Working with Flat Surfaces on 3D Text

[soulburn3d]

Do you want them evenly rounded? Or randomly rounded? Because it would be pretty easy to create a noisy bump map to get some variety to the surface of the text, like this....

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/flat_metallic_surfaces/flat_metallic_surfaces.htm

- Neil

[argyre]

Hi Neil and thanks for replying.

>>Do you want them evenly rounded? Or randomly rounded?

I see where you are going with the bump map. My guess is now I just go into Photoshop and create a bump map for an evenly rounded surface. Am I correct or is there an simpler way?

[soulburn3d]

Well, you could do that, although it would take some time. If you do decide to go down that route, I'd do something like render the text from the top view, white on black, then gaussian blur the result in photoshop, and use that to bump your mesh, that way you avoid having to hand paint anything.

Another possability is to remodel your letters. I've had to do that before too, breaking up that large top face into a lot of smaller 4 sided faces, it ends up being way cleaner, and then it's easy to smooth it for example.

Also, maybe your 3d app has some way to chamfer or fillet the edges of your letters when you extrude them, which might give you enough surface variety to avoid that flat look.

- Neil

[argyre]

Thanks for your help Neil!

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