New to Forum and I'm Asking for Favours Already!

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post I've only just registered.

I got most of the Xara products but being a busy so and so I have to admit they have sat on the old PC untouched in the main! Now the time has come to speak of sealing wax and candles etc.

My boss at work wants me to create a website for him and he would like the words Design, Engineering, Knowledge rotating around another image (a bit like the old movie logo - I think it was the very old Paramount logo with the plane) at a cocked angle. Sort of circling the globe or an object, each word following the other in a curved or circular path - does this even make sense?

I have had a good look through 3D texts and I can get them to rotate and move and shimmy in everyway except in this one direction - I think.

My questions are:

1. Does everyone even understand what I am waffling about?

2. If you do, can someone point me to a good tutorial or walkthrough to recreate this type of rotating font. I do need to be able to do it myself (maybe I need to do some groundwork in Xtreme or something).

Thanks very much for your help in advance,
David

Hello David, welcome to TalkGraphics.

Do you mean something like this?

I made it (bad quality for faster uploading) in Xara 3D6, or do you mean rotating around in 2D space?

Hi, Availor, in spite of the low quality, your image is still interesting, would you like to share how you made it?

Cheers,

Mike

Hello Availor,

Thanks for the prompt reply. Yes that style of rotation but just the text and not the globe.

If you can let me know how to do this I would most grateful. My boss wants all sorts of different texts on the same line (despite my advice) but if I can get the effect he wants I can dissuade him from the different text idea.

He was also talking about images inbetween the three words as if bullet points seperating Design Engineering and Knowledge but different images for each 'point' as it were.

Any useful instructions will be most gratefully accepted!

Cheers,
David

hehe I feel embaressed, mike , teaching you lol :o. I just picked a ready made style that's all. But you can achieve this by playing with bevel options.

I made it with Xara 3D6

Dave, I'm no expert in Xara 3D but I think I can figure out something... will have to sleep over it :)

Thanks, Availor, what I was puzzled about was that your post seemed to show foreshortening of the text as it slipped around the edge of the globe, which I thought would be very hard to do properly, but on closer inspection, after your explanation, that actually only happens properly for the middle part of the text, not the ends, and that makes much more sense given how X3D applies textures.

Nevertheless, it works well, and I think it might be amenable to some doctoring to extend the effect. I shall have to do some experimenting:D

Cheers,

Mike

Ok I have found this old animation I made a long time ago. Imagine the text will be running instead of the circle running around the globe. I guess you are after a similar effect? http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...tingsphere.gif

Yup.

I recreated the first one you did thank you very much.

I reckon with this second one if I had a chromed globe in the middle with text running around the outside I'd have a pretty close effort to what he wanted.

Any instructions?

Once again - thanks very much for your help by the way - it is appreciated.

David

Do you have Xara 3D? I'll post you the file (have to find it yet or make another one)

Oh yes indeedy I have Xara3D6 and much to my shame it has sat on my PC as unused short cut icon for ages. Hence my lack of experience!

Well, I've tried to reproduce this animation, it's far from perfect. Anyway, it would be useless trying to explain that as there are great tutorials by Mike. (simsmj) he is the real Xara 3D master. Take a look HERE
Anyhow I've made a little screenshot explaining how I started it off.

I added a X3D file, take a look

Thanks Availor! This info is great! I don't know how I never saw that tutorial. That and your 3D6 anim will answer tons of questions I have about how you guys make these superb 3D things with Xara!

Simple 2D

Hi IntelB

That is the effect I want. I just don't know how to get the text at that angle.

Cheers,
David

Unfortunately, Xara3D doesn't have a mode that will let you have text orbit in that way, and there is no easy way to simulate it.

But I have a cunning plan!

There is a process that I am working on using XaraXtreme, that takes text, maps horizontal strips from the text to a line of pixels made up of more text of a particular font (trade secret :D ), and then curves that line around a circle, that can then be exported as a ring to Xara3D.

By building up a series of these rings vertically in Xara3D (the easy bit!), you can build up the original text in an orbiting ring. It is the equivalent of rasterizing the original text around a circular display screen.

That's the theory, anyway, and doing this is going to take a bit of time and patience, so it may be some time before I have a working image, assuming it does work.

Mike

Quote:

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Originally Posted by David Strover

Hi IntelB

That is the effect I want. I just don't know how to get the text at that angle.

Cheers,
David

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That was done in Extreme.
"Text on a Curve" is all was used.

Hey check this thread over HERE

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Availor

hehe I feel embaressed, mike , teaching you lol :o. I just picked a ready made style that's all. But you can achieve this by playing with bevel options.

I made it with Xara 3D6

Dave, I'm no expert in Xara 3D but I think I can figure out something... will have to sleep over it :)

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hey guys could osme1 send me the file those samples are in i dont seem to have it

cheers

briso, look at post 11, at the end of it there is an attachment. You can dowload the file by clicking the link.


Cheers :)

thanks mate been lookind for this file for ages

much appreciated

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all your help and suggestions.

I've actually created the text I needed using 'text around a curve' in Xtreme and then exported it to 3D and got it more or less how I wanted (I have to do it myself I am pedantic like that) but the only thing I find is the file size is quite large when I save as any type of flash. The smallest I can get it down to at the moment is 1.79m. Is this the norm or am I missing something?

The only reason I ask is that some of the examples I've seen and the files on the software itself are usually considerable smaller!

Thanks in advance,
David

Hello David. I have no idea why your file should be such a large one. The file, especially swf should not be more than several kilos, not more than 15-20kb for the least.

Perhaps you could post a screenshot of your file, or try posting the original file if you can downsize it a little.

What Availor is saying is not strictly true. Vectors can be larger than Bitmaps, especially if using swf file types.

I attach 2 examples. They are both the same static image at the same size, but as you can see the vector image is much larger than the bitmap one.

I also post a zoomed in view of the Vector file. You can see that to create the curves, they are created by many vector shapes. This example is the same as the other 2 attached but with a 45 degree bevel applied. This doubled the vector swf file size.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

... but as you can see the vector image is much larger than the vector one.

---

Shome mishtake?

UPDATED BY EGG:

Blush... Blush... I've altered the original post to " but as you can see the vector image is much larger than the bitmap one "

Thanks Raymond

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by David Strover

Hello Everyone,
My boss at work wants me to create a website for him and he would like the words Design, Engineering, Knowledge rotating around another image (a bit like the old movie logo - I think it was the very old Paramount logo with the plane) at a cocked angle. Sort of circling the globe or an object, each word following the other in a curved or circular path
David

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Hi David,

The very best advice I could give you would be to tell your boss this is an incredibly bad idea for the following reasons:

1. unless the animation is very small and very low res it will be a huge download and add precisely nothing to the value of your website
2. the "Universal Pictures" words going around a globe thing is really naff and outdated, it's very 1990s

Special effects should be used carefully. Too many bells and whistles can be distracting. Useability studies have revealed that most users are put off by visual noise. Consider your users at all times. I would seriously reconsider the value of doing this. Just because you can does not mean that you should.

Hi Big Frank,

I've already told him he doesn't want Flash Intros or even any Flash content or anything else that might slow down load time or look naff and as I suspect you can guess he will not listen. Just like most people who can't even use Frontpage will not - it drives me nuts! They can't do it themselves with simple software and yet when you give them advice they won't take it.

Oh yeah and they always want it done for about £20 too!

I have always subscribed to less is more.....except in payments!

David