Moho Forum

Total beginner here, so I'm probably doing something wrong, but I want to stop Anime "being helpful" and ruining my shapes in the process.

I'm doing a logo. Here is the template:



I whipped that up in about two minutes in PS. It is just a doughnut overlaid with a St Andrews cross. I can make the doughnut and cross in Anime but I cannot "cut" the doughnut where it is intersected by the cross because every time I add any point anywhere on the doughnut Anime warps my circle.

Is there a way to lock a shape so that Anime doesn't ruin it when you add points?

Think different. Different programs want different workflows.
- Import the bitmap logo and make sure it's centered.
- Create a vector layer
- Create a rectangle (without fill or stroke)
- Adjust the corner points so they fit the corners of one logo part
- Add more points (A), two on each long side should do
- Adjust these to form the curve
- Copy, paste, rotate, place 3x
- Select all, create shape.

OK. If I have to do every part of the shape manually because Anime can't handle intersections then the full logo is going to be a nightmare:



I don't think I can layer this and get the effect I wanted because I wanted the full logo extruded in 3D so I can rotate it around the Y axis.

You can get that "cross section" of the circle. This logo wouldn't be that hard to do actually. The only trouble you may encounter is what you expect from the "quality" or rendering style of the 3D extrusion. Anime Studio is not a dedicated 3D application, so there aren't a lot of options for that type of 3D effect.

The trick is to figure out where the cross section cutaways are on the circle, and "split" the curve of the circle so you get enough points to maintain the shape and also to add in the cross cutaway sections.

What I do when I need this type of thing, is to use the script "Draw/Split Curve..." Using that script under the Scripts menu, will give you the option to choose how many points to split or "add" evenly to the circle. This will add points without distortion. It evenly distributes the points around the circle. The good part is that you can easily rotate the points to line up with the cross section with very minimal distortion of the circle.

For example you could add points evenly to the circle then select matching opposite points and simply rotate around to line up with where you want the cross sections to "cut away". You would then just add in the cross sections across those points of the circle and only fill the sections you need.

Moving the extra points you added to the circle won't distort it very much at all even if they aren't perfectly evenly spaced out around the circle.

I did this sample in just a few minutes:

Similar idea, but with less points:

Thanks all. It seems the logo per se is doable but I'm going to rethink how I want to animate it. I've been playing around with Anime's extrusion and it's really basic and clumsy, so I guess I'll have to think "flatter". That's fine, it's good to get on top of what an app can and can't do early.

I took a stab at it. This is just 2 layers in a group layer. The widths of the extrudes is of a tad but probably could be tweaked to get rid of the lines.

Can't you use the automatic tracing feature?

Pinesal wrote:Can't you use the automatic tracing feature?

I hadn't thought of that. To be honest, the results of automatic tracing in the Smith Micro video tutorial were so awful I've never considered using it. In any event, as I said earlier, I've changed my approach, not least because the AS extrusion can't do what I wanted.

Might be better to avoid automatic tracing since there`s just the two simple objects and the text in Impact font.
Shading might be the issue, though...



Perhaps there`s no need for straight tracing since I think this logo would look better in 3D if star and text were just putted on top of the ring. That way, these intersections would not be that rough/noticeable.

Rotating 3D logos are just so 1979.

It's a 2D Logo, so invent some interesting 2D movement if you absolutely must aniamte it!

(signed) The Taste Police.