3D Fonts
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/3D Fonts
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| Everybody needs 3D Fonts ;-) ... at least I do. And I am thinking if I have to write a code snippet that does it... or: Question: Has anybody a piece of code that makes a 3D mesh out of 2D Font characters? Something that goes like this: Fill the image of a char with triangles; calculate and add vertices; double and flip this surface; move it along the z-axis; connect the outside vertices to quads; split them to triangles... texture the now existing 3 surfaces. Sounds easy - but can be quite a job and the inventing of the wheel again - in case its already done and maybe in a better way. |
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| Or use milkshape. |
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| I use Rhino3D |
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| I use Wings3d for 3d text... bout all it's good for w/o a middle mouse button :D |
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| Well Guys, thanks for the suggestions I have 20 more suggestions in that direction and at least 5 Tools ready on my comp... Or use Disneys Mickey Mouse Write A Letter for Kids with wonderful 3D Fonts my daughter was using years ago... Is it my language ? Or why is it that whenever I write something its so completely misunderstood... Do you think that after all those years in the biz I am too stupid to find a tool that is able to build 3D Fonts and need this Forum to ask for it? Please Guys ... think a little bit more before you answer, especially about what could have been the reason that someone puts his question exact here... Okay - I could have been more exact ... but I guessed I am in a Programmers Forum ... and so I thought it is obvious what I want (otherwise I would have wasted my time in the Tools section or at a Discrete Software Forum... or on Yahoo, Google or wherever) I want them being produced ON THE FLY - to do something special with them. Something what a prebuilt mesh cannot do ... and manipulate them with code... what with a prebuilt mesh would be at least as workintensive as to produce them myself ... Actually I got the idea and the question after I was fiddling about with several 3D-Tools that could not fill my needs.... So this simple question still stands... is there or is there not ... has someone or have I to do it myself... ? And the simple answer seems to be: you have to do it yourself ! ;-) So lets start to work on it ... |
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| Look under ..\Rob_Pearmain\letters\ in the Biltz3d samples folder. Maybe you can use that as start ? /Alienforce |
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| [edit] sorry thought you wanted flat fonts [/edit] |
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| RaGR: Umm, I don't think anything like this has been done before. I've thought about making a 3D font (static models only, though) but never got around to it. You might search through the code archives here one more time, just to be sure. nothing like this already exists. I think it would be nice if you saved others the same hassle and made your text building stuff available for others. But that's up to you. |
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| Is it my language ? Or why is it that whenever I write something its so completely misunderstood... Do you think that after all those years in the biz I am too stupid to find a tool that is able to build 3D Fonts and need this Forum to ask for it? Please Guys ... think a little bit more before you answer, especially about what could have been the reason that someone puts his question exact here... Yes it is your language, and clearly your arrogance too. You never mentioned 'on the fly' and you stated you didn't want to re-invent the wheel. The apps spoken about met all the criteria you specified. |
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| Well some (OK most)fonts are vectors nowadays... There are a few TTF files that are bitmaps but most of the font editing programs I use are vector based. If you knew the code to open and parse a TTF file you could simply extend the points into the Z by a certain amount and then... OK I get lost here... I can see how to do it but not do it... |
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| I'm sure I saw a 3d font thing somewhere... |
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| I know for a fact that you can turn a truetype font into a 3D object. And I know there is code out there in C to do it. Ah, I found it: http://graphicsbb.itgo.com/solutions/extrude.html Don't ask me if it is possible to do this in Blitz. It could definitely be done with a DLL in C, but it might require passing fucntion pointers to something. If it only involves regular GDI calls, then you're good to go if you can convert that C code. :-) |
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| I want them being produced ON THE FLY - to do something special with them. Something what a prebuilt mesh cannot do Out of interest, what do you think can be done with a mesh built in-code than can't be done with a pre-built mesh? |
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| Big10: You can avoid having 100 different mesh files, one for each letter that you have to load. You can avoid having to create each letter individually in a 3D package and saving it. You can use more than one font, or change fonts quickly if you decide you don't like the dont you had. Lots of good reasons to have it built in. |
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