Modeled lettering - The goatboy method

[Gothic_Goatboy]

I've had several PM's in the past about my lettering technique, so I figured I put up a VERY basic tut on the way I do it. a basic knowledge of max is required to understand this. the benifit to my method is that you dont have to muck about with mesh errors and such as you do when actually cutting the lettering into your mesh (as some do) and you can easily re-label your ship or whatever

first things first, you need some geometry to wrap too. I'm using this cylinder, obviously in your work it will be a nacelle or something.



your text should look something like this now




now, add the text you wish to wrap. convert to editable poly, or mesh if you prefer. I prefer poly modeling. notice that I have the text rotated here a bit to wrap in a more interesting way around my cylinder for the sake of the tut




now, move your camera (in user mode, NOT perspective) to a spot that aligns the text in front of the surface you want to wrap too. like so.
now switch to wireframe (if you arent already) and begin using the cut tool to cut lines matching the mesh behind the lettering. in the case of vertical and horizontal lines as in this case, you can use the slice plane tool to speed things up drasticly. once all the edges are added move on to the next step. you can just make out the cuts i'm making here.



now, align the camera as best you can to place the object directly behind the text and go to the Create tab, in the rollout where it says standard primitives, select compound compnents. on this screen you will see a box labeled conform. select your text, there are four options listed below the wrap to button, select the move tick box, then hit the Pick Wrap-to object button and click your cylinder. this may take a few seconds, on a high poly mesh with a complex font this can take a few minutes. now, the text and cylinder should be one object, and the text is wrapped.

right click the new combined object and click the convert to poly button, then select the element sub-tree on the right-side object rollout, this should automaticly highlight your text. click the detach button and your almost done.

now, I prefer to rightclick the new text object and gop to advanced, and set the object NOT to cast shadows, this avoids alot of trouble later, esspecially if your using shadow maped lights.

now select your text and you can move it manually VERY close to the surface of the cylinder. from all but the most extreme closeup and angle it will apear to be painted on. now you can assign a texture to the text and render.

you should end up with something along these lines.



I hope I didnt make myself to foggy on this.

[Jedilaw]

Very cool, Your Goatiness!

[Melak]

Hmmm...I'd call this "shapemerge done by hand", doesn't shapemerge do exactly that (with shapes, of course) ?

[Gothic_Goatboy]

yes amd no.. I find I tend to get alot of errors with shape merge, typicly when doing this wth text you are dealing with much more complex structure than presented in this tut. this way there are no errors and your mesh isnt affected at all, the text simply hovers a tiny bit above the mesh giving the illusion of a textured item. I find it works quite well.

[Roliba]

Great tutorial. Never thought of using conform. I've always used shape merge before and then spent the next hour cleaning up all the extra verts and crap.

[JustinDixon]

Yep, been using that method for quite some time - it is ALOT more clean Wonderful tutorial!

[Kai Dovak]

i didn't see it mentioned here, but if you go to the text poly's properties and turn off shadow casting you can't see the hover even on closeups. Also works great if you conform a plane with an image mapped on it

[Gothic_Goatboy]

its there

look a few paragraphs up from the bottom most pic.

though it cant be repeated enough, if your lettering is casting shadows it will turn out ugly under most lighting rigs, even when its VERY close to the mesh

[Kai Dovak]

Originally Posted by Gothic_Goatboy

its there

look a few paragraphs up from the bottom most pic.

though it cant be repeated enough, if your lettering is casting shadows it will turn out ugly under most lighting rigs, even when its VERY close to the mesh

oops, missed it ^_^

[Chris Vickers]

I've noticed that you've posted this tut, but then just realized it's for 3ds Max. You got something similar for Blender? I used to have max, but in the move, the serial code vanished, and then my computer crashed in October, obliterating the program altogether. I've tried getting it back, with no result.

This is my just dessert for NOT registering the program!