Text into Sphere shape

martynball · Jun 2011

Hey, how would I go about modeling in text in a helmet as seen below.

It won't have the same words but similar, and it needs to be actually MODELED into the helmet mesh and not a floater.
I believe there is a modifier which makes shapes into a sphere shape, would this be of use?

Disaster · Jun 2011

Why would you want to model it in?

Brendan · Jun 2011

you could always... Boolean

God help the poor soul who has to clean up the mesh after that though...

martynball · Jun 2011

Disaster wrote: »

Why would you want to model it in?

Not for in-game or baking purposes, but more of video and closeups will be taken. It just needs to be modeled in, and boolean causes more problems than it's worth lmao

EarthQuake · Jun 2011

A. In max, FFD is probably what you want
B. If the text is popping out, its easy to get a seamless look with floating geo.
C. Worst case, float it, and then merge it all together when you've got the look you want.

Hamish Bode · Jun 2011

I still don't understand why the text needs to be modelled in either. That's something that you'd put in your texture. Can anyone else figure why it'd need to be modelled?

martynball · Jun 2011

Hamish Bode wrote: »

I still don't understand why the text needs to be modelled in either. That's something that you'd put in your texture. Can anyone else figure why it'd need to be modelled?

I have already said that it's not for game assets. It's for CGI video and certain special effects I wish to add needs this text inset into the helmet.

Why I need to do this isn't the question, but how is. (Don't mean to sound like an ass here btw)

gsokol · Jun 2011

Ok, so try making the helmet, make sure you use even quads and whatnot...at least in the aria where the text will be..

Then model the text, or whatever you are doing for that. Model it as if it were a floater, but then go through and manually add faces between the letters (will be a pain in the ass).

Once you do that, use the FFD modifier if you are using Max, (or Lattice Deformer in Maya) and bend it so it matches the shape of the helmet.

Then the really shitty part...delete the faces on the helmet where the text piece will be, move the text piece into place, and start cutting up the helmet to make loops/verts for the verts on your text mesh to line up with. Since this sounds like it will be pretty high poly, having a bunch of loops will help with the shape of the helmet anyways...if done right.

Hope that helps.

MasteroftheFork · Jun 2011

I think floating geo would be yoru best bet, considering in real life its proably not actually connected to the helmet but put on(?). You will have a much easier tiem then workign with booleans or anythign else.

sprunghunt · Jun 2011

conform object would also do this. It's in the "create compound objects" menu with boolean

leechdemon · Jun 2011

I'd say map it, then apply it to a clone as a displacement map. Take the faces that were displaced 100%, delete the rest, and apply a Shell. Similar to the headache of boolean, but hopefully cleaner.

...Hopefully.

Giometric · Jun 2011

What if you just do it with only the displacement map? If you're using Max I'm not sure how exactly it works but in Maya or Softimage you can have the mesh be displaced at render time; you'd model the helmet with no letters, and the displacement map would create the inset of the text when it's being rendered, using as many extra subdivisions as it needs. This displacement creates actual geometry that can cast shadows, etc, so it should be perfect for what you want. Of course if what you want to do requires the geometry to be there before render time, then this won't work.

binopittan · Jun 2011

zeebrush alpha

r_fletch_r · Jun 2011

sprunghunt wrote: »

conform object would also do this. It's in the "create compound objects" menu with boolean

or the spacewarp

Psyk0 · Jun 2011

Or use this
http://cghub.com/scripts/view/79/

Text into Sphere shape

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