3D Buttons

This tutorial will show you how to create 3D buttons in Corel DRAW! I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows. Some things may be done differently with other versions.

The buttons you'll draw during this tutorial were inspired by my stereo. I originally created these buttons for the first Earth Orbit Consulting web site. I subsequently went on to create the first GrafX Design online tutorial describing how I had created these buttons with Paint Shop Pro. To show you how some graphics can be created with a vector program as easily as they can be with a paint program, I'm re-creating that first tutorial here.

This technique involves a little more effort than the first Corel DRAW! tutorial though it's still rather simple.

Open a new graphic. Choose the ellipse tool and, while holding down the Ctrl key to constrain the ratio, draw a circle about 2.5 inches in diameter at the left of the page.

Select the pick tool and, with the circle selected, hit Ctrl-c and Ctrl-v to copy and paste the circle. Use the right cursor key to move the copy to the right of the page. (see figure 2.1).

Select the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle between the two circles. Make sure that the corners of the rectangle meet with the circles (see figure 2.2)

Use the pick tool to draw a marquee around both circles and the rectangle. Click the intersection icon. This will only create the intersection of the left-most circle and the rectangle (see figure 2.3).

Use the pick tool to draw another marquee around the right-most circle and the rectangle. Click the intersect icon again. You should now have two intersections with the rectangle. Choose the circles, one at a time, and delete them. This should leave you with something like figure 2.4.

Use the pick tool to select the left-most curve and fill this object with a light gray. Select the right-most curve and fill this object with a dark gray (see figure 2.5).

Select the fill tool and choose the gradient tool from the flyout menu. This will bring up the Fountain Fill dialog box. Under Color blend, select Custom. This will change the Fountain Fill dialog box so that it resembles figure 2.6.

Add another point to the blend by double-clicking above the rectangular blend window. Change the middle point (the one you just added) to a light gray by clicking on the Current pulldown menu (it's just above the custom blend window). Change the color at both of the outside points to dark gray. Set the Angle to 90 and adjust the middle point so that your blend resembles the one in figure 2.6. Click OK.

NOTE: The custom blend starts out with only a beginning and an ending point. You can add more points to create your custom blend by double-clicking above the blend window. These points can also be moved by clicking and dragging.

Select the button with the pick tool and, using the outline tool flyout menu, set the outline to none.

Use Arrange, Transform, Scale and Mirror to resize the button.

At this point you might want to save the button (see figure 2.7).

I exported the button as a JPG with the following settings in the Bitmap Export dialog box. The really important settings to remember are the Maintain aspect ratio and Super-sampling. 

Use the text tool to add some text to your button. I used the Bedrock font. You may choose to copy and paste the text with a different color to add a highlight (see figure 2.9).

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Creating Complex Shapes

This tutorial will show you how to create complex shapes in Corel DRAW! I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows. Some things may be done differently with other versions.

It's fairly easy to create simple shapes with a vector drawing program such as Corel DRAW!. There are built-in tools for creating circles, ellipses, squares, rectangles and polygons, etc... You may wonder, though, how to create more complex shapes. The tools to help with this are there, as well, they're just not as obvious.

In this tutorial I'll demonstrate how to center objects, how to "combine" more than one shape to cut one shape from another and how to "weld" several shapes into one. I'll also show you how to duplicate objects while changing their size and how to rotate an object with its center of rotation changed so as to duplicate shapes around a single point that you determine.

Before we begin, let's take a look at the shape we'll be creating (see figure 5.1).

 You may recognize this shape as the shape that's used to signify radioactivity. I had this shape in mind for a new design that I wanted to use here at GrafX Design. You'll see it showing up here-and-there at the bottom of various pages.

At first glance you may not see how this shape can be created with circles and triangles. Take a look at figure 5.2, though, and you'll note that the radioactive symbol is made up of an outer circle (shown in blue), an inner circle (in red) and three triangles (in yellow).

Start out by opening a new image.

NOTE: If you don't see the rulers at the top and left of the main window--choose View, Rulers. This will turn the rulers on.

To help with the exact placement of the different objects that make up the final shape you can set the guidelines. Simply click-and-drag down from the ruler at the top to create a horizontal guideline, and click-and-drag from the ruler at the left to create a vertical guideline (see figure 5.3).

