Transforming Text?

Transforming Text?

Hi,

Is there any way to easily make text transform from one font to another? There doesn't seem to be any way to have the spline morph. Any help would be appreciated.

Oh, and please move this topic if it's in the wrong forum. I'm new here, so I'm not sure whether I would post this here in General or under Scripting General.

-Max
 
Hi,

Is there any way to easily make text transform from one font to another? There doesn't seem to be any way to have the spline morph. Any help would be appreciated.

Oh, and please move this topic if it's in the wrong forum. I'm new here, so I'm not sure whether I would post this here in General or under Scripting General.

-Max

Hi Max.
That can become very very tricky - even if there were a "spline morph". Look at the image below which shows a simple 2d vector transition between "D" and "M".
The Morph tag expects the same amount of polygons BTW.

Cheers
Frank
 

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Hi Max.
That can become very very tricky - even if there were a "spline morph". Look at the image below which shows a simple 2d vector transition between "D" and "M".
The Morph tag expects the same amount of polygons BTW.

Cheers
Frank
I see. So there's no known way to do this, or the only known way is very tricky?

-Max
 
There's no simple way to do it in C3D. There's plenty of difficult ways.

Fairly simple option:

Morph the splines in Illustrator. Import the morphed splines to C3D. Extrude. Render.

Excuse me, while I fire up Illustrator...
 

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There's no simple way to do it in C3D. There's plenty of difficult ways.

Fairly simple option:

Morph the splines in Illustrator. Import the morphed splines to C3D. Extrude. Render.

Excuse me, while I fire up Illustrator...
Well, problem is that I don't have illustrator. Are there any scripts out there that you know of?

-Max
 
I don't seem to be able to find a blend function in Inkscape and Intaglio, so I can only assume that the programmers working on these programs didn't find cloning this feature of Illustrator to be "easy", so I wouldn't hold my breath expecting a script to do it.
 
I don't seem to be able to find a blend function in Inkscape and Intaglio, so I can only assume that the programmers working on these programs didn't find cloning this feature of Illustrator to be "easy", so I wouldn't hold my breath expecting a script to do it.

My example above is from Inkscape. Intaglio doesn´t have it and Freehand has it as an interactive tool since ages.
But I still don´t get how this could help here as the morph tag expects same amount of polygons which neither the transitions nor the keys will get. Just curious.
 
I wouldn't bother with the morph tag, I'd simply build a whole buttload of models and swap them in (much as Hiroto does when importing fluid simulations from Blender). It's ugly, but it would work.

Where on Earth is Inkscape's blend function btw? I could not find it! (I know that Freehand had the capability, but since it's no longer available, I didn't really consider it. I would expect Canvas to have it too, but everything Canvas does it does badly, and it isn't being kept up-to-date on the Mac AFAIK.)

That said — writing a script to convert splines into polygons using a fixed polygon budget might be doable. Another option would be to hand-trace the letter outlines with a polygon keeping to a strict vertex count (and tracking where you put the vertices). Then you could just use the morph tool.

But, again, that said, C3D's morphs rely on deforming a single mesh (which is even more restrictive than most similar morphs which let you blend between topologically identical meshes).
 
Where on Earth is Inkscape's blend function btw? I could not find it!
Under "Extensions"-> "Interpolate" if I got the translation right as I have a localised version running.
Another option would be to hand-trace the letter outlines with a polygon keeping to a strict vertex count (and tracking where you put the vertices). Then you could just use the morph tool.
Not practically doable - believe me. :)
But, again, that said, C3D's morphs rely on deforming a single mesh (which is even more restrictive than most similar morphs which let you blend between topologically identical meshes).
Really? Like which app? Lightwave and C4D have the same restrictions then.
I do morphs over multiple meshes (with same amount of polygons) like here: http://www.cheetah3d.de/forum/showpost.php?p=9155&postcount=6
 
Right -- I shouldn't have said topologically identical (or I should have been more explicit). The meshes need to have the same vertex / triangle layout — the wires need to be topologically identical, not just the surfaces.

But — unless I'm mistaken — C3D requires you to take one mesh and poke it around -- you can't import a bunch of meshes and use them as morph targets (which you can in LW, not sure in C4D, although it lets you export each morph target as a separate mesh for use with other programs).
 
But — unless I'm mistaken — C3D requires you to take one mesh and poke it around -- you can't import a bunch of meshes and use them as morph targets (which you can in LW, not sure in C4D, although it lets you export each morph target as a separate mesh for use with other programs).
You can by dragging the morph-tag from mesh to mesh adding morphs and dragging it back to N°1 back.:D
 
OK, I think I figured out what I'm going to do. I figured out how to have the text morph, but obviously it looks really ugly, so I'm going to use a polygon reducer script to reduce them to the same # of polygons and then have it transform. Hopefully that will work.

-Max
 
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