Drawing a sphere

[Nugget]

Hi All,

What's the best way to draw a sphere in XaraX. I just cannot work it out.

Thanks.

Simon.

[Nugget]

Hi All,

What's the best way to draw a sphere in XaraX. I just cannot work it out.

Thanks.

Simon.

[tonylondon]

sounds like Gary's cup of tea! If you mean an image that looks like a sphere try creating an ellipse with the ctrl key down than give it a circular fill with the inside colour lighter than the outside and move the centre of the fill up and to the left. Finally you could add a bit of reflection. If you want to put an image onto the surface of your sphere you could apply a circular mould to it first, or if using a bitmap use Seans spherical mould filter
Tony

[philhendry]

Here's a two minute sphere. Neither glossy, nor matt, but shall we say 'satin' texture?

Two circles of the same size, one red(ish) with a circular colour fill- white to red(ish), the other black with a circular transparency. Twiddling the profile of the transparency helps a bit.

I've no doubt that there are fancier, more photo-realistic ways of doing it, but this is a 'quick and dirty' one!

Cheers,
Phil

[gwpriester]

Nugget

Here is a mini-step-by-step

1. Using the Ellipse Tool and holding down the Ctrl key (to constrain the ellipse to a circle) click on the screen and drag a circle.

2. Select the Fill Tool (the pouring paint can icon on the main tool bar to the left of the screen) and then select Circular from the drop down list of fill types found on the Infobar at the top of the screen)

3. With the Fill Tool selected, click the small square in the center of the circular fill, and drag the center of the fill upward and to the left (or right if you prefer).

4. Select the Shadow Tool, click the sphere, and select Floor Shadow from the shadow types on the left side of the Infobar.

This work?

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Rarely So Humble...

[gwpriester]

OK Nugget, are you ready for advanced spheres?

Round objets (spheres included) have a highlight, a core shadow, and a reflected surface which reflects back the light from the surface upon which they rest.

You can add colors to any of Xara's fountain fills by dragging colors from the screen palette and dropping the colors onto the fill path arrow.

In the top example, I expanded the diameter of the Circular Fill by dragging out outside square with the Fill Tool cursor (as opposed to the cursing Philendry). Then I dragged and dropped a deeper color onto the fill path for the core shadow.

A shiny sphere, such as a golden sphere, has the highlight and core shadow but also has a reflection. The shiny sphere uses 5 colors with the three colors placed very close together as shown.

Coming soon, spheres in space.

Gary

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Rarely So Humble...

[Turan]

Garry,

I'm sort of crossing threads here (this sphere one and the one on screen capture) but how do you generate these wonderful step by steps? i.e. do you draw the red boxes, arrows and red circles? or do you work with a screen capture?

Not that I'd ever expect anything less from you, but even what might appear as quick 'here's how it's done' positng seems to be so hand crafted.

Turan

[Nugget]

Thanks for all your comprehensive help. It's just what I needed. I've learnt a lot more about XaraX today.

[Mark Goodall]

Spheres and other objects with rounded edges can be very simply emulated with the bevel tool. Simply create a circle and make an inner bevel such that it goes all the way to the centre and make apprpriate settings and you are there. Then you can play around with the elevation and light angle to move the light source to your heart's content.

Mark Goodall
Xara Ltd

[Mark Goodall]

see below