Don_Macaroni Posted April 28, 2011 Report Share Posted April 28, 2011 I'm at the verge of buying Strata 3D, so somebody PLEASE give me some pointers... This gotta be easier than I think, but apparently to me it's worth spending OVER 8 HOURS on it. Lost my entire day, I should have posted this question waaaay earlier. Anyway, how in the hell do I import a flat 2D Adobe Illustrator shape and extrude it!!! Right now I was able to export to DXF, 'transport' it to .fact and import. This gives me the shape, but flat 2D. I cannot extrude it. Via ubershape and a transparent layer I can achive it too, but the shape is hollow, not solid. And this method is plain slow... Please please please some help here... Oh, and what happened to EI Modeler? Can this still be downloaded? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted April 28, 2011 Report Share Posted April 28, 2011 Ola Don, I just sent you a private message :) Thanks Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest supernova Posted April 29, 2011 Report Share Posted April 29, 2011 Ola Don, I just sent you a private message :) Thanks Tom whats the answer please.....? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tango Posted April 29, 2011 Report Share Posted April 29, 2011 Hi Don, We create a lot of logos and signatures for television shows and network brands, most animated in EI. All design is done with illustrator and extruded with "3D Invigorator", an After Effect plug-in. It does a great job, maintains the grouping based on the layers in the illustrator artwork and exports to many different formats, including .fact. Zakwerks sells the same plug-in as a stand alone application "Pro Modeler". http://zaxwerks.com/promodeler/index.shtml Have a look at it, it's a great tool. Christian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hobnoble Posted April 29, 2011 Report Share Posted April 29, 2011 Hi Don, We create a lot of logos and signatures for television shows and network brands, most animated in EI. All design is done with illustrator and extruded with "3D Invigorator", an After Effect plug-in. It does a great job, maintains the grouping based on the layers in the illustrator artwork and exports to many different formats, including .fact. Zakwerks sells the same plug-in as a stand alone application "Pro Modeler". http://zaxwerks.com/promodeler/index.shtml Have a look at it, it's a great tool. Christian We use ProModeler for this also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don_Macaroni Posted April 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 29, 2011 Thanks guys! this forum is awesome... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teatree Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 :@Too bad Adobe didn't buy EI back in the 90's, it would have worked flawlessly with Illustrator. Hopefully in version 10 we will se an EPS import, been waiting 20 years, whats two more! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Ola, We are really happy to take care of EIAS ;) Thanks Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeV Posted April 30, 2011 Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 You can also use ViaCAD, it's $99 bucks, will import AI8 files, extrude and does a good FAC export. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juanxer Posted May 1, 2011 Report Share Posted May 1, 2011 A very important feature in Zaxwerks' apps and plugins is the ability to set some level of figure contraction in the imported vector profiles to compensate for the expansion that the beveling features introduce. I don't know of any other tool able to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidlgood Posted February 25, 2012 Report Share Posted February 25, 2012 I know I'm a bit late in the game on this, but I randomly saw this thread and it reminded me of a neat trick I used once to get out of a bind. I was working on a project late one night -- no access to Zaxwerks' or any modeling application (working at a remote location with just my laptop). I had several Illustrator outlines that I HAD to get extruded and placed inside EIAS. It didn't need to be anything fancy -- just a straight extrusion. I thought about ways of 'cheating' using AfterEffects, but my deadline was only a few hours away so I didn't have time to test. Then a thought hit me -- I own FontLab (a software package for creating your own custom fonts, or modifying existing fonts). I'm guessing there are 'free' font creation tools out there, but I already had FontLab so I simply created a new "font" and imported all the vector objects into FontLab -- assigning each vector set as a "letter" or "character" of the font. I then exported the font and launched EIAS. Since EIAS had a "create 3D text" capability I was able to easily pull my vector artwork into EIAS complete with extrusions by simply typing out the characters I created in FontLab and selecting my custom font from the drop-down font list. I set the extrusion and other properties that I wanted and -- it worked beautifully. Saved the day. This workaround is no match for the power and elegance of Zaxwerks' products -- but I thought it was a fun story to share. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomas Egger Posted February 25, 2012 Report Share Posted February 25, 2012 Ola David, Thanks a lot for your tip! Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.