3D and Extruding stuff in Xtreme (not Xara3D)

**essorant** · 08 June 2006, 02:48 PM

While trying to design some desktop icons in Xtreme, it seems a fairly 'manual' job to do simple 3D (I have to drop a copy, move it behind, monkey around with the shape to give a proper 3D shape, tweak the edges, etc. etc.)

Other vector apps seem to have built in tools to create pseudo-3d objects fairly easily - but I prefer the drawing tools in Xara, which are so much more intuitive.

My question is this: is there a plug-in or external tool which will help me do this quicker? I have Xara3D which will extrude and bevel until the cows come home, but it's not good for editing stuff. Will we ever see those capabilities in Xtreme? Alternatively, couldn't Xtreme and 3D link better (i.e. full two-way export/import)? Pretty please? Or is there a better way?

Thanks.

**gwpriester** · 08 June 2006, 06:55 PM

Have a look at Xara 3D. It does not get any easier than this.

And here is a short tutorial - Creating a 3D Logo - Xara Xtreme and Xara 3D that shows how the two programs work together.

Gary

**Egg Bramhill** · 08 June 2006, 08:47 PM

You can get the 2 programs to work together, but it's not straight forward and the results can be quirky. You need a copy of Flash.

I attach a xar file explaining how I created the image below that only has 7 shapes, but it's a true vector 3D drawing.

It uses Xara3D's export as vector swf but the results can vary a great deal. If only Xara3D could export to xar !!!!!

**Egg Bramhill** · 08 June 2006, 09:41 PM

This is an example of the "lost faces". So you can see there's often quite a bit of rebuilding to do.

**jpbrown** · 08 June 2006, 09:43 PM

[QUOTE=gwpriester]Have a look at Xara 3D. It does not get any easier than this.

And here is a short tutorial - Creating a 3D Logo - Xara Xtreme and Xara 3D that shows how the two programs work together.

I have had 3D6 since it came out and somehow I missed the show/hide cursor and the pasting textures part. Thanks a lot. I will be using 3D6 a lot more now. Doncha just love Xara?

**essorant** · 09 June 2006, 10:29 AM

Hmmm.. the hint was in the title!

I already know I can do some simple 3D stuff in Xara3D (and in fact, it's possible to do some complex images using baseline shifts, spacing and differing extrusion depths), but it was the problem of exporting it back into Xtreme which I don't like - all of a sudden your nice 3D object becomes a bitmap!

Thanks for the suggestion of the 'Flash' export, but as you explained the results are somewhat unreliable.

I definately second the request for a native Xara export format from Xara3D! (why wasn't it built in?) And while we're about it, some kind of gradient 'mesh' in Xtreme (consults wish list...)

A few of the icons...

http://www.essorant.com/temp/snap_my_icons_small.jpg

**essorant** · 09 June 2006, 10:37 AM

...also, forgot to mention, the reason I don't really want to resort to having to export bitmaps from Xara3D was that I'll be doing lots of resizing when I've finished doing the icons (they need to be in about eight sizes from 128x128 down to 16x16), so doing exports individually for all of them... phew!!

Still love Xara though

**grymmjack** · 09 June 2006, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by essorant

Hmmm.. the hint was in the title!

I already know I can do some simple 3D stuff in Xara3D (and in fact, it's possible to do some complex images using baseline shifts, spacing and differing extrusion depths), but it was the problem of exporting it back into Xtreme which I don't like - all of a sudden your nice 3D object becomes a bitmap!

Thanks for the suggestion of the 'Flash' export, but as you explained the results are somewhat unreliable.

I definately second the request for a native Xara export format from Xara3D! (why wasn't it built in?) And while we're about it, some kind of gradient 'mesh' in Xtreme (consults wish list...)

A few of the icons...

http://www.essorant.com/temp/snap_my_icons_small.jpg

Nice icons.