Crystal FLYING FONTS Tips & Tricks

Tips & Tricks
Helpful hints to make you a 3D Graphics wizard

If you have any other tips & tricks, please e-mail them to the cgimktg@crystalgraphics.com

How can I make my metals look really shiny?
How do the spotlights work, and what are some tips for using them?
What does Ambient light do?
How do I get the best results when using a video editing software package to overlay a FLYING FONTS animation onto video?
How can I use my own image as a texture or reflection map?
How can I map just a portion of an image onto an object?
How can I apply more than one motion path to an object?
How can I animate my own logo?
What are the benefits of working with Perspective Off?
How can I bevel Multi-Polygon Objects?
How can I get the most accurate Object Rotation?
How do I build Rounded Rectangle?
How can I apply custom Metal Materials?
How do I scroll text and credits through the frame?
Can I drag and drop to load files?

1. How can I make my metals look really shiny?

There are two keys to getting a really shiny metallic object:

The surface characteristic of the object (i.e. flat or rounded); and
the image used for a pseudo-environment (AKA reflection) map affect the shininess of a rendered metallic object. Interestingly, lighting has little to do with the shininess of the object.

Rounded surfaces, such as a sphere or round beveled text, work the best for a really shiny metallic look. Flat surfaces, such as a cube, tend to not look as shiny, and, in fact, can look flat. This can be somewhat compensated for by another key factor that affects shiny, metallic surfaces: the reflection map image selected. The type of image used for a reflection map will make a significant difference in the type of metallic effect achieved.

Choose black and white (or greyscale) images for your reflection map image; they work better than color images. However, you need to select the image carefully to achieve the shiny metallic effect that you want. An image with a lot of black areas will give a darker look to the metal. And, yet, an image with a lot of white areas will not necessarily make the metal look brighter. You may want to find an image that has a lot of smaller black white and gray areas. Also, stay away from gradient images as they will tend to make a metal look brushed as opposed to shiny. You may need to try out several different images before you find the one that gives the effect you are seeking.

There are a couple of other factors that can affect the shininess of metallic objects:

the Ambient Light setting; and
the background color.

For example, the Blue Marble material in the FLYING FONTS Materials Palette has a very dark ambient light setting. Simply select a lighter shade of gray for the Ambient light and you will see a difference.

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2. How do the spotlights work, and what are some tips for using them?

A spotlight is a directional light, meaning that you can aim it at an object, or a specific part of an object. You do this by aiming the spotlight's cone where you want the light to appear. The cone of light is infinite, even though the graphical representation of the cone is finite. This means that the cone does not have to touch the object that you are lighting.

In Crystal FLYING FONTS, you can change the intensity of the light by changing the color of the light. However, placing the spotlight closer to an object will not change the brightness of the light on that object. Spotlights start off white, the highest intensity, or brightness, that a light can have. Therefore, you cannot make spotlights brighter, only less bright.

To lessen the brightness of a spotlight, apply a less saturated color, such as a light grey color.

You can achieve other lighting effects, such as subtle mood lighting, by applying different colors to spotlights or omnidirectional (omni) lights. For example, a cool effect can be achieved by making the spotlight blue, a warm effect by making the spotlight red.

When a spotlight is first added to your model, it is usually aimed at the side of your object. Use the Top View to see this. If you want the spotlight to be aimed toward the front of your object, use the Move Highlight command. If you want to position the highlight elsewhere, use the Rotate and/or Move commands to swivel, turn and move the spotlight to the desired position. Note: you may only need to rotate/move the spotlight(s) very slightly up or down and/or to the left or right to achieve the effect you want, so, re-position your lights carefully. And, have patience - you may have to move the light(s) slightly several times before you get the exact effect you want.

Beware of using too many spotlights in a scene. Overlighting your artwork can make your objects appear flat. Also, omni lights tend to cancel out a spotlight's effect, so, be sparing in the number and types of lights you add to your scene.

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3. What does the Ambient light do?

Ambient light designates the overall lighting of your scene. The ambient light governs the darkness (or lightness) levels on objects in your model. When the ambient light setting is a light color, the side of your object that is opposite the light source(s) appears lighter. Conversely, when the ambient light is set as a darker color, i.e. black, the side of your object that is opposite the light source(s) appears darker. If you set the ambient light too high (i.e. white), your objects may appear flat. However, don't set the ambient light too dark because your objects may not be easily visible, especially if the objects already have a dark color assigned to them.

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4. How can I use my Crystal FLYING FONTS animations with video editing systems, (i.e. Adobe Premiere, Ulead Media Studio Pro, FAST VM Studio, AV Master, Miro DC-x, DPS Perception, etc.) to overlay them on video?

