Can't get engraved text right

[The Alien]

I've been searching the forum for a way to create an engraved effect.
I read that one should bevel the text inwards and set the light direction to lower right. I've tried this and set the direction to upper left/lower right, but it still looks embossed to me. Am I missing something?
The drawing in question is below. Ultimately, I want to have a simple engraved text on - what's supposed to be - the pill. (I made it using the gel button tutorial as a basis).

First I tested the effect on the blue rectangle and then on the pill. Neither of the texts look engraved to me. Instead, they look embossed

Any help on this would be appreciated

[Grafixman]

It looks engraved to me .
I seem to have read somewhere that this illusion works for some people but not for others. It IS just an illusion after all ...
Here's a tutorial for Painter where the author admits the same thing:
http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/...-text-pg2.html
So you're not alone.
One thing you could try is to reduce the width of the highlighted part. Make it even thinner or more transparent. This way it would not be fighting for attention with the shadowed part on the upper left portion of the letters and give the viewer a more defined point of view. Or maybe darkening the "recessed" faces in the text a bit. It is supposed to be lower, so perhaps it shouldn't be receiving as much light as the surface of the object?

[Ballpoint]

Hey Alien I was just trying something which may or may not suit you. Create a rectangle . Put your text on top of that rectangle and select both shapes - arrange, combine, subtract shapes. Now apply a chiselled bevel to the remaining shape. You could also put a black rectangle to the back of this shape and change the font of the text too. It's just an idea, hope it helps .

[Soquili]

Try giving the text a slightly different shade of the colour. If it is exactly the same as the 'pill' it will look embossed instead of engraved.

[gwpriester]

One trick is to make a duplicate of the text and apply a small amount of Stained Glass transparency to reenforce the effect of depth.

Another trick is to bring the bevel all the way to the center to give the text a chisled look.

The bottom example is two sets of text, one with an outer bevel and the other with an inner bevel.

Gary

[The Alien]

One thing you could try is to reduce the width of the highlighted part. Make it even thinner or more transparent. This way it would not be fighting for attention with the shadowed part on the upper left portion of the letters and give the viewer a more defined point of view.

Can you explain this a bit? Do you mean the highlight inside the pill?

This happens more often to me where I lose perspective when working on these illusions and finally don't see the illusion myself cause I know how it's put together. Usually my mind resets and after a while, I see it too. But with this one, I can't seem to make it work :S
I checked the article you posted and I saw embossed text from left and right. It looked engraved though, when looking at it from forward

Darkening the recessed surface worked great. It made the text look more realistic (pic below)

Gary, I tried the stained glass transparency. This made the fill look greyish. Kinda weird...

[Soquili]

It looks like you have the engraved text technique now.

[Grafixman]

Great resource of ideas, guys.
Looking directly in front of the text and deciding whether it's embossed or engraved can be confusing, even in real life. My thinking is to skew the viewpoint or the lightsource a bit, so that the engraved or embossed effect is emphasized and ambiguity is reduced. Or maybe it works better for some color but not for others? Looking at it too long can also cause the ambiguous feeling. I'm no expert, but these are just some of my ideas on the subject...

[John Rayner]

Hey the Alien & grafixman,

as with all illustions, the rest of the drawing effects the state of mind also... Import an ico or a button with an up and down state... It is the same effect used there...

[The Alien]

Grafixman, yeah I can see the difference between embossed & engraved in your pic
But if I try just a little bit, the big engraved text suddenly looks embossed again. But the embossed text remains embossed But the words "embossed" and "engraved" seem to keep their properties (i.e. I'm not able to see it differently). It's a weird thing

John, yeah the light seems to be coming from top left in every windows app. Creates a good reference