 You want the quidelines to dissect the image in the center so set the vertical guideline at 4.25 inches (half of 8.5 inches, the width of the page) and set the horizontal guideline at 5.50 inches (half of 11 inches, the length of the page). You can see the coordinates of the guidelines change, as you move them, in the lower left of the screen.

Now you're ready to begin drawing.

Select the Ellipse tool and, while holding down the CTRL key to constrain the ellipse to a circle, draw a circle about 2.5 inches in diameter.

Choose Arrange, Align and Distribute. This will bring up the Align and Distribute dialog box. Choose the Align tab, select Center of Page and click OK. Your circle should now be centered over the guidelines.

Choose Arrange, Transform, Scale and Mirror to bring up the Scale and Mirror dialog box (see figure 5.4).

Make sure there's a checkmark in the Proportional checkbox and enter 80% beside the H in the Scale window (with Proportional checked you won't need to set both the H, horizontal, and the V, vertical. Click on the Apply to Duplicate button.

Change the 80% to 20% and click the Apply to Duplicate button again. You should now have 3 centered circles (see figure 5.5). Select the Pick tool and click away from the circles to de-select them. 

Click on the outside circle, to select it, and then SHIFT-click the second circle to select it as well.

Choose Arrange, Combine. Nothing seems to have happened, but the inner circle has been cut away from the outer circle leaving a donut shape with a large hole in it. If you select a fill color now you'll see that this is true because the second circle doesn't fill in (see figure 5.6).

What you've just done is you've created a new shape from two separate shapes.

Double-click the Polygon tool to bring up the Options dialog box. Set the shape to polygon and the number of points/sides to 3.

Place the cursor in the middle of the circles and click-and-drag up and to the left to create a triangle. It should be big enough to span the distance between the small circle and the new circular shape (see figure 5.7). 

Choose Layout, Snap to Guidelines.

You may want to zoom in to about 400% to help with the following steps.

Select the Pick tool and use it to select the triangle shape. Move the shape into position with its bottom corner at the center of the circles (see figure 5.8). 

With the Pick tool still selected, click on the triangle again to get the rotation arrows. Move the center of revolution to the same point as the bottom of the triangle (see figure 5.9).

The center of revolution is a small circle with a dot in it. It will originally show up in the center of the triangle. You can click-and-drag it into place. Since the snap-to-guidelines is set it will snap into place in the center of the guidelines.

You should still have the Scale and Mirror dialog box open. Choose Rotation. Set the Angle to 120 deg. and click the Apply to Duplicate button to create a second triangle. Click the Apply to Duplicate button once more to create a third triangle (see figure 5.10).

Click anywhere to clear the selection and then click-and-drag a marquee around all of the shapes to select all of the objects.

Near the top-right of the screen you should see the Weld icon (see figure 5.11).

figure 5.11

Clicking on this icon will complete the image (see figure 5.12).

 Make sure you keep a copy of the vector drawing i.e. save the image as a CDR file so you can go back and make changes easily later on.

Of course, this final image was only really half of the design I had envisioned. To complete the design I exported the image as an EPS file and opened it in Photoshop. I then added some texture using Auto/FX. I played with the color, contrast and brightness, and lighting until I had the exact texture I wanted. I also added an Inner Bevel using Alien Skin's Eye Candy. Finally, I added a custom radial gradient behind the shape. There was still something missing, though, so to finish up I went back to Corel DRAW! and I created some text along a circular path and exported that, too. I then opened the text in Photoshop and cut-and-pasted it over the radioactive image to arrive at the completed design you see below (figure 5.13). This image can be flaunted using your reliable website hosting.

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3D Textured Text

This tutorial will show you how to create 3D Textured Text in Corel DRAW! I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows. Some things may be done differently with other versions.

I'm always exploring textures and materials effects in the various programs I use. I like creating gold, metal, wood, stone, etc... Normally I use all sorts of filters and tricks to get the look just right and I usually use a bitmap program such as Photoshop. I thought it might be fun, though, to try and see if something like this could be done with a vector program such as Corel DRAW! The following tutorial is the result. Let me know what you think.

The process is quite simple and, using it, you can achieve some really cool effects. I'll be demonstrating how to create "Hot Rocks" or Lava text. All of the effects can be accomplished using the files that come with Corel DRAW!

Open a new graphic. Select the Text tool and enter some text. I used the Braggadocio font at 75 points (see figure 4.1).

You'll want to use a chunky font for this stone look. Later you can try different fonts and fills to see what you can come up with.

