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Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 22:19:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Joe Angell <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Eeek! I've got the Jaggies! (or "How To Make Soft Shadows?")
To: "Glenn M. Lewis - MPG DA ~" <[e-mail]>
Cc: Jamie Krutz <[e-mail]>,
        LightWave3D Mailing List <[e-mail]>
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>     Thanks for the tips, Jamie.  Unfortunately, I don't have
> other tools available, and as an academic exercise, I want to see if
> this is do-able from within LightWave.  Oh, and yes, this logo is
> just another still... sorry that I keep forgetting to mention this.

OK.  If you're on LW PC or have the Amiga Beta, try the Shadow Alpha
function.  I don't really know how it works, but Mark and John can tell
ya :)

Also, do you have LWPro? in an article by Mark Thompson, he fakes shadows
using a object  place and shaped like the shadow.  Works, but is hard-edged.

For soft-edged, try either:

Hard Way: Make your text as a 2D object.  Copy it, scale it, paste it,
then push it slightly behind the smaller one.  Do this a few times, and
give each a different surface (you'll get nicery results if you play with
Bevels to make the multiple layers, or (Solid) Drill/Stencil).  In
Layout, make the inner-most one solid black, and have each one successive
one get more and more translucent as they get further from the center.

Easy way: Make your text a 2D object.  Render it out from a dead-ahead
view, using the techniquies in the LW tutorials on how to make an image
map (from the Toaster docs -- you're using LightRave, so you have Toaster
docs, right?)  In case you don't, set the diffuse to 0, lum. to 100,
Camera Zoom to 33.3 (to flatten out perspactive), and move the camera far
enough away so you can see the whole word.  Render in Low-Res, and save
the image that's rendered.  Oh -- and set the surface color to 255,255,255.

Load up Deluxe Paint (or similar).  Now, fill the text so it is
completely solid White in the center, and taper to black at the edges.
The White part should be equal to the solid black part of your shadow,
and the grey to black parts should be the soft edge, and the black would be
where there is no shadow.  Cut the image out EXACTLY on the lines (just a
bounding box will do...)

Load this image into LW, and either map it onto the flat logo you made or
put it on a flat plane.  Either way, the surface settings should read
something like 0% diffuse, 100% lum., color 0,0,0, with the Image you
made mapped onto the Transparency channel only (Planar, Z axis,
auto-sized, most likely).  You might have to use the Negative Image
button if the results come out backward (you'll know what I mean when you
see it).

Move this object to where the shadow should be on the wall. Hit F9.  Now
you have a nice, soft-edged shadow.  BTW, you can use a solid backdrop
color for this.

Hope this helps...

-- Joe
--
Joe Angell <[e-mail]> sent this message.
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