Interweaving vines with 3D text

**angelize** · 12 March 2013, 04:47 PM

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.

**dcahall** · 12 March 2013, 07:40 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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** · 13 March 2013, 05:03 AM

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** · 13 March 2013, 07:22 AM

Originally Posted by 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?

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** · 13 March 2013, 08:00 AM

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

**stygg2003** · 13 March 2013, 11:46 AM

Originally Posted by angelize

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** · 13 March 2013, 02:46 PM

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

**dcahall** · 13 March 2013, 06:11 PM

Originally Posted by 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 disappearing 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?

Thanks Frances - This clarifies some things for me. When I ungroup the lawn I cannot find the small object at all. Also when I click the transparency tool for the lawn, I see Many instead of the fractal-stained glass transparency (is that because of mould tool modification of the original lawn object?). I zoomed to 8000% and still do not see your little short object. I even set the View quality down to 0 to try to find it and do not see it anywhere

Between you, Stygg and Gary, I have learned some neat tricks here. I am going to mess around with these for a while. Unfortunately, I lost some of my "picture" so I have to try to reconstruct some of it but I would like to see this through to the end (be patient with me Gary). I hope others may be following this thread and learning some things as well.

**angelize** · 13 March 2013, 06:48 PM

Hi Dave without ungrouping the lawn click on it and select the transparency tool, you should see the linear fill handle at the top center of the lawn. This is what gives the soft top edge.

If you ungroup the mold the linear transparency is removed and you will have just the mold to ungroup the mold either select the mold tool and click remove or right click the mold and select open mold (this opens an edit inside window and requires at least version 7) you will now have a group of two rectangles ungroup this and you will have two rectangles select just the top rectangle and select the transparency tool and you will see that it has a stained glass bitmap transparency. you should also see the bitmaps used in my file in the bitmap gallery.