I wanted to give the text some perspective as well as adding 3-dimensionality to it.

Use the Pick tool to select the text and Choose Effects, Add Perspective. This will surround the text with a red grid and put nodes at the corners (see figure 4.2).

 Grab the top corners and move them in and up until you have something like figure 4.3.

 You may notice the perspective marker, a small black "X", appear above the text. Once you're happy with the perspective click on the Pick tool again to clear the grid.

It's time to add the 3D effects. Choose Effects, Extrude to bring up the Extrude dialog box (see figure 4.4).

Select the Extrude icon and enter Small Back with a Depth of 10.

Select the Rotation icon and play around until you get a view that you like (see figure 4.5). You can see the text change every time you click the Apply button, so play around.

TIP: You might want to change the color of the text to a light gray so that you can see the angles and side more clearly.

 

 

You can see the actual x,y,z values by clicking on the small paper icon to the right of the red Corel 3D rotation image. The values I ended up with were 19, 29, 5.

Now add some lighting. I added all three lights. You can see their placement in figure 4.6.

Besides the placement you can play with the intensity of the lights. I set the first to 68, the second to 41 and the third to 86. Again, you'll want to play with these values to suit your particular image.

Now that the image is ready you can fill it with a texture. Select the Fill tool and hold it down until the flyout menu appears. Select the texture fill (it kinda looks like a black and white cloud image) which will bring up the texture dialog box (see figure 4.7).

I chose the Painted Stucco texture from Samples 7. There are a lot of different textures, though, so take a few minutes to go through the libraries and find something you like. I thought this texture looked like hot lava rock. Take a look at the final image (figure 4.8) and see what you think.

I exported the image as a JPG using Custom for the Size with 400 for the Width and setting the Maintain aspect ratio. I set the Resolution to 96 (both Horizontal and Vertical) and chose Super-sampling for the Anti-aliasing method. In the JPG Export dialog box I set the Quality to around 40.

Play around with some of the effects in this tutorial and see what you can come up with and, above all, have fun.

Make sure you keep a copy of the vector drawing i.e. save the image as a CDR file so you can go back and make changes easily later on.


That's it.... Be sure to check out some of our other Corel DRAW! tutorials.

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Creating a Page Curl Effect with Corel DRAW!

This tutorial will demonstrate how you can create a page curl effect. Many people have written asking how this is done and I'll be demonstrating the technique with all of the programs I write tutorials for. I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows for this technique. Some things may be done differently with other versions.

Sometimes it's harder to see how a certain effect can be created in a drawing (vector or object oriented) program versus a paint program. It may not be immediately obvious how to create the effect using a collection of objects rather than just being able to paint the pixels in. I think this may be the case with an effect like a page curl. For this tutorial I'll create a yellow sticky note and curl one corner of it up.

Begin by drawing a rectangle. Once you've drawn the rectangular shape, fill it with a bright yellow (see figure 7.1).

Draw another rectangle that's long and narrow. Place this rectangle along the bottom of the first and turn it so that it covers the two corners of the yellow rectangle and so that it's on an angle as in figure 7.2.

Use the Pick tool to draw a marquee around both of the shapes.

Along the toolbar (the second line below the menu choices) you should see the trim icon (see figure 7.3). Click this icon to trim the top rectangle (the last rectangle shape you created) from the bottom rectangle (the yellow one that you created first). 

Click away from the two shapes to de-select them. Select the long rectangle and press the delete key to discard it. You should now have just the bottom portion of the sticky note (a rectangle shape with an angled bottom).

Double click the Polygon tool and, in the Options dialog box, choose the Toolbox tab. Under Polygon Tool Defaults set the Polygon option and set the number of Points/Sides to 3. This will enable you to draw a triangle.

Draw a long narrow triangle shape beside the yellow rectangle (see figure 7.4).

Choose Layout, Snap to Objects.

Select the Pick tool and click twice on the triangle to set the rotation points (see figure 7.5). Move the center of rotation point (see figure 7.5) to the top point of the triangle. Click the triangle again to set the sizing points. Move the triangle so that the top point is aligned with the bottom-left corner of the sticky note. Click the triangle again to change to the rotation points. Click on one of the corner rotation points and drag the triangle until it aligns with the bottom of the sticky note (see figure 7.5).

 With the triangle still selected, choose Arrange, Convert to Curves.

Select the Shape tool. Select the node in the middle of the right side of the triangle and press the delete key to discard it.

