How to create an extruded 3d Text with Cinema 4d

Hello Friends,

Today I wanna show you some very simple Worksteps so that you later can create your own extruded 3d Text with Cinema 4d. There will be several Cases where you could use that for your own 3d Text Logo or just for any other Scene you create.

Ok let us run these Steps now!

First of all we need a simple Textform which we can find under Menu “Objects–>>Spline Primitive–>>Text” on top:

Once clicked, you will see it in your Mainview. Thats how it looks now:

I´m sure you know this panel on the right side of your Cinema 4d which is called Objectmanager. If you take a look there now, you will notice that you find that Textobject there too.

Once clicked you will see some attributes we could change. Related to the Textobject these options you can change, are similar to any other settings you would change in a Windows Textapplication like Words. So indeed you could now there start to type in another Textmessage and choose your Font, the Textalignment, Horizontal Spacing, Vertical Spacing and what ever you like. But for this Tutorial we will use the standard Textsettings. I just wanted to refer on that so that you later know how to set up the Fonts you want to use. You still can play around with that later.

So here is the Screenshot of this Objectmanager and Attributemanager:

Ok but lets go on now. We both noticed that our Text looks horrible flat and boring. We gonna change that now, as we need a 3d Text!

What we now need, is an Object which is something like a modificator Script. I mean more precisely that it will convert (extruding) our flat Textspline to a 3d Text.

To do so, we need that Object called “Extrude NURBS” and we will find it in the Menu “Objects–>>NURBS–>>Extrude NURBS” on top:

Once clicket, you will find that Object now in the Objectmanager too:

But thats not all as this step still doesnt change anything with our Text. In the Objectmanager we need to subordinate our Textobject under the Extrude NURBS Object. Its easy. Just hold-click (drag&drop) the Textobject and move it into the Extrude Object. As you can see, the Textobject is now a Sub-Object of the Extrude NURBS Object:

Now we can see the first major transformation of our Text:

But this is still not the Result we want because the Textedges are to much square. Lets fiddle some more!

We want that Text with more curve. So again look at the Objectmanager and click there on the Extrude Object so that we can make some changes in the Attributemanager for that Object.  As we have the Object now loaded in the Attributemanager, we click now on the Tab called “Caps”:

Here we should change the Start and End Attribute from “Cap” to “Fillet Cap”.

Now lets finally admire our 3d Textobject:

And here comes, how it could look like if you add some selfmade Textures, Lights and so on:

That was easy or? Now you can repeat these Steps but play around with every single Setting you´ll find. Play some Trial and Error. Thats the way how you will find out more!

At the very end, I´ll give you some Bonus-Knowhow:

If you did ask your self what the Word on the textured Picture means… This Tutorial was intended to be used on a German Website of my Brother but I translated this “HowTo”. So here is the Bonus-Knowhow! This Word is German and means “Ready”, “Finished” or “Complete” in your Language .

YaY! We are fertig here!

By the way.. Did you know that you can create 3d Content in Second Life as well? You can not only create 3d stuff in Second Life, you can also import your collada meshes and the good thing is you can sell your products there! Try it out…

December 2, 2010 | Categories: Darcy Designs, Miscellaneous, Software, Tutorials | Tags: 3d, 3d Text, Cinema 4d, extrude, extruded text, Finished, How to create, HowTo, Tutorial | 3 Comments »