Fun With EPS Files and 3D Logos, Part 2

Last month’s tutorial showed you how to animate an EPS file from Adobe Illustrator, using the vector animation tools in Boris RED 2.5. It was clearly something that a lot of you wanted to know about, as the feedback I got in response was overwhelming. Thanks, and keep it coming!

In the meantime, a number of the same questions came up more than once, so I’d like to address them here.

What kinds of EPS files does RED support?
RED supports only those EPS files made by Adobe Illustrator, saved with compatibility for Illustrator 8 or earlier. RED also supports files saved in the .AI format, also with Support for later versions of Illustrator is coming in future releases of RED.

Note that Adobe Photoshop EPS files are not supported. These need to be saved in Photoshop as .PSD files, and imported to RED as Still Image Files.

Don’t forget to check the colorspace in the Mode menu before you save, though – many Illustrator files are saved in CMYK colorspace, and RED is looking for images in RGB colorspace.

You might also need to create some transparency in the image, by selecting part of the image, and copy-pasting into a new transparent layer.

So there’s no way to extrude a Photoshop file?
Generally speaking, no. Photoshop creates images made of pixels, the blocks of color that most video users are most familiar with. Like other 3D applications, RED draws its extrusions from vector outlines like those created in Illustrator.

However, it’s possible to create a vector shape in RED, extrude it, and apply your Photoshop file as a texture map. Here are some steps to try.

First, import your Photoshop file. If the shape is even close to regular, your next step might be to create a Spline Primitive shape, and make some adjustments so that it’s about the right size. You can have some more control over this if you convert the primitive to a Spline Object.

Here’s a real-world logo, and you can see that its shape just happens to correspond nicely to our default Spline Primitive shape. A little tweaking is all that it will take to make the two line up.

Once you have a shape that you like, extrude it by converting the Shape to 3D Extrusion. With the Shape track active (the topmost level of the track, which also contains the track name), go to the Textures tab. Turn on the texture map for the front face of your extrusion, and set it to Stretch or Clip. (Tile is definitely not what you want for this purpose.)

My preference is to select Clip, which offers some more flexible options for scaling.

You’ll see that the default is to assign Video 1 to the texture track, but again, that’s not what you want. You could use the Media pop-up menu to reimport your logo file, but that’s not what I recommend. Instead, use the disclosure arrows to twirl down the Texture Map track, and turn off the media.

Now simply drag your logo into the texture map track.

Depending on your file size, that may be close to the end of the story. Our rounded rectangle may be primitive, but it works.

Why doesn’t the size of the image line up with the size of my extruded object?
As in, you’re rarely going to have it quite as easy as that example.

The longer answer is just as easy – the extrusion is based on the size of the outline, and the texture map is based on the size of the entire layer you’ve applied to the texture map, including the transparent pixels.

In fact, one reason why I recommended dragging the logo into the Texture Map track is so that you can use onscreen controls to quickly resize the logo to fit the extrusion, as you can see below.

What if my logo has an irregular shape?
The image above is actually the end of the story. With a logo like that, then you’ll need to create a Spline Object layer, and use the pen tool to manually trace an outline. I find it easiest to start with spline object’s fill turned off to do my tracing. After I have my shape roughly where it needs to be, I turn on the fill, and follow the steps above to use the logo as a texture map.

I have Illustrator as well as Photoshop. Is there anything I can do to convert the image to the right kind of EPS file?
No, but there’s an easy workaround if you have both applications, and are moderately comfortable getting around in them.

Select the Magic Wand tool, and set the tolerance to something low – zero will probably be just fine. Select the invisible parts of your image, then invert the selection. On the Paths menu, click the button whose tool tip reads Make Work Path from Selection, which does exactly what it says.

Now go to the File menu and select Export> Path to Illustrator. The export dialog will have already have grabbed your Work Path, which you can then open in Illustrator.

When you open the file in Illustrator, it looks empty, but it’s not. Press Command-Y on Mac, control-Y on Windows, to toggle the View from Preview to Outline (which you can also find at the top of the View menu). With the outline now visible, you can use the Hollow Arrow tool to select the outline, and fill it. To see the fill, you’ll need to toggle back to Preview view.

Your Photoshop path adds Crop Marks to the file. Those are helpful for print, but not so helpful here. Go to Object> Crop Marks> Release to get rid of them.

From here, you just save as an Illustrator 8 document, bring it into RED, and follow the usual steps to map it.

Now, I won’t be shocked if you say that it’s easier to just draw the dang path in RED, and I might even be inclined to agree. And the best part is that I can tell you that this will all be easier in future releases of RED. But it’s all perfectly doable now.

I have an Illustrator file that’s extruding in unexpected ways. Is there anything I can do to fix it in RED?
Absolutely. RED’s vector tools can edit, delete, or animate any controls points in an Illustrator file, or add points as needed. Last month I showed you how to animate stroke and fill, but the answer post-extrusion is probably in the vector outline itself.

Here’s the “before” and after” image of an extrusion.

before

after

If you look closely, you can see the problem in the “before” image: one of the holes hasn’t been cut out. It’s an easy thing to overlook in Illustrator, where the background is white -- and it’s an easy thing to fix in RED. All it takes is selecting all the paths with the hollow arrow tool, and going to Tools> Path> Combine Contours.

The result is perfect.

Don’t forget that if the path were missing, it would have been just as easy to add it, and do the same trick with combining contours. Even after the object has been extruded, you have complete control over all its vector information.

Many thanks to Matt Morris, Adam Fiori, and Steve Bayne for passing their files along to me. And many thanks to all the rest of you who wrote with comments and questions on last month’s tutorial.

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