The first thing that needs to be done is to output your Crystal FLYING FONTS animations to the highest quality file format supported by your video editing software/hardware. We suggest the best way to get a clean overlay of your Crystal FLYING FONTS animation on top of video is to save your animation as a series of sequential TGA image files. You can then use the Alpha transparency tools in your video editing package (i.e. Premiere or Media Studio Pro) to overlay and integrate your Crystal FLYING FONTS animation. Here is a step-by-step description on how to do this using Adobe Premiere:

Using Crystal FLYING FONTS, once you are ready to save your animation (all motions have been assigned to their respective objects), select Animate>Render Sequence. In the Render Sequence dialog box, select TGA as the file type and 32-bit (24-bit RGB with 8-bit Alpha) color depth. The Render Sequence tool will generate a series of sequentially numbered TGA files.
Exit Crystal FLYING FONTS and open Premiere. To load the animation you just created, select File>Import>Files... When the dialog box opens, change the Files of Type field to Targa Sequence. Select the first image in the sequence (****0001.TGA).
When the animation shows up in the Project window, you will notice that the Duration is set to 1 frame per second (instead of 30 frames per second). To correct the length of the animation, click the RIGHT mouse button on the animation. A menu will pop up. Select Duration from this menu and type in the correct scene length. For example, if you have a total of 90 images, the total duration would be 3 seconds (90 frames divided by 30 frames per second = 3 seconds) and the duration would look like this: 0:00:03:00. If you do not reset your duration, your animation will be 90 seconds long (0:00:90:00).
Set up your project the way you want it making sure that your Crystal FLYING FONTS animation is in one of the Superimpose channels.
When you are ready to do your overlay, highlight the animation clip and select Clip>Transparency. Select Alpha Channel from the Key type list box.
You are done!

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5. How can I use my own image as a texture or reflection map?

You can use your own images as texture and/or reflection maps by following these steps:

Highlight the object to be mapped.
Open the Material Palette.
Select the Default material from the Effects palette.
Check Texture (and/or Reflection) Map and hit the Browse button.
A standard Windows file box will come up. Find the image to be used for the Texture and/or Reflection map. Select it and hit OK.
Hit OK again.
Select Fullrender. Your image should appear on the object.
NOTE: The image will be projected onto the object in much the same way that a slide is projected onto a screen. This means that you will see the entire image projected across the length of the object. The image will NOT wrap itself around the object. You will see the inverse of the image on the backside of the object.

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6. How can I map just a portion of an image onto an object?

You can map just a portion of an image to an object by following these steps:

Set the desired image to the background (Render>Frame Setup>Background>Image).
Move your object so that it is placed over the portion of the image to be mapped. NOTE: You may have to scale your object so that it covers entirely that portion of the image to be mapped.
Highlight the object to be mapped.
Open the Material Palette.
Select the Default material from the Effects palette.
Check Texture Map and hit the Browse button.
A standard Windows file box will come up. Find the image to be used for mapping. Select it and hit OK.
Hit OK again.
Remove the image from the background (Render>Frame Setup>Background>Color).
Reposition your object to its original location and scale it back to its original size.
Select Fullrender. Your object should be mapped only with that portion of the image you selected.

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7. How can I apply more than one motion path to an object?

You can assign compound motions to a a group of objects, or a group that is comprised of several smaller groups of objects, however, you cannot assign more than one motion path to an individual object. For example, a group made up of two separate words containing three letters each can have up to nine motion paths assigned. For instance, the words The End can have a different motion applied to each of the following: The End; The; End; and T, h, e, E, n, d. That is a total of nine separate motions. To set your model up correctly for assignment of compound motions, do the following:

Select the text tool (the letter "A" on the vertical tool palette).
Type in the the word The.
Select the text tool again.
Type in the word End.
Marquee select the two words by dragging the mouse/cursor to forma rectangle that surrounds the two words.
Group the two words together. You should now have a single group made up of two groups of three objects each.
You can now assign a motion to each entity. To assign a motion to the group The End, select it and then Assign Motion.
To assign a motion to each letter individually, hold down the Shift button while selecting the letter. When the desired letter is highlighted, assign a motion to it. Do this for each letter.
To assign a motion to the group "The", click on the button with the arrow and the letter N on it. This is located on the horizontal tool palette (above the text ribbon).
"A Select by Name" dialog box will open up. Hit the "Expand All" button. You will now see a list of objects. Group1 is the group "The End." Text3 is the group "The." Text7 is the group "End." Text0 is the letter "T." Text1 is the letter "h" and so on and so forth (by the way, you can Name Objects to whatever name you choose, rather than using the default names, i.e. Text0, Text1, etc.). Since you want to assign a motion to the "The" group, click on it once and then click OK.
You will notice that the word The is now highlighted. Assign a motion to it.
Follow steps h-j to assign a motion to the word End making sure to select Text7 this time.
At this time, you should have multiple motions assigned to your text. You are ready to either "Make Movie" or "Render Sequence."

