3D Shadow effect for text

I have something that appears so simple yet I want it to look exactly as example shows and do it with DP7.

I've tried shadow too, and cloning/offsetting. It doesn't give desired look.

3D extruding isn't the answer as then the type gets a skewed perspective and that's not what I need.

Perhaps there's some way this look can be achieved that I don't know about.

Any tips are greatly appreciated!

Here's the example, then my efforts that don't look right.

There's a remote chance it's the font. If so, anyone recognize that font? I do know that original artwork was cut in a 2 pc vinyl stencil as I asked artist but she doesn't recall font or program used as it was a few years ago.

Thanks!

Mark

Hello Digital Jeweler, you can acomplish this by cloning your text object and making the bottom one black and the top one white with the desired black outline and using the blend tool to blend from the black to the white one, give the blend a fairly large number of steps (in my example I used 200). You will need to adjust the attribute profile(the right arrow on the blend tool info bar)to get the desired effect. I have attached an example and a .xar file you can look at. If you soft group the two text layer before you blend them you will be able to edit the text with it's 3D shadow.

Attachment 87741

Attachment 87742

That's the look! Thank you. Will the 200 steps significantly add to file size? don't know if there would be any advantage to convert the text to shapes, then join the black (shadowed) shapes to keep it a bit more manageable?

Much appreciated!

Mark

I just did a little experiment and I got a much larger file size by converting the blend to editable shapes and adding the shapes to create a single shape, I zoomed in to have a closer look and the resulting shape has hundreds of nodes along each edge of the letters so you would be much better off with the blended text. The blend also gives you the ability to ctrl+click either of the original two text objects ( you can do this much easier using the page and Layer gallery) and by adjusting their positions adjust the direction and thickness of your 3D shadow.

If you look at my .xar you will see it is only about 3.4kb

I wonder what I can do for sending it out to vinyl plotter in that they would have to cut the white stencil and then the black (shadow) stencil. You'd lay down black stencil first, then overlay the white on top. Have to manually align it but still have to make the printer be able to separate the colors. Is turning it into editable shapes only way to do that? Thanks again for your help!

You could convert the blend to editable shapes and then hide the white shape and hand trace around the black shapes to get a single shape with smooth edges and a lot less nodes. Once you finish tracing the shape you can get rid of all shapes except the white top layer and your new single shape you just traced. when you make the top layer visible again you will have two single shapes one on top of the other.

I don't know much about sign plotters but this may work. Perhaps someone who has more knowledge about sign making and vinyl plotters make come along and confirm this or come up with another way.

Wouldn't do a Blend as it confuses the plotter. Do what Frances states at the beginning, convert to editable shapes (Ctrl+Shift+S), clone text (Ctrl+K), send to the back (Ctrl+B), copy text to clipboard (Ctrl+C), Make a new layer and with the new layer selected paste your copied text in place (Ctrl+Shift+V) and lock that layer, Now select the old layer and select all Ctrl+A, with the two lines of text selected combine shapes (Ctrl+1) you may have to ungroup the 2 lines of text first. They may have turned white so just colour it black, then just use the shape editor to make the background text look 3D. In this process you might want to switch the viz off on the top layer of text. You can see how I did it from the file as it only took me a few mins to do.

Here's how I would do it.

Create your two blend objects. Copy the top shape to the clipboard.

Create a blend using the maximum number of steps (999).

Convert the blend to Editable Shapes (Arrange menu) then ungroup.

With all 999 steps selected, Arrange > Combine Shapes > Add Shapes. This may take some time. But it will create one outline.

Paste the text on top (Edit > Paste in Place).

Use the Contour Tool to apply a one-step Inner Contour to the width of the text outline.

Convert to editable shapes and ungroup.

Apply a white fill to the inner contour shape.


That said, the way I would really do it, which is more accurate and produces a cleaner vector image, is to select the two text shapes and Add Shapes. (You still need to copy the top text to the clipboard first).

Switch to the Shape Tool and delete the points shown in my attachment to make the edges.

Paste the text copy on top from the clipboard and apply the same contour as outlined in my first example.