With the Shape tool, marquee select the two right corners of the triangle and click on the To Curve icon on the toolbar.

Place the cursor in the middle of the line along the right side of the triangle and drag it to the left until you get a nice rounded curve (see figure 7.6).

If you need to, you can stretch the triangle shape so that it fits along the bottom of the rectangle. Just select the Pick tool and click on the triangle, then stretch it to fit. With the "Snap to Objects" still on this should be relatively easy.

Now you should have both shapes of the sticky note. The yellow note, itself, and the triangle that'll become the page curl.

All that's left to do is use a fountain fill to blend some shadows and highlights onto the triangle to give the appearance of a 3-dimensional curve.

Use the Pick tool to select the triangle shape.

Click-and-hold the Fill tool icon. This will bring out the Fill tool flyout. Select the Fountain Fill Dialog icon.

In the Fountain Fill dialog set the Type to Linear and click the Custom button.

You're going to have to play around with the Angle, the Edge Pad and the placement of the colors to come up with a fill that fits your particular triangle.

To start, set the left-most color to a bright yellow. Click on the Current option and then select Others. Set the color to a darker yellow. I chose 0, 0, 75, 24.

Click along the top of the gradient about a quarter of the way out from the left end and click the bright yellow color square in the colors swatch. Click a little ways over to the right and choose white. Click a little over again and select the bright yellow again. Finally, set the color at the far right to a dark yellow.

Set the Angle to about -45% and the Edge Pad to 20.

You should have similar settings to those shown in figure 7.7.

Click OK.

You may find, like I did, that the fill doesn't give you the effect you expected. If this is the case, bring up the Fountain Fill dialog box again. If the white line wasn't visible move the two yellows and the white over and click OK.

Once the white and yellow lines are visible you can adjust the angle, as well.

You may find that you'll need to add another color such as another dark yellow close to the left edge of the bright yellow/white lines.

It should only take a couple of minutes of fine tuning to get the effect just right.

Marquee select both shapes and select the Outline tool. Hold down the mouse button until the flyout appears. Select the No Outline option.

You'll now have a yellow sticky note with a curled-up corner (see figure 7.8).

Now, because this is a vector image, you can easily resize it, and add some text as I've done. The final image can then be saved as a web-ready JPG (see figure 7.9).

Note that you can use similar techniques to add a curled effect to any image you want. You would, of course, choose different colors.

Make sure you keep a copy of the vector drawing i.e. save the image as a CDR file so you can go back and make changes easily later on.

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Creating Animated Logos with Corel DRAW!

Animated GIFs

This tutorial will demonstrate how you can create an Animated GIF logo. I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows for this technique. Some things may be done differently with other versions.

Putting a New Spin on Your Logo

I'll be the first to admit that I'm probably the last person to jump on the "Animated GIF" bandwagon. To be honest, I didn't really see the potential for animated GIFs. Most of the early images I saw were kind of cheesy. On top of that, I prefer keeping my images' download time to a minimum, and animated GIFs can get rather large very quickly.

Recently, though, I've seen the light. Done right, animated GIFs can be pretty cool. And, with today's GIF animation software, animated image file size can be kept quite reasonable. Animated GIFs can be real attention-getters on banner ads, can really add to the appeal of a static logo, and they can certainly add some pizzazz to a web page.

Animated 3D text has become so popular on the web, in fact, that there are now several dedicated programs available for you to choose from. These programs, produced by software companies such as Xara and Ulead, make the creation of animated 3D text as simple as point-and-click.

What if you need to do more than animate simple text? Normally you might think of resorting to a dedicated 3D-rendering program. These programs can be expensive, though, and they often have pretty steep learning curves. So what can you do? Well, you can use Corel DRAW! to create the frames for your animated masterpiece. That's right! Corel DRAW! has all the features necessary to help you create a 3D animated logo.

Here's how you can use the extrusion features to give depth to, light, and spin your creation...

Open a new graphic in Corel DRAW! (I'm using version 7, but the method should translate well to other versions).

I'll be creating a simple logo using the first letters of GrafX Design, my design company.

First I entered the text using the Text tool. I then selected the text by clicking on the Pick tool. This enabled me to change the font and the size of the text. I chose Braggadocio at 72 points.

Because I didn't want to create just simple text, but rather I wanted a logo, I decided to cut the text out of a simple oval shape. To do that, I selected the Ellipse tool and dragged an oval shape around the text.