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8. How can I animate my own logo?

There are three ways to animate you own logo.

One, is to convert your logo from a Raster (picture), to a line drawing (vector) to a model (polygon). There are several programs that will convert from raster to vector (Corel, Hijack, and Adobe Streamline). The next step is to convert from vector to polygon, which requires a special format for Crystal FLYING FONTS PRO (AI/EPS 88 NOT AI/EPS). Once you have imported the model into Crystal FLYING FONTS PRO through AI/EPS 88, you can animate, map, and add dimension to your logo.
The second way to animate your logo in Crystal FLYING FONTS PRO is to import your logo as an image (TGA, TIF, GIF,or BMP) and store it as a background image. You then trace the logo with our Freeform Polygon tool and animate and extrude the object in Crystal FLYING FONTS PRO.
The third and easiest way to animate your logo in Crystal FLYING FONTS PRO is to import an image of your logo (TGA, TIF, GIF, or BMP), then map that image to a 3D object created in Crystal FLYING FONTS PRO.

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9. What are the benefits of working with Perspective off?

Working with perspective toggled off makes doing the following much easier:

Accurately moving and rotating objects and lights
Accurately aligning objects to each other
Positioning objects accurately with respect to the Frame boundaries

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10. How can I bevel Multi-Polygon Objects?

If you apply a bevel to a multi-polygon object, such as a sphere or cube, you may be in for a surprise. Crystal FLYING FONTS PRO bevels polygons, so when you bevel a multi-polygon object each of the object's polygons is beveled, rather than the object as a whole. The result might be a sphere that seems to grow hair, or a cube that has each face beveled.

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11. How can I get the most accurate Object Rotation?

When rotating objects, it is best to rotate a specific number of degrees. That way you know how much to un-rotate the object to get it back to its original orientation.

To get the most accurate rotations, you should use the OBJECT>Transform command's rotate option rather than using the more interactive Rotate tool. However, if you use the Rotate tool you can still know how much you have rotated the object by observing the feedback, which is displayed at the right side of the status bar.

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12. How do I build a Rounded Rectangle?

To build a rounded rectangle, do the following:

Choose the VIEW>Grid command.
Turn the Snap to Grid and Show Grid options on.
Set the grid size to the corner size you want and click [OK].
Choose the Freeform Polygon tool.
Select the Arcs option from the floating palette and draw the first corner of your rectangle.
Select the Lines option from the floating palette and draw the first side of you rectangle.
Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you have built a rounded rectangle.

Remember if you make a mistake you can press the key to remove the last segment you added.

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13. How can I apply custom Metal Materials?

Applying metal materials beyond the four varieties provided via the Apply Material dialog is just a matter of assigning different colors to the standard metal materials as follows:

With the desired object selected, choose the OBJECT>Apply Material command.
Select one of the chrome metals.
In the dialog's Material Surface area, click on [Choose], which is located adjacent to the color sample.
When the Color dialog appears click on [Define Custom Colors...].

Set the RGB fields to one of the following combinations. and add the custom color to the palette.

.	Aluminum	R=232 G=232 B=232
.	Bronze	R=182 G=131 B=69
.	Copper	R=251 G=160 B=70
.	Silver	R=217 G=219 B=227
.	Stainless Steel	R=247 G=255 B=255

Select the custom color you created and click [OK].
Click [OK] in the Apply Material dialog to apply the material.

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14. How do I scroll text and credits through the frame?

Create and group the text you want to scroll through the frame.
Create a dummy object; a small rectangle with the invisible material.
Turn on VIEW>Big View, position the dummy object in the center of the text grout and group the text and the dummy object.
Switch View>Perspective off and position the text above, and completely outside the frame so it will scroll all the way through the frame by the end of the animation.
Use the select-by-name feature (EDIT>Select command) to select the text group without the dummy object.
Assign the Slide motion (through, extra long, from the bottom of the screen)to the text group.
Select the entire group (including the dummy object) and assign the Slide motion (through, extra long, from the bottom of the screen) again.
Turn off Big View and turn on Perspective, then render your animation.

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15. Can I drag and drop to load files?

Yes. You can load any type of file supported by Crystal FLYING FONTS PRO (project, model, AI model, object, image) by dragging the file from File Manager to the FLYING FONTS PRO program window.

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