Flying logos! Yes, I know they aren't as exciting as building a spaceship, but for the average Joe Animator out on the street, that's what pays most bills. Hence this series: a no-nonsense, seat-of-the-pants approach to getting the job done well. Combining these techniques with your artistry can produce results that would have even the most hard-to-please clients coming back for more.
We'll be using some specific packages in this tutorial, but the general principles can be applied to just about any 3D animation software. Don't be afraid to experiment. You'll definitely come up with even better techniques to speed up and streamline your work.
MAKE ME 3D : TRACING THE LOGO
The logo is an integral part of the client's identity. Treat it with care. Some clients are very flexible with color schemes and small details, but most consider the logo as inviolate -- almost sacred.Ask for the cleanest, most accurate source artwork available. In an ideal situation the client will hand you a bromide artwork with a Pantone color patch number for accuracy. In reality, logos can also come on badly printed stationery, business cards or half-garbled faxes. In that case you've got quite a bit of cleanup to do. Scan at a high resolution, and use your favorite image editing program (Photoshop, for instance). You don't need to be very meticulous; just keep clear of the essential details.
Now that the logo is in the computer, we need to digitize it into the 3D software. You can do this in several ways:
- Load it as a background image and trace over it.
- Load it in a vectorization program like Adobe Dimensions or CorelTRACE!, generate a vector outline and export it to a format acceptable to your 3D program. Normally all popular 3D programs accept the DXF format, or even better, the Adobe Illustrator (AI) format. This method can also be used to bring in original artwork from vector drawing packages like CorelDRAW!, Freehand or Illustrator.
- 3D Studio R4 will accept AI '88 format only. Remember to save accordingly from your vector program. 3D Studio MAX isn't known to be so finicky.
- The fastest way to a clean outline, however, is through Photoshop.
Logo scanned off a business card.
Cut off unnecessary details (be sure to ask the client first!).
Select the logo using the Magic Wand tool or the Select/Color Range command.
Click on the small triangle on the right hand side of the Paths palette and chose the Make Work Path option. Specify tolerance as 1.0. Lower tolerance means more vertices. That means greater detail in the path, but also more cleanup time. Play with the tolerance value till you get the best results.
Now that we've got the path, there's some cleanup to do. Use the path tools to delete unnecessary vertices, manually redrawing and adjusting wherever needed. For a good tutorial on handling Photoshop paths, surf over to Cooltype.
The finished path, ready for exporting.
With the path selected, fire up the File/Export/Paths to Illustrator dialog box. Save the outline as an AI (Adobe Illustrator) file, and you're ready to roll.
Try to avoid sharp corners. These can be big trouble when beveling.
Most software will accept AI directly. For those that don't, load the outline in a vector drawing package like CorelDRAW!, Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand, and convert it to DXF format.
In 3D Studio Release 4 (DOS), hit F1 to go to 2D Shaper. Press ^L to bring up the Load dialog box. Select *.AI as the extension to look for and load up the outline.
In 3D Studio MAX use the File/Import command. You might need to apply the Edit Spline modifier and pull a few vertices.
In Lightwave 5.5, launch Modeler and load the ILLUST.P plugin from the \plugins\modeler directory. In the Object panel, hit Custom and select the Illustrator_Import option from the menu.
Click on the small triangle button and select the AI file to import. Curve division defines the detail of the curve, which is directly proportional to the number of points on it. Auto axis drill is used to deal with outlines within outlines, as in the letter O.
The option uses the inner shape as a cutter, making complicated booleans unnecessary.
Without Auto Axis Drill With Auto Axis Drill After the shape comes in, use the Drag tool (^t) to adjust any problem areas, and freeze the curves by selecting them and pressing ^d. Now you have a polygon shape you can extrude.
Well folks, that concludes the first part of our tryst with the (in)famous Flying Logo. In the next issue we deal with extruding and beveling the logo properly. Till then, happy tracing!
And yes, don't forget to write in!
Arkaprava Chaudhuri runs his own digital media studio, Likvid Image, in Calcutta, India. Besides animating and building web sites, he also teaches and consults all around south east Asia. His parents would love to hear him sing more often.
