A new Xara video tutorial

About a billion years ago (!), I made a promise to myself and a few other people that I'd continue documenting Xara, even though The Official Guide book will not see a second edition.

Extruding Stuff in Xara Designer

I show how to create a sort of Roman column with the Extrude tool, instructions on the potted plant are as follows: auto-trace a photo of a plant.

I'm feeling particularly good about this offering because after a lot of trial and error, I was able to render the video to HD, all the text on the UI is razor-sharp, and the audio sound like I'm next to the viewer and not in a drain pipe.

Enjoy!

My Best,

Gary

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Thank you Gary! :) Clear, concise video and neat end result. The Official Guide the Movie :cool:

Thanks Gare, that was great.

Useful lesson and great presentation. Thank you!

Great video -- clear, concise, professional!
Quick question: How did you get the photo of the plant to not have the white photographic background around it?

I knew I'd find somewhere to put it :D

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Beautifully done Gary. =D>
Great video, though the accent was a bit difficult for me! ;))

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Hi Gardenofdaisies—

Okay, this is how I did it, and an alternative way. If you have a photo and want to separate the background garbage—a scene, pure white, whatever—from your foreground subject, lock the photo. Then trace its silhouette manually; yeah, there’s other ways to automate this tedious step, but nothing works as well as a human brain behind tracing. Then you unlock the photo, put the silhouette shape behind the photo (Ctrl+Shift+B), select the photo and the shape (marquee-dragging is the simplest way to pick both things), and then press Q to make the bottom shape you traced into a ClipView shape.

Alternatively, you can go to VectorMagic.com and buy a toke, and have the utility auto-trace your photo to vector file format, and then delete the background objects. The file I’m attaching here shows both methods. If you want to unclip the ClipView group, you select them, and then press Alt+Q.

AND…actually, the way I did it, because I was in a rush, was I have a 3D model of the plant; I rendered it in Cinema 4D to TIF file format with an alpha channel. PNGs, TIFFs, and PSDs (and probably Targa) images can contain a masking channel.

I wish my anwser could have been as quick as your question,

My Best,

Gary

Hey Rik—

I chose my accent after the strongest bankrupt nation in the world, pal.

So watch it...and can you spare $3 trillion?

-g-

Very Nice Gary! Thank You for Posting! Tom aka Hwy101

Hi Gare,

Excellently done (is that a word?)....I could actually follow it easily and understand it first try. I wouldn't worry too much about the accent......all the words were mostly right except for a few 'technical' ones....;-)

Oddly, I don't worry too much about my accent or technical accuracy.

In fact (a technically inaccurate one), I gave the sport of worrying up last year, to take up smoking.

None of the above,

Gary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gare

...and can you spare $3 trillion?

-g-

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Anything for a friend.

Here is a note that you can take to the Treasury.
They are bound by law to honour it and you should have no trouble cashing it.

Also, please feel free to keep the change.

Thanks, Rik.

That reminds me of an old joke about former President Bush.

One of his aides told him that 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq.

He frowned and seemed deeply concerned.

Then he asked the aide, "So how many is a 'brazillion'?"

-g-

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Gare

have this one on me, be worth $3 Trillion soon :D

Very Nice!

The $3 Trillion isn't for me, you must understand.

Well, I'd take some of it, sort of a "commission", but I thought I'd help bail out our government with what I wouldn't keep.

They can do a lot with $97 if they put their minds to it.

-g-