Is a rotating coffee mug possible?

[andyf]

Hi all. I have downloaded trial versions of xtreme and X3DS and have been having a play around using hints and tips from you guys with a view to buying the programs for educational use (I work in education). I want to be able to produce a rotating coffee mug with text on one side and an image on the other. All my attempts so far still look like a rotating logo! There is no depth to the mug I create and no amount of tweaking the bevel option will produce the desired rounded shape. Is there any way of creating a 2D mesh that will be rendered as a 3d object, which can then be animated (rotated) and finally saved as a flash file? I freely admit that the rotating mug is a personal thing but if I can get my head around that I can create some decent projects for the kids. I was attracted to xara because of it's apparent simplicity, I don't want to use high end 3d programs as they may be outside of the students grasp. Any ideas welcome! Andy.

[simsmj]

Hello, AndyF, welcome to Talkgraphics.

Your question is an interesting one, because it points up a restriction of Xara3D. The short answer is: Not easily!

The long answer is:

When you use Xara3D to make a flat shape into 3d, the only means Xara3D has to do this is Extrusion, where it stretches the shape along the z-axis, thus making, say, a flat 2d circle into a 3d cylinder. The front face of the cylinder is the circular end of the cylinder that faces out to the viewer, and it is only onto this face that Xara3D applies textures, which are bitmap images painted onto a surface. This texture is itself extruded along the z-axis of the shape, and is therefore visible in reverse on the opposite end of the cylinder. If the side of the cylinder does not bulge in any way, then all you will see on the side is straight lines stretching from front edge to rear edge, not an image of the texture.

Xara3D has no way to apply a texture to the side of a shape, so the issue becomes whether it is possible to manipulate suitable shapes to generate a 3d coffee cup, while arranging for a shape whose front face is actually the side of the cup. Since this means the front face itself has to be curved into the z-axis, then it is not so simple. It is possible to fudge this, see the attached image, but whether the results are satisfactory will depend on what you want, and it isn't a very flexible approach. This was about the best I could do in about 20-30 minutes of fiddling about with it, and the proportions of the image area and cup size and shape are pretty much fixed.

If you want a square coffee cup, then there is much more scope!

Basically Xara3D is not a 3D modelling application, and while it is very good at what it was designed to do, eg extrude text and flat shapes for logos on web pages etc, it doesn't offer the features even a low-end 3d modelling appication would expects as standard. It simply isn't in that part of the marketplace.

Mike

[simsmj]

This shows how the cup was constructed. The outer cylinder was swung 90 degrees so that its front face is at the top of the cup, and its sole purpose is to hide the hemispherical top and bottom of the image-holding shape, which are not normal features of real coffee cups

Mike

[andyf]

Hi Mike, thanks for the welcome and the great reply! It's a shame I can't do the mug but (depending on the reply from Xara re educational price) I will probably still get it for work. I will have to look into simple 3D packages for the kids! Andy

[salaam]

I thought that I would try.
It's a bit rough but with a little more attention and time it will look super.

[DAL]

Very cool salaam. It looks great.

[andyf]

Hi Salaam. Thanks for the hard work. I will take this away and have a play! If I get a half decent result I will post it up for others to see/use. Andy

[andyf]

Hi Salaam. OK, as a new learner to this would you mind answering a few queries? How did you manage to get the 'handle' to extrude to a different depth from the rest of the design? Could you post a copy of your texture for me to see its dimensions please? I know, I'm a pain in the wozzit! Andy.

[andyf]

Ok, I've figured out different extrusion depths. How to work on textures!

[andyf]

Oops typo! I meant - Now to work on textures