To line these elements up, marquee-select them all with the Pick tool and choose Arrange, Align and Distribute. In the Align and distribute dialog box, check Center of Page and click OK.

With the elements still selected, click the Combine button on the property bar. This will combine, or cutout, the text from the oval.

You can change the color of the oval logo by left-clicking a color on the color palette. I choose a light blue color (see figure 9.1).

 Now that the logo design is complete (as simple as it is), it's time to extrude the image, light it, and start creating the separate frames you'll need in order to complete the animation.

Choose Effects, Extrude to bring up the Extrude dialog box (see figure 9.2). This is where you'll do most of the work needed to create the frames of your spinning animation.

In this dialog box you'll see 5 tabs. The first three, Extrude, Rotate, and Lighting are the ones you'll need to use to create the frames for your animation.

The first thing you should do is extrude the logo. This process gives your logo some depth, i.e. it adds the 3rd dimension to your image.

Click on the first tab if it's not already active. You can now set the basic shape, viewpoint, and depth of your image. I set the shape to "Small Back," the viewpoint to "VP Locked To Object," and the depth to 2.0. You can play around with the various choices until you get the look you're after. When you're done, click Apply.

The next thing you will do is create the lighting.

Click the third tab. Turn on the first light by clicking the first lightbulb icon (or Light switch 1).

You can now position the light by dragging the small black icon around the 3D grid. You must place the icon on an intersection. I chose the upper-right corner. Once you've chosen the position for your light, click Apply.

At this point you won't really see much difference in your image. It's coming, though.

Click on the 2nd tab. This option enables you to rotate the logo in 3D space. You'll notice the Corel symbol that's visible in the middle of the dialog box (see figure 9.3).

This symbol can be dragged around with the mouse, and its position will correspond to the position of your image in 3D space once you click Apply. Changing the position in this manner is a lot of fun. However, you'll need to be more exacting when creating your frames. Below and to the right of the Corel symbol is a small, bent-cornered, rectangular icon. Clicking on this icon will replace the Corel symbol with a set of coordinates, or rotation values. The first controls the rotation about the x-axis, the second about the y-axis and the third about the z-axis. Because I'll be spinning my logo around the y-axis, I'll only need to change the values for number 2.

Before you start to apply the rotation values you should save the first frame. Obviously the first frame doesn't need to be rotated.

Before saving the first frame, though, create a white (or some other color, if you prefer) bounding box around your logo image. You'll need to do this because of the way Corel DRAW! saves an image. When Corel DRAW! saves an image it doesn't keep all of the white space you see around the onscreen representation. Instead, all of that white space is cropped off. It's best to have all of the frames of your animation the same size, and adding the bounding box will assure that this is the case.

Select the Rectangle tool and draw a box around your image. It doesn't have to be much bigger than the image but it should give you a little extra elbowroom.

On the color palette, left-click the color that you want the box to be. This hides your logo, of course. Press CTRL-Page Down until the box moves to the back and your logo is again visible.

To center everything again, marquee-select all of the objects and then select Arrange, Align and Distribute. Place a check mark in the Center of Page box and click OK.

To save the first frame of your animation, choose File, Export. In the Export dialog box, choose a folder in which to store the image, give your file a name, and choose a file type. I like to use the BMP file format, (because it's 24-bit and it's a format most animation programs recognize) and let the animation program handle the palette. I also like to name the frames in sequence. I started this sequence as GD00.BMP.

Click Export to bring up the Bitmap Export dialog box.

Set the colors to 16 Million Colors. Set the Size to Custom and place a checkmark in the Maintain Aspect Ratio box. You can leave the Resolution at anywhere from 72 dpi to 96 dpi because the animation is intended for screen viewing. I always like to set Anti-aliasing to Super-sampling. Once you have entered all of the settings, click OK to save the image.

Now you're ready to rotate the logo.

By adding the bounding box you de-selected the logo. Simply use the Pick tool to re-select the logo.

Back at the Extrude dialog box, click Edit and enter 10 in the 2nd spin control. Click Apply to apply the rotation. You could rotate the logo by a value of 1 rather than 10 each time, and this would result in an extremely smooth animation. However, it would also result in an unacceptably large final file size.

The 2nd frame (see figure 9.4) is ready to be saved. Not so bad, eh?

 

Choose File, Export and name the second frame. I named mine GD01.BMP. You'll need to select the Maintain Aspect Ratio and Super-sampling boxes again.

