[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Mike,

We may need some more information about your logo and the file to help.

Without it, I can offer the following general suggestions:

1. The best practice for your Illustrator document is to make your elements filled solids and to put each element on a separate named layer, then import by layers in Invigorator. This helps a lot with organizing your project.

2. Do not use blends, transparencies or bit-mapped elements at this stage. They won’t be read into the model.

3. When the elements come in, they’ll all be at the default depth and position settings. This means your objects may all be there, but you can’t see them because they’re “inside” other elements. Selecting individual objects and changing depth or z position to move some forward or backward will reveal what’s there.

4. Also be sure compression is turned offf off when you save the file. Because you’re seeing something in Invigorator now, this probably isn’t your issue.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Dan,

Pretty simple, really. Create the shape you want in Illustrator. Make it a filled solid.

Import the shape into Invigorator.

Apply the bevel of your choice.

Create a new material in the material editor. Import an image of a wood surface texture into that material. You can find free textures in several locations on the web. Apply that material to your 3D object. For added realism, create a bump map

Alternately, you can create your wood grain texture as another layer in After Effects and use the layermapping technique to apply the new material and bump map to the 3D object.

Note that you’ll probably need to create another wood material for the edge profile because it wraps edges differently than faces. To avoid distortion, the aspect ratio of the image being applied should be the same as the aspect ratio of the object face… or as the aspect ratio of the edge, depending on which part you’re working on.

Create the other elements that go on the plaque separately.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Brian,

The trick to getting the state to come in is to make it a filled solid. That is, select the shape, assign it a fill color. You can also remove any stroke color.

You can apply the gradient to the face of the state object in a couple of ways.. one involves creating an image of just the gradient (tga format works great). Then in the material editor, you’ll need to create a new material, choose the gradient image and apply the material to the front face of the object.

The second way is to use a technique called layermapping – but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Brian,

The gradient will not come in – your best bet to recreate that is to map an image of the gradient to the front face of the state object.

The stars probably did come in – but they came in with the same z depth and z position as the state so you may not see them.

I would recommend putting the elements you wish to manipulate separately on different layers in your Illustrator document.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Chris,

Tell us more to help us diagnose the probem:

Which version of PA are you using? (Always check for the latest update on zaxwerks.com).

Which version of Illlustrator are you using – and have you tried saving the art in an older, legacy format?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Steve,

The problem with the file was that all of the elements were grouped together. I ungrouped them and moved the different elements to different layers. Clicking “use Illustrator colors” when you import it should do the trick now. A couple of other thoughts – the logo is fairly complex and tight. You’ll want to use small bevels and probably negative edge offsets to avoid having the elements crowd each other.

Hope this helps.

Jonj

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Steve,

Feel free to send me the file. jokerstrom1 (at) mac.com. I’ll take a look at it.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Steve,

You need to check the box that allows you to use Illustrator colors. Keep in mind that blends and transparency effects won’t be carried through.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Barbara,

Deleting the jpeg image should be as simple as selecting it and hitting the delete key. That is, unless you locked the image to the artboard so it wouldn’t move while you worked on the vector version. (I do this all the time.) In that case, you’ll need to unlock the jpeg image, then select it and delete it.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Paul is correct.

Spikebuster will take care of the unusual spikes coming off the the tight angles.

Choosing a more subtle bevel will also help.

Often, using a small negative offset will also help preserve the space between tight objects at the expense of losing a bit of the front face.

Jon