Shiny metal letters: How do you?
Torby
Posts: 250
Anybody have an idea how to make shiny metal letters?
I have this working, but it's a little flat:
Make a plane and set the opacity to a .png with the text on it. Set specular to gold, model to shiny metallic and reflection to yellow.
It works, but it's a little 2 dimensional.
Ideas?
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Comments
If you use actual 3D letters with slightly rounded edges and corners, you may get better reflections. I wonder if you could fake it with a displacement on the 2D letters to give them depth? Not sure if that would work or not.
It is also important that you have an environment around them to actually reflect; reflective materials with nothing reflecting in them, of course, don't look reflective. (or alternately I think you can use a reflection map, although I don't actually know how those work.)
I have 3d Alphabet from Portrait Studio that was a free download ......only I can't remember where I got it ...... but with a gold shader I got this ....
Portrait Studio is Structure, over at rendo http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=65872
I was playing around with this, and noticed that my letters, which are also flat (in shape) on the front, also appeared a bit flat (in color) because they were not reflecting the sky, but rather the duller horizon. I tried tilting the letter back just slightly, and was able to reflect the sky in the flat front face, which looked much better.
Blender can make 3D text with bevelled edges no problem with most Fonts, some fonts can be a little tricky but overall it works very well. Carrara can too. Not sure with Hex as I don't use it.
There is Font to Mesh
http://www.daz3d.com/font-to-mesh-express-converter
Font to Mesh: Yup, I'm pretty good at making a mesh of things.
I downloaded the one from renderosity, but dang if I can figure out where to drop the folder in my tangled runtimes -- one for daz4, the old one from Daz 3...
Puzzle figure, (colorful metaphors), head scratch...
Oh, here we go!
Thanks!
Oh my. Somebody didn't know much about typography when they made that set :)
I guess I should have looked closer at the Attention sign above.
Torby just scale the larger ones to match the smaller or versa visa ..... or scale everyone to a size you like ,that's what I did.
Portrait Studio is Structure, over at rendo http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=65872
By the way thank you for the link chohole :cheese:
Elefont works too
http://www.armanisoft.ch/elefont/Elefont.html
I can't help you much with the letters, but for the "shiny metal" I know of two shader sets I use all the time, which I highly recommend. The first is Ultimate Shader Pack. This comes with both some "fast metals" and some really nice Chrome metals, which include some nice "silver" chromes, and polished "brass" and "gold" Chromes. The Chrome metals all come with reflection maps which also provide the "color" to the shiny metal. If you don' want mapped reflections, simply remove the reflection maps and change the Reflection color setting (not the Diffuse color).
The other set I use quite frequently for "painted" metal is the Super Shine Shader pack. This set does not use reflection maps. What it does use is seamless color textures in the Diffuse block for the "paint". It comes with a rather wide range of hues too. Attached are a few examples of pieces I've done using both shader sets (without reflection maps).
Hex can make 3D text, have to break up the front and back into quads or tris though.. it's kind of annoying but doable.
Wow, Rareth. Cool render. I'll try that.
Tramp, I think I met that girl in your first render. I was definitely NOT the kid in the fourth.
Xara 3D Maker is specifically designed for this, it has real-time rendering, text animation and a lot of other options and features:
http://www.xara.com/us/products/xara3d/
Here's some metal samples:
--
I've also done 3D text in Bryce.
OMG, I totally forgot about Xara. It's been a lot of years since I played with it.
I got the Elefont program. Aside from Windows being terrified of it, what do you do with the resulting "DXF" file? I tried to import in DS, but the import dialog doesn't list dxf.
I got the best results with importing Elefont's dxf file into Silo and export it from there into the format I really need.
You'll have to convert the file. A couple of options - pick one:
1) Load it into Bryce, and save it off as a format Daz Studio can read
2) Use PoseRay to convert it to OBJ
Thought I'd chime in. I stumbled on this thread last week because I was searching for a way to create an animated 3d title that looked professional. I tried Hexagon, Carrara, and even downloaded the Xara trial. None had all the features I needed. Then I found Corel Motion Studio 3D. Downloaded the trial and it's PERFECT. It comes with tons of already-made animations, awesome lighting that you can animate (the timeline is great), allows you to import your own textures and even to "emboss" those textures (a key feature for my needs). You can import your own background or render with transparency to combine with your own (in my case, animated) background in external video software. I could go on. Anyway, it's not cheap at $70, but I'm getting an early Christmas present!
M.
So, out of those features you listed, what couldn't Carrara do?
Text functionality would be on a wishlist for the next DAZ version perhaps.
So, out of those features you listed, what couldn't Carrara do?
I didn't list all of Motion Studio's features, but it's totally possible Carrara *can* do all of the above. I tried and failed, however - which may simply be commentary on my own inadequacy (or impatience). For MY needs, Motion Studio is the equivalent of an Easy Button. ;-)
I didn't list all of Motion Studio's features, but it's totally possible Carrara *can* do all of the above. I tried and failed, however - which may simply be commentary on my own inadequacy (or impatience). For MY needs, Motion Studio is the equivalent of an Easy Button. ;-)
Certainly nothing wrong with an easy button as long as it has the flexibility you need. I was just curious on what limitations you maybe had with Carrara. If you ever do try it again, don't hesitate to head on over to the Carrara Discussion forum. It's been a pretty relaxed place for the last year or so, with lots of people eager to help and answer questions.
I didn't list all of Motion Studio's features, but it's totally possible Carrara *can* do all of the above. I tried and failed, however - which may simply be commentary on my own inadequacy (or impatience). For MY needs, Motion Studio is the equivalent of an Easy Button. ;-)
Certainly nothing wrong with an easy button as long as it has the flexibility you need. I was just curious on what limitations you maybe had with Carrara. If you ever do try it again, don't hesitate to head on over to the Carrara Discussion forum. It's been a pretty relaxed place for the last year or so, with lots of people eager to help and answer questions.
Thanks! :-)
I have exported letters from Vue as an .obj format and rendered them in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro with ParrotDolphin metal shaders
from Renderosity. I enclosed scene in the sphere and applied same shader there.
Then, the same meshes I have rendered in Bryce 7 Pro with some of the metallic shaders available in it.
...there is also Super Shine Top Coat whihc will apply a shiny surface to any texture.
I know Carrara supports 3D text and logo design. Could one create text in Cararra and export it to Daz as a .obj?
You can create it in Hex and import to DS as well.. Not knowing how to do it in Hex doesn't mean Hex can't do it..