3D Text

Click on these pictures to see a larger version...	... and read this text to learn how to create this effect.
	Start by creating a new text object on a white background. Keep the text plain for now. Once you've done this, mask off the entire picture, and create a new object (or layer) from it. This should give you two objects - one which is just the text, and one which is the text with a white background. Make sure the text is positioned with plenty of room where the 3D effect is going to go.
	Now we create the 3D effect. Select the object which has the white background, and create a motion blur on it. The direction of the motion blur gives the depth of the object. Use a fairly strong motion blur, but don't overdo it. If the blur is too powerful, the text will look unrealistic. I used a motion blur of power 28, with the direction coming from the bottom left. You should end up with something similar to the picture on the left.
	At the moment, this doesn't look much like 3D. But it will. Create a mask that masks off everything except the pure white background - Picture Publisher users can use the chroma-mask tool to do this. Select the mode to minus, and select the white background as your base colour. Photoshop users (and other packages) can obtain plug-ins to achieve this same effect if their software doesn't support it. (Photoshop may also allow you to fill the layer direct.) Now fill the newly created mask with black, to get something similar to this. You might want to save the mask for later, so you can use it to make the 3D object transparent.
	Now position the original text object at the front of the picture, and fill it with a colour. Finally, position the text to achieve a 3D effect.
	Nice as this is, it still isn't very interesting. I quickly added more interest to my text by applying a black-red gradient fill to the depth object, and by outlining the foreground text. (Outlining text follows basically the same procedure as the glow tutorial, but as a quick guide: select your text object, create a mask from the object, feather the mask about the centre by about 2 pixels, create an object from the mask; now select the text object again, create another mask from it, feather it inside by 4 pixels, then create an object from it again; finally, fill the objects with colour, and arrange so that all of them can be seen.)
	As a final example of this effect, I produced this picture. This was fairly straight-forward. Basically, it is composed of three elements: the background, the text, and the shape at the bottom. The background is simply a picture of some stone that I had lying around. Because it was quite a detailed and complicated stone texture, I applied a strong gaussian blur before using it, to remove the detail - this way it would not detract from the text. The text was created in the same way given in the tutorial above, with two differences. Difference One: after creating the initial text object, I distorted it to give the slightly curved look in the picture. Difference Two: after creating the mask of the "depth" object and filling it black, I merged the mask with the object, so that the gaps between the text would be transparent. The entire text was created in a separate image, then copied onto the background as two grouped objects. Finally, the object at the bottom, you may or may not recognise as a Lamborghini Countach sports car. I masked off the car, gave it depth, and then masked off its background and add the original car mask again. One mask invert and merge mask later, and I had a hole cut out of the depth object. I then added the foreground car object again, filled black, but made 82% transparent, to make it create a slight shadow on the background. It sounds complex, but it really isn't - if you followed the instructions for text, then you are better than half-way there...