Interweaving vines with 3D text

[dcahall]

Love that little plane!!

[angelize]

Dave the lawn is done with two layers the bottom or base layer and a top layer with a stained glass bitmap transparency. These were grouped and molded with a floor perspective mold and then a linear transparency was applied to get the blur at the top. Here is a trick when working with transparencies if an object is grouped you can apply more than one transparency to it. Check out the sky for another example of this the clouds are an overlay done with a bitmap transparency and then grouped with it's self and a linear transparency is applied. There are two things to remember: an object can only be grouped with its self once and this limitation can be overcome by grouping with a small 99% transparent object.

[stygg2003]

@stygg2003: I have looked at your .xar file but I am not being successful at reproducing the steps. I do not get the right colors for the fractal plasma on the second step. Then I still do not see how you applied a gradient fill to a plasma fractal for the last step. What the heck am I doing wrong?

Dave the colours for the fractal fill are centre node HSV Green#339966, the outer node is HSV Brown #a76135. Note also the feathering! Also check that repeating tile is in use. With the image and fill tool still selected and it will be still showing fractal plasma, go up to the Fill tool box on the tool bar, open it and select Linear fill, nothing else, just select and click. You shoud now see the shape you want with the linear fill arrow which you can drag around to suit. The final step, select the trans. tool(wine glass) this too will still be showing Fractal plasma but this time set the trans. type to stained glass and as per first xara.file set the centre node to 42-42.5% and the top node to 100%. you might need to drag the top node down a little. For a final check, on the tool bar for the last step, you should have showing Fractal plasma, stained glass, repeating tile, 109dpi, fractal scale 30%. The very first shape, the base shape as a feathering of 12.7 The second shape, fractal plasma as a feathering of 31.8

Stygg

[dcahall]

Dave the colours for the fractal fill are centre node HSV Green#339966, the outer node is HSV Brown #a76135. Note also the feathering! Also check that repeating tile is in use. With the image and fill tool still selected and it will be still showing fractal plasma, go up to the Fill tool box on the tool bar, open it and select Linear fill, nothing else, just select and click. You shoud now see the shape you want with the linear fill arrow which you can drag around to suit. The final step, select the trans. tool(wine glass) this too will still be showing Fractal plasma but this time set the trans. type to stained glass and as per first xara.file set the centre node to 42-42.5% and the top node to 100%. you might need to drag the top node down a little. For a final check, on the tool bar for the last step, you should have showing Fractal plasma, stained glass, repeating tile, 109dpi, fractal scale 30%. The very first shape, the base shape as a feathering of 12.7 The second shape, fractal plasma as a feathering of 31.8

Stygg

@stygg - as soon as I select linear from the drop down list, the fill changes to linear and the fractal fill is gone. What am I doing wrong or is there some difference between XP&GD and Designer Pro?

I have tried this several dozen times and no matter what, it changes the fill type to linear before I ever get to the transparency step.

[dcahall]

Dave the lawn is done with two layers the bottom or base layer and a top layer with a stained glass bitmap transparency. These were grouped and molded with a floor perspective mold and then a linear transparency was applied to get the blur at the top. Here is a trick when working with transparencies if an object is grouped you can apply more than one transparency to it. Check out the sky for another example of this the clouds are an overlay done with a bitmap transparency and then grouped with it's self and a linear transparency is applied. There are two things to remember: an object can only be grouped with its self once and this limitation can be overcome by grouping with a small 99% transparent object.

Frances: When I ungroup the lawn, I can no longer access the object with the stained glass transparency and feathering. It just seems to disappear.

Since I am having problems with the steps that Stygg outlined also, I am wondering if there are differenced between the 2 products.

[angelize]

Hi Dave I don't think I've done anything here that P&GD can't do There is no feathering involved in the lawn at all. here is a breakdown of how it's done. the linear transparency is applied at the end and if you select the lawn before ungrouping it and select the transparency tool you should see the linear transparency (it's quite short so you may need to zoom in) When you take it apart remove the linear transparency first before ungrouping otherwise the linear transparency causes the dissapearing act you are seeing. (I think it has to do with the mold)

If there is interest how about we start a new thread to discuss transparencies and fills in more depth?

[stygg2003]

Hi Dave I don't think I've done anything here that P&GD can't do There is no feathering involved in the lawn at all. here is a breakdown of how it's done. the linear transparency is applied at the end and if you select the lawn before ungrouping it and select the transparency tool you should see the linear transparency (it's quite short so you may need to zoom in) When you take it apart remove the linear transparency first before ungrouping otherwise the linear transparency causes the dissapearing act you are seeing. (I think it has to do with the mold)

If there is interest how about we start a new thread to discuss transparencies and fills in more depth?

Francis here are the two shapes, on my PGD7 It shows that both have a feathering, one of 24px and one at 20px and no sign of the mould tool being used at all. As I pointed out to Dave, if I select the second shape then just click on Fill it shows the linear fill, and I can move the fill arrow with no problem, without doing anything else, just click on the Trans. tool, it shows immediatly. I have had no problem with this file at all, it is quite straight forward.

Stygg

[angelize]

Stygg, Dave was asking me about the sample I posted in post #107 and that's what I was answering about.

[stygg2003]

Stygg, Dave was asking me about the sample I posted in post #107 and that's what I was answering about.

My apologies Francis, but I would still like to know why when Dave clicks on Fill, the Fractal fill vanishes? if I'm reading him right, if so there in is the problem, that does not happen to me. I can click on each tool, Fill, trans. and the shape remains the same with all its attributes, I don't lose the fractal if I click on the Fill tool and this is what Dave says he loses if he clicks on the Fill tool, ahhh but it's just dawned on me about what he said in #114
"when I select linear fill from the dropdown I lose the fractal and it changes to linear"

@ Dave, no Dave just click on the Fill tool bucket and this will show the linear fill arrow then click on the Trans. icon and this will show its transparency. If this is not the solution then I wonder if there is any difference between PGD7 and Pro8 on the way their engines handle such files Also are you talking about making your shapes from scratch or how to inspect the original? My replies have all been based on inspection.

Stygg

[stygg2003]

Dave I think you've been talking about making the shapes as per Gary's file from scratch so I have posted this file for you, hope it helps. I think we all got crossed lines as to what we were talking about, making the shapes or inspecting them in the original Gary file, well I did anyway

Stygg