3D Perspective with look of Film!

[Bruce Cirrinone]

I am a newbie with Freehand MX (using the whole Studio MX 2004) and need to
design a graphic item to be used in both print as well as a website logo.

(1) Is it smarter to start out in FH and then go to FW?

(2) my design objective is difficult and I could use some
advice/suggestions! I need to take an uppercase "S" and give it some 3-D
perspective. (I've played with Extrude and the Perspective Grid.) I need
the letter to look as if it is a piece of film... you know, with sprocket
holes etc.

TIA!
~ Bruce

[Wes Rand]

Bruce Cirrinone wrote:

> Here's an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish!
>
>
> "Bruce Cirrinone" <mrbrucec@removeme.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:c8daoe$epp$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>

>>I am a newbie with Freehand MX (using the whole Studio MX 2004) and need

>
> to
>

>>design a graphic item to be used in both print as well as a website logo.
>>
>>(1) Is it smarter to start out in FH and then go to FW?
>>
>>(2) my design objective is difficult and I could use some
>>advice/suggestions! I need to take an uppercase "S" and give it some 3-D
>>perspective. (I've played with Extrude and the Perspective Grid.) I need
>>the letter to look as if it is a piece of film... you know, with sprocket
>>holes etc.
>>
>>TIA!
>>~ Bruce
>>
>>

>
>
>

Depending on your idea for the look of the "S" it might be easier to do
in a 3D program. Hopefully Freehand will let you attack images to
extruded shapes in the next version (like Illustrator.)

[Bruce Cirrinone]

> Depending on your idea for the look of the "S" it might be easier to do

> in a 3D program. Hopefully Freehand will let you attack images to
> extruded shapes in the next version (like Illustrator.)

Thanks for the input, Wes!

~ Bruce

[JET@BB]

Do you happen to have a copy of Illusrator CS? If so, it's a piece of cake,
because you can draw the film strip in the flat, convert it to a Symbol,
extrude the ess curve, and then map the Symbol onto the surface of the extruded
ess.

In FH, you'll have to devise something more "clever." I don't have FH in this
office, but several possibilities occur to me:

3 Extruded Esses.
Because you can cause objects extruded in FH's Extrude Tool to share vanishing
points, you may be able to create two same-shaped ess curves, both made of
simple open path "dashes" (as by means of a Brush Stroke, or by the
AddPoints/Delete Segments method, both described below). Build one ess with a
short dash (the length of the sprocket holes); the other a longer dash (the
length of the frames). Extrude them both to different depths. Maker them share
a common vanishing point.

Brush Stroke
Draw a short horizontal line. Drag it to the Library Palette to make it a
Symbol. Name it Dash. Draw your ess. Give your ess a Brush Stroke. Select the
stroke attribute in the Properties Palette. Select New from the Properties
Palette options menu. Define a Paint type Brush using the dash Symbol. Adjust
the number of copies, spacing, orientation, and horizontal and vertical scale
settings to get the row of sprocket holes. Repeat the process for the frames,
using the same Symbol but with different scale & spacing settings.

Calligraphic Stroke
Draw the Ess. Give it a Calligraphic Stroke. Draw a small, narrow rectangle.
Copy it and Paste it into the Caligraphic Stroke (in the Propertiies Palette).
Give it the angle you want. At this point it will be a solid callligraphic
stroke, but because it is a live effect it will still have the single
centerline of your original ess when selected. Select the ess. Apply the Add
Points Xtra several times. Drag a selection marquee around the whole thing to
select all its points. Modify>Split. Delete every third segment. There's your
row of sprocket holes. Use a similar process to create the row of frames.

Envelope
Draw your rows of sprocket holes and frames in the flat. Group the whole
thing. Apply a Rectangle Envelope to it. To get the basic idea, drag a
selection marquee around the two points at one end of the Envelope. This
sub-selects them and you can see their handles. Move the two selected Envelope
points around, and you will see that you can, with a certain amount of tedium,
adjust this Envelope into the shape of an ess-shaped ribbon. (In fact, you can
even make it twist).

Draw it Deliberately (Probably the best approach)
Draw your base ess shape as a single open path. Clone it . Give the Clone a
different stroke color, just so you can see what you're doing later. We want to
keep the original until done. Get the Line Tool. Draw a line from the top of
the ess to a point somewhere removed which you want to be your perspective's
vanishing point. (You could also use two guides, a single point, or
whatever--all you need is something snap-able at the vanishing point. But it's
usually more intuitive to draw a "ray".) Select the colored clone. Add points
and delete segments to get the dashes representing one edge of the row of
sprocket holes as described in Calligraphic Stroke, above. Select the dashes
and Clone. Get the Scale tool. ClickDrag *at the vanishing point* to down-scale
the clone with the center of transformation being the vanishing point. Now you
have both edges of one row of sprocket holes. Select that whole mess and do the
same scaling trick to create the other row of sprocket holes in one whack.
Select the original path, add some points, delete some segments to create the
edge of the row of frames. Perform the scaling-from-the-vanishing point trick
to make the two edges of the frames. Now all you should have 6 dashed esses,
progressively shrinking toward the vanishing point. All you need to do is
select corresponding pairs, use Join and Close to complete each sprocket hole
and each frame. This sounds much worse than it is. You can do this whole
construction in a few minutes if you understand the basic tools and the
principle of centering the transformation of the Scale Tool remotely from the
object being scaled.

JET