Olyrings

[Big Frank]

But I cheated [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

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Big Frank was

[pduggan]

So how did you cheat, Frank?



Peter</p>



Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[Ross Macintosh]

Joroho - First you have to make a ring shape. There are few ways to do that - I'll tell you what I did. Draw a circle with the elipse tool. Clone it and resize it smaller (it is to be the hole in the donut). Note if you resized to clone holding down the shift key - both circles will stay concentric. With both selected, use arrange>combine shapes>subtract shapes. You will now have a ring shape.

Next step is to make that ring look 3d - the easiest way is with the bevel tool. Apply the maximum inside bevel to your shape that the bevel tool will allow. Change the bevel type from the default "flat" to "rounded", crank up the contrast setting and alter the light elevation setting to something like 33 degrees. You now have a very nice ring.

You can create the other coloured rings by cloning and then with the bevel selected use the colour bar or colour editor to change the colour to whatever you want. Arrange your rings as you see fit. The alignment tool can be effectively used for that purpose.

Where the rings cross, to produce that over under look, you have to do some selective cutting. An easy way is to draw a little shape that masks out the area you want to subtract. (Copy it if you are cutting out more than one to save yourself from having to draw it more than once). Glen's diagram above shows this method. With the mask and the appropriate ring selected use arrange>combine shapes>subtract shapes to effectively remove a part of the ring. After repeatedly do that as needed you should have your interlocking rings. I'd then suggest grouping the whole bunch and applying a shadow to it using xara's handy-dandy shadow tool. A background can be put behind and additional highlights added if you want.

The next step is one of the most important and should be performed with care! It is sitting back and admiring what you've created. Congradulate yourself on a job well done. This step is so important because recognizing your own accomplishments will help your brain to categorize the experience as important making it easier to remember and use all the techniques in other projects. (The downside of this learning technique is you can convince yourself you are a genius. Of course, other people will know that you aren't).

All said and done, I didn't create my example above using the bevel tool. I should have - it would have looked better.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[pduggan]

Isn't it great how there's always another way! So I just didn't stop to think because I was in a hurry to respond to Gary's challenge ('making the ring outlines different colors'), but realise now that I could have made my brushes out of two rectangles instead of three...

BTW Ross, I like the coloured shadows - a nifty touch, which helps the image to gel (groan)! But are pinstripes now compulsory with everything? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]



Peter</p>



Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[Big Frank]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> So how did you cheat, Frank? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I didn't use Xara. I used Caligari trueSpace3. Piece of cake (half an hour) and proves the value of 3D over 2D in at least two respects (notwithstanding the rants in an earlier thread which I refuse to get drawn into)

1. <LI>some jobs are just easier or more intuitive working in 3D (and vice versa)
   <LI>working with 3D apps means you don't have to think about where the shading is supposed to go... just add a light source and there's the shadow, nicely mapped around your subject

I did my olympic circles image just to prove a point. More often than not I create images because I am paid to do so. Therefore if I can use an app that does the job just as quick but better, or just as good but much quicker, then that is what I am going to use. Whatever you use to do the job is irrelevant, it's how you use it that determines the output. I'm no newbie to Xara but I looked at the complexity of creating a work that would make those 5 circles look real and realised that in the time I had available to me, XaraX was not the man for the job. I don't have X3D4 (I'm still on 3) but I would have gone for that cos it's quick and simple, so in the absence of anything else I reverted to trueSpace which did an admirable job. Try to create something like that in Xara in half an hour from a standing start...

Incidentally, I only downloaded trueSpace yesterday so my rings aren't a bad effort considering the learning curve. Anybody remember Simply3D? That's what I used to use a few years ago until I lost interest in 3D graphics

Bottom line:
Rembrandt could probably create a masterpiece with Microsoft paint (well, if he weren't dead, that is), but I'm sure somebosy like me would still make a complete hash trying to emulate his 'Nightwatch'. It ain't what you use, it's the way that you use it! Anybody that knows me will know I love XaraX, but that doesn't mean I am blind to the opportunities presented by other apps that are excellent in their own way.

--
Big Frank was

(but sometimes with other apps! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] )

[This message was edited by Big Frank on April 01, 2001 at 10:36 AM.]

[Ross Macintosh]

Big Frank - Whilst the TrueSpace3 version is nice, it would also only have taken 30 minutes (or less) using the bevel method in Xara. Of course more time could be spent fiddling with it. (Perhaps even weeks [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] ).

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on April 01, 2001 at 11:30 AM.]

[Big Frank]

Hmm, Ross. You're talking from the perspective of somebody who, like me, has an intimate knowledge of XaraX. If I was as familiar with trueSpace (remember, I have been using it for 24 hours) as I am with Xara I'm sure it would

1. have taken less time and/or
2. been a stunning piece of texture-mapping

Anyway, gotta go, the pizza's arrived!

--
Big Frank was


[This message was edited by Big Frank on April 01, 2001 at 01:43 PM.]

[Ross Macintosh]

Big Frank - I took your post about TrueSpace3 to suggest it was easier and faster to use that program than to do it in Xara. I couldn't comment on TrueSpace3 being easier - I'm not familiar with the program. As for the time you spent at it, I was just trying to say a reasonable xara alternative could also be done in the same time period. Perhaps not as good with the lighting - but still reasonably good.

I'm impressed by the "realism" of your TrueSpace3 effort. That a novice to that program can achieve that result in 30 minutes is impressive. I too can imagine that a expert in TrueSpace3 (or any other good 3D software) could produce a truly stunning example. Like you, I stayed out of the recent thread debating 2d xara art vs. 3d modelling. I believe an accomplished 3D modeller (like Yens, for one) are every bit the creative artist as an accomplished designer who uses xara. It surprised me to read posts suggesting otherwise. Xara is a great tool but it ain't the only one.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[Earl]

If you ask me, this is a case where it would be better to create the rings in 2d. Whoever invented the Olympics logo simply wasn't thinking 3d. In order to achieve the interlocking of the rings, they've got to be tilted slightly. But then (as you can see in my example), when viewed from the front, they aren't perfect circles. To achieve perfect circles from the front, with the interlocking, would require distorting and bending the rings. I can't stand the thought of the 'rings' being bent out of shape. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Sooo, well, that's how I see it anyway.

[Ross Macintosh]

Earl - That's a stunning example. Was it created in Xara or Lightwave 3d?

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>