What am I doing wrong?..this should be simple.

[epiphane]

I'd truly appreciate you folks setting me straight on this. I've spent hours trying to get this simple technique to work.

I'm still using Draw 7..(like a old t-shirt.. it's comfortable).

I draw a round black filled button with a rectangular red band across the middle.

To place a highlight on the edge, I create a small blend group from white to black (shaped like a boomerang) at the 10 o'clock position. So far so good...it looks like a button all right.

Where the trouble begins is when I try to make the highlight cover the red band slightly. The highlight shows the white to black blend placed over the red. I of course want just the white to show there.

I won't bore you with all the various steps I've tried......would someone just walk me through the proper ones, please?..thanks, Peter.

[epiphane]

I'd truly appreciate you folks setting me straight on this. I've spent hours trying to get this simple technique to work.

I'm still using Draw 7..(like a old t-shirt.. it's comfortable).

I draw a round black filled button with a rectangular red band across the middle.

To place a highlight on the edge, I create a small blend group from white to black (shaped like a boomerang) at the 10 o'clock position. So far so good...it looks like a button all right.

Where the trouble begins is when I try to make the highlight cover the red band slightly. The highlight shows the white to black blend placed over the red. I of course want just the white to show there.

I won't bore you with all the various steps I've tried......would someone just walk me through the proper ones, please?..thanks, Peter.

[lefturn]

I'll try. Duplicate your blend group start and end objects. Change the black object to the red of the band. Re-blend. Now put the new blend group abone or below the other one. All youve got to do is maybe use a powerclep or something to let the red blend show over the red and the black on black. Or you could go in and trim each object in the blend group. Several ways to go about it.

[cem]

Peter,

Off the top of my head, how about using the interactive blend tool on a white object. You can't get a truly curved highlight but it doesn't look too bad.

Craig

[lefturn]

Craig, I think you mean the interactive transparancy tool. You are right, it looks pretty good.

[epiphane]

I followed Mikes 's advice & got what I wanted...I think my problems prior to this were caused by me screwing up the powerclipping.

Craig, the button looks neat....could you break down what you did step by step? Seems there's more then one way to acknowledge this & I'd sure be interested in how you did the highlight.....I particularly like how the white covers (from left to right) the black to red then a little of the black band that contains the words.

Thanks for both of your help here guys.
Peter

[cem]

Peter,

As Mike pointed out, I meant to say interactive transparency tool. I just drew an arch-shaped object, filled with white, then played with the transparency tool until it looked right. For even more fun with lenses try stacking them like these water drops. Highlight is the same but it's on top of a magnifying lens on top of another transparent fountain fill, etc. Be forewarned tho', lenses are bitmap effects and can be memory and processor hogs if they get very big/complex.

Craig