Distressed or Cracked Effect on Vector Shapes

Does anyone know how to make a vector shape appear distressed or cracked in a natural-looking way? The best example I can think of is the Chickenfoot logo. It is a simple 2-color logo and looks nicely aged. I've been thinking about this for a while, but can't decide on an effective approach to achieve it.

http://www.chickenfoot.us/

Thanks for your consideration.

--Mike.

I usually take a photo from the fill gallery, for example marble, make it gray scale and the adjust the contrast to get a nic ecracked texture. Then I make a bitmap copy which I trace (see my tracing tutorial for making clipart in the xaraxone, guest tutorial 62 or something - sorry, I'm a bit in a hurry and don't have time to check). Then I subtract the texture trace shape from the text.
I'll post an example when I have time.

There was a thread here about grunge look. I think it is a similar process as what is being asked. I can't find the thread but the xar file and image looked like this: Perhaps someone recalls this one?

The attached uses the Stone10 fill from the Fills Gallery.

1. Import the image.
2. Right click white on the color line and Set Contone Light color.
3. Right click black on the color line and set Contone Dark color.
4. Create bitmap copy.
5. Select the text and open the Bitmap Gallery and apply the contone bitmap copy as Transparency.
6. Clone the text and assign another color and change the transparency handles so the text looks finer grained. Move to the cloned text behind the original text.

Optional: before making the Bitmap Copy select the Photo Tool and increase the contrast.

A quick and easy way to do this is to use transparencies. In my examples below I used a fractal clouds transparency, and a bitmap transparency. You can adjust the transparency handles and the profile sliders for control over just how distressed your shape is, and this method can also be applied to text without having to convert to shapes so your text remains editable as text.

I have also included the .xar file.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gnurf

I usually take a photo from the fill gallery, for example marble, make it gray scale and the adjust the contrast to get a nic ecracked texture. Then I make a bitmap copy which I trace (see my tracing tutorial for making clipart in the xaraxone, guest tutorial 62 or something - sorry, I'm a bit in a hurry and don't have time to check). Then I subtract the texture trace shape from the text.
I'll post an example when I have time.

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Bingo! That's is exactly the approach I was looking for. This allows the resulting shape to remain vector. I'll look up your tracing tutorial, as well. Thanks for your help!

Thanks to everyone else, too. Very helpful on how to distress shapes and text in other ways. Great stuff.

I was sure that I did a tutorial on the G but for the life of me I cannot find it.

If you look closely at the Chickenfoot logo it's distressed in 2 ways. Firstly an overall distressing and then a more subtle distressing to remove the letterings sharp edges. Here's an example of what I mean.

1: I created a brush of radom shapes and then Coverted to Editable Shapes / Convert Line to Shape, then subtracted it from the lettering. The outcome is the top image, the lettering still has sharp linear edges.

2: On the second attept I created a brush, cloned the lettering and applied this brush as a line to the text and then Coverted to Editable Shapes / Convert Line to Shape, then subtracted it from the lettering. This gave a distressed edging to all the letters. I then proceeded as in 1 above.

Here's how I did it:

1. Type text in a bold font.
2. Import the Pine needles from the Fill gallery
3. Apply black as dark contone color
4. Change the contrast by adjusting the fill profile (forgot the screenshot)
5. make a bitmap copy
6. Trace the copy with shown settings
7. Remove background of the trace and then join shapes
8. place a couple of copies of the trace above the text and subtract shapes

Also, what I did:

1. Apply a slight Inline contour with round joins
2. apply Inset Path
3. subtract a slightly enlarged copy of the scratchy trace
4. apply an Outline countour with same size as the Inline contour
5. Apply Inset path
6. subtract the rest of the scratchy traces.

Here is another way of doing it using a grunge brush I created, provided in the attached .xar file including a small 7-step tutorial.

Egg: I just read your post after I posted this. You were first subbmitting the brush and subtract idea ;)

Xcellent, any chance of reposting your tutorial, it's to small to read at present ;-)

Egg, that's why i posted the .xar, it's all in there ;)

Stupid me, I didn't see the xar attachment :rolleyes:

Gary: Your 'distressed G' looked familiar to me so I had a quick search round out of curiosity.

I couldn't find a specific tutorial for it either, but found this image/effect in a few TG threads from Feb 2002 ... Which I think was just after the original glazed/crackled effect tutorial you did in the XXone.

Simple Corroded Copper Effect Tutorial
Rust and peeling crackled paint
Rusty Wallpaper Challenge - Continued

Regards

Su

Old but remains of actuality :

http://talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=6003

http://talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=9898

http://talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=14110

kindly,

ivan

Perfect ideas, especially the tut and brush by Xcellent brought me to the grunge universe immediately. thanks a lot.

A quick attempt at distressed text. Three different ways.
Derek

I am a lazy person! Why not use a distressed font there are now just a bout a thousand out there now?

Oh my god! If you would not be a mod, they already would have killed you.
to tell this in a forum where people just reinvent everything, that is already inventeted for thousands of years, but not done yet in Xara.
use a font - huh! what kind of horseplay is that?
it must be done with nearly 25 steps, each one very difficult and tricky, overusing hard- and software every minute.
and - most important thing - it must convince everybody's wife, that five additonally hours in front of the PC are abolutely unavoidable. as a minimum - and right now!

The question was, how to make a "vector shape" distressed, with a font as an example of the sort of effect. Using a distressed font is fine if its text you are looking to distress.
Also its not unreasonable for people to discuss how to do it in Xtreme given that this is the Xtreme forum and thats what most people coming here are interested in reading and learning about.
Derek

sounds to me like if someone should urgently switch off his ironic filter software... :)

We obviously need an irony icon

How about an apology icon. SORRY about the mistake when jumping in and nor really reading the thread that's what I get just clicking on "New Posts"!

Concerning cracked fonts, the web design blog has just released a fine collection as linklist:

http://garcya.us/blog/20-free-grunge...m_medium=email

I'm just seeing this now...How would you go about creating a brush like it was shown. I found a font called Social Animal on DaFont that I love but want to use that look for a vector shape/logo I did. Here's a look at their font...Any ideas? I'm using DP6. Thanks!

Mark

You would not use a brush but you would need to create a vector shape with many nodes. You would also need to subtract areas within the shape to create the distressed look.

The attached images show the nodes used to create the letter A within the Social Animal font. TrueType, OpenType, and Type 1 fonts are actually vector shapes.

Thanks Bill, it looks like a bit more work to create that random brush than I thought. I was looking for a quick and dirty brush that I convert line to shape and ctrl 4 and go. It's eventually going on a tshirt as well as website etc.

A grayscale texture in BMT and Eyecandy 4000 on several variations.

Rich