with no avail. I've tried converting it to an editable shape etc but nothing I'm doing seem to work!

Can anyone offer some advice?

[Fred C]

Sorry, enveloping/mould (mold) does not work on bitmaps. Depending on the complexity of your bitmap, try tracing it to make vector shapes which will work with enveloping.
Cheers,

[Bros]

I'm not using a bitmap (.BMP) - I'm using a .PNG and a .PSD - these should work shouldn't they?

[highfrontier]

PSD, PNG, BMP, TIF, and some others are all just types of bitmaps.. i.e. it's a 'bitmap' if the image gets blocky when you zoom in.
Unfortunately, some bright spark thought of making the .BMP bitmap format and thereby created this kind of confusion.
I posted a 'dear Xara' for this functionality the other day - apparently it's been requested before too.. hopefully it's on Xara's list of new features for V7

[Fred C]

Sorry again Bros,
Bitmap refers to raster images; .png and .psd are both raster images and they won't work either.

Here's a link that should help: http://tinyurl.com/y98cnnw

Regards,

[antimix]

Sorry, enveloping/mould (mold) does not work on bitmaps...try tracing it to make vector shapes which will work with enveloping.
Cheers,

Hi Fred,

I was convinced of the opposit !!!
I have always converted the vectors to bitmap and then moulded the bitmap!
Why ? Because Xara often was doing horrible triangles or artifacts trying to mould vectors. My vectors are always complex groups of shapes, text, shadow.

I will check.

Cheers

antimix

[Bros]

Ah, thanks guys! I thonk you can tell that I'm not quite a Pro Designer!

If I remake the Label in Adobe Illustrator and import it as a .AI file, will that be ok?

Many thanks for your help!

[Fred C]

Antimix,

Quoted from Help in both XaraXtreme 5 Pro and Xara Designer Pro 6, "You can envelope all types of objects except bitmaps." You can, however, use the Perspective options for bitmaps. Perhaps that is what you used.

[HayTay]

Bros, a warm welcome to TalkGraphics.

Hopefully the attached items will help with your attempts to use the Mould Tool in Xara Xtreme 5. As Fred C quoted, the mould tool can not be used for bitmap/raster fills. Your example can be easily recreated in vector format as you (hopefully) can see from my quickly thrown together mini-tutorial. Give it a go and see how you do.

You may also want to check out this Xara Tutorial Movie on Using Envelope Molds (MP4).

I hope this helps instead of confuses,
Harry

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[HayTay]

Bros,

The example you gave is probably better suited to a solution using the Fit Text to Curve function available in XX5. In my example I fit the 3 lines of text to three different curves. After I was happy with the way the text was situated I Shift-Ctrl selected all three lines and gave them a no color fill and line. Once again I shift-selected the three text lines and the background shape before subjecting the objects to the Clipview Tool.

Just another way to get a similar design,
Harry

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