Pluginless Chrome effects

[Burpee]

Lol at Sledger, you funny man

I keep meaning to give this a try but I'm busy every night this week. I think all of the attempts look like chrome; just in different lights and circumstances...some outside, some inside.

[ss-kalm]

.....drop shadow is in fact a live effect.... As is 3D extrude, ss-kalm, but the effect is nice, if a little dark.......

Yes, I was aware it's a live effect, but was just playing around and it worked quite well ... at least I was happy with it anyway.

I think I'll try to make a graduated fill that suits, and just use that for my chrome (/gold/brass/silver) text as necessary.

[covoxer]

As is 3D extrude,

Strangely enough, by your classification in this thread, 3D tool is vector - it doesn't produce rectangle with lowest quality view!

[Big Frank]

Yes, strictly speaking, you're right. However, it is a bitmap cut-out, hence it's still not vector. The wonderful thing about rules is that there's always exceptions. 3D extrude, rectangle or no rectangle, is a plug-in

Anyway, I am clearly obsessed with this because I have done yet another one, this one the best of all my efforts so far I think:

[covoxer]

Yes, looks good.
But it doesn't qulify. The Bevel tool is just the same bitmap cutout as 3D Extrude is.

[Big Frank]

true, however I made the rules, so I make the exceptions . I think I've already said drop shadows is an exception. I hereby make bevels an acceptable exception because both drop shadows and bevels are vectored with a little bit of effort. It's just that using the live effect saves time.

So let it be said, so let it be done.

[covoxer]

Ok, you're the boss!

[Big Frank]

This is for the couple of people who emailed me. I hope you find it useful:

[remi]

Hi Frank,

could be, that I'm a little bit ignorant regarding the previous discussed techniques, but why do we need a image as fill, in order to create a chrome effect? Isn't it much more simpler to create a chrome effect with a complex fill?

True vector, without effects, of course:


The complex fill:


Regards,
Remi

[covoxer]

I think this was used by some examples in this thread.

Nevertheless, there is one issue with gradient fills that can be avoided using bitmap fills instead.
Linear fill has always 256 steps no matter how many colors you add to it (unless you tweak registry and enable unstable 1024 steps). So, if the object is large enough, and color transitions are sharp, you may notice steps in the fill.
No such limitation with bimap fills exists of course.