Extruded dingbat fonts
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Since I have used dingbat fonts in Paint Shop Pro for making Victorian gingerbread and such, I tried it with SU's extruded text intersecting with a model.
Because there are so many faces, the file gets huge in a hurry. Any suggestions from anyone who has used dingbats like this?
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They probably will extrude with many faces. The default 3D Text tool often does import with many more faces than I would personallly prefer. The alternative is to write your text in something like Illustrator or Corel, then convert it to curves...then edit how many nodes/anchor points you want on those curves before converting them to straight lines. You can then export this optimised shape a dwg, then import into SU and extrude it.
Part of this process is explained in this thread here You can forget the Photoshop stage as, obviously, you'd just do the text directly in a vector drawing program.
If you don't have such a program, then your stuck with SU's Text import. In that case, what I'd suggest would be either to Push/Pull the imported Wingding back to flat, then take some "shortcuts" along its outline to reduce the number of segments on the curve before extruding it again...rather laborious.
Or...simply don't extrude it...where appropriate, have it hovering above the surface as a single face. You often can't tell the difference unless you look really closely.
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Thanks, Alan. Lots more to explore. I can do the vectors from dingbats in Paint Shop Pro (old version of Corel) and see where to go from there in reducing faces.
As to the push/pull, I'm still having some problems with the shapes I've tried, but it's got to be relatively easy once I get the hang of it. For some reason I'm having problems getting the dingbat to the surface of the model at the size it should be unless I use an interim rectangle. Yes, I do understand alignment and the spacer. Saved the dingbat component in the component menu, but it "forgot" what size I wanted it to be.
Two things I've learned. The first is that the font doesn't have to be installed for SU to use it. That's great. Second is that a couple of the fonts I've tried flat out won't work with SU.
Appreciate your advice. "In case all else fails, follow directions." I'm trying.
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