This produces a very clean drop vector shadow that will not make the plotter cry out in pain. :)

excellent and deviously simple technique gary

masterful, thanks for sharing


i cannot identify that font though, the nearest i have micrograma, which comes close

Wow Gary, what a great solution.

I wish that font just had the shadow built in ;) most if seen if even close has shadow to bottom right, not bottom left. This technique allows you to put it wherever you want. I like 2nd choice better than just using blend as that seems to create a more choppy outline and might cause plotter to go nuts.

I appreciate all the replies so far! Thank you everyone. The font I used was called Maximus and another I have is called Euro Caps.

I can see that the font isn't dead on but pretty close. My T seems narrower, the R is close but not spot on, the spacing between the letters is a little off. Otherwise, at a glance, it's pretty close.

Well give it a shot and report back. OK? :)

Now if I could just find a plotter that works natively with Xara, that would be HUGE! Xara is still my go to program from this type of stuff, I even own Illustrator CS3 but it's way too confusing. I keep upgrading Xara with every new release and LOVE IT.

Any tips on plotters that are not expensive?

From a person who uses both programmes one out of preference, Xara and the other because he has to use Illustrator at work i would say Illy is not the beast that everyone states. Learn to use the Pen Tool and everything is as easy as Xara especially if your are doing a lot of vinyl work with the plotter. I know this is an Xara Graphics thread but have a try at this in Illy and place it in a locked layer and draw over it it help me

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Albacore

... Learn to use the Pen Tool and everything is as easy as...

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I hate the Pen Tool.
But, only because I don't know how to use it.
I use the Shape Tool for everything.

So, I was quite interested in your instructions, but, even magnified, I can't read them.

Any chance of a better quality so I can read what you've written?!

Thanking you in advance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DigitalJeweler

Now if I could just find a plotter that works natively with Xara, that would be HUGE! Xara is still my go to program from this type of stuff, I even own Illustrator CS3 but it's way too confusing. I keep upgrading Xara with every new release and LOVE IT.

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does pdf export not work? that's the way i send any stuff to people who insist on illustrator (and i insist on not using two graphics apps when one will do). for line work it never seems to give me any problems

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Big Frank

does pdf export not work? that's the way i send any stuff to people who insist on illustrator (and i insist on not using two graphics apps when one will do). for line work it never seems to give me any problems

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I'm not at the point yet where I have any specific artwork ready and a place to have vinyl cut. If it wasn't overly expensive ($300 or less) I'd like to mess around with a plotter to see what it can do.

I have to reinstall Illy as I must have removed it from the CS3 pack. There's far less info out there for Xara so even though I prefer XDP, I might have to learn to use other tools to get the job done.

I love all the input and comments! Keep it coming

Also, I would like to read what Albacore posted but it's too small for me to read and I'm currently looking at 24" iMac.

There a font called GRIFFON out there somewhere...

http://www.fontpark.net/en/font/griffon-/ Not that close avalon.

This is for you Rik and I am not sure if this will work. Because of the ridicule file upload that we are allowed in AI & PDF what I had to do was to take it into Xara and save it there. What you can do is to open and then save it as PDF and then open it in AI. The other way is to use other peoples work who have done the same as my self and you can download it here: http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com/20...-pen-tool.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Albacore

This is for you Rik and...

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Thanks very much indeed.

I have tried, on a few occasions, to try and draw in Illustrator.
I have tried a few tutorials and simply find the Pen Tool a bit too difficult.
That's why your post interested me. I will have a another go.

Now. If Illustrator had the Shape Tool, then I would have actually done something in Illustrator, by now!
I'm not running the Illustrator tools down, by the way. It's just my lack of use/practice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

http://www.fontpark.net/en/font/griffon-/ Not that close avalon.

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Whoa!! Not close? Was way off!! Shadow on wrong side, condensed...LOL!!

Well also, Griffon is a font in which the shadow was part of the original font design. And it is very condensed.

But, the same idea. Kind of.

It's possible the sign making software "added" the 3D shadow effect. That could have been just Maximus font with that feature. We likely just have to do it manually.