That completes the 2nd frame.

Back at the Export dialog box, click Edit and enter 20 in the 2nd spin control. Export this frame.

Continue on until you hit the value 70. You'll notice that the image is now at 90 degrees (see figure 9.5).

This occurs because Corel DRAW uses the values -100 to 100 for the rotation values and not, as you might expect, 0-360 degrees.

After saving the frame with the value at 70, start back down using negative values. Start with -60, then -50, etc, until you hit -10. Although, technically, using these values won't spin the logo so that you see the back of it, using these numbers will give your animation the appearance of spinning 360 degrees around the y-axis.

You should now have 14 frames numbering 00 through 13. You're ready to animate your logo!

It's time to fire up your animation program. I'm currently using Ulead's GIF Animator. I like it because it's relatively easy to use-it offers animation and optimization wizards, has good palette control, and accepts a fairly wide range of file formats.

After opening GIF Animator, I created the final animation, which can be seen below. Because the wizards work so well, I simply chose to use all of the defaults.

When the animation program opens, it offers you a chance to use the Animation Wizard. This wizard enables you to Add Images/Videos. From this first dialog box, you can add the images, or frames of your animation. Simply point to the folder where you stored the separate frames. There's a small quirk, though. The frames will not be in sequence unless you follow this simple rule: Choose the last file in the sequence and then, while holding down the shift key, click on the first filename in the sequence. Click OPEN. You can click through the remaining choices by choosing Next each time. The one place you might want to stray from the default is the Frame Duration. I like my animations to run more quickly than the default and usually choose 10/100's of a second rather than the 25/100's. In the last dialog box, choose Finish to close the wizard.

To see how your animation will appear, click on the Start Preview button. You'll see your animation for the first time. Pretty cool, eh?

If everything looks okay, you can choose File, Optimization Wizard. Again, you should be able to just let the wizard do its thing. My final, optimized, spinning logo weighs in at a pretty good 11K. If you're not happy with the final result, re-run the wizard and tweak some of the settings. Some of the biggest savings can be achieved by lowering the color depth. I saved the logo with 64 colors, but I probably could have gone lower without sacrificing too much of the image's quality. You should spend a little time getting to know the animation software. Most of the packages I've tried are fairly easy to use and come with pretty extensive online help.

That's it. I invite you to play around with some text and some different shapes in Corel DRAW!. Try adding a bevel (use the last tab in the Extrude dialog box), or adding a second and third light, etc. Extrude your images to different depths and try filling them with textures as well as solid colors. Pretty soon you'll be wowing the visitors at your web site with all manner of spinning and moving logos and buttons.

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Cracked Text

This tutorial will demonstrate how you can create a Cracked Text effect. I used Corel DRAW! 8.0 for Windows for this technique. Some things may be done differently with other versions.

One of the things that's so cool about vector drawing programs is that certain effects that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to re-create in a paint program are so easy to accomplish with a drawing program.

This next effect, "cracked text", is no exception. This wouldn't be easy to do in a paint program but you can follow along and get this one done in just minutes with Corel DRAW!

To get started, open a new file and use the Text Tool to enter some text. I entered the word "Cracked" in 100 point using Arial Black (see figure 8.1).

 

You might want to zoom-in a little to work on the image. To do so, just select the Zoom Tool and click on the image workspace until the text fills the screen.

Select the Eraser Tool. It's in the second space from the top of the toolbar. If you don't see it hold the mouse down for a moment until the flyout menu appears.

Use the up or down arrows to adjust the size of the tool. How big or small should it be? Why just the right size for the cracks, of course. All kidding aside, it really depends on the size of your text and how big you'd like the cracks to be. With the 100 point text that I used I set the tool to 0.05 inches.

Now click-and-drag the tool over the text in short jagged moves so that it breaks up the letters (see figure 8.2).  

 

 

Continue until you've created cracks in all of the letters (see figure 8.3). 

 

 

Now, here's where the cool tricks that Corel DRAW can do come in!

Choose Effects, Extrude.

In the Extrude dialog box set the Depth to 5 and click Apply.

Choose the Lighting icon and click on at least one light. Place it where you'd like the light to come from. I chose the upper-right corner.

Click on the Rotational icon and position the text the way you want it appear.

My final image can be seen in figure 8.4. 

 

 

Have some fun with this. You might even want to try it on images other than text.

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