princessjade1111

Hello,

Is it possible to draw a closed shape using paths and then make some text fill the inside of that shape?

This would be like text following a path but instead of just using it as a baseline it would stretch the width and height of the text to follow the full interior of the shape.

It's something that's very common on badges and logos.

Distort or warp doesn't work because of the kind of shape i need to use.

http://i366.photobucket.com/albums/oo103/spydrwoman11/lakeloon.jpg

I know there are tricks that can be used on raster text to create simple shapes such as bulging or squeezing the centre using lense distortion or other features, but I'm more interested in making text follow irregular (but precise) shapes, preferably using vectors/paths like the current text-to-path feature does.


*ILLUSTRATOR CS3 OR PHOTOSHOP CS3

 

Reply With Quote

splathead

It's called envelope distortion. Here is a tutorial Adobe Illustrator | Text Warping | Envelope Distortion | Layers Magazine. Your illustrator help file may also have some additional info.

 

Reply With Quote

princessjade1111

Quote: Originally Posted by splathead It's called envelope distortion. Here is a tutorial Adobe Illustrator | Text Warping | Envelope Distortion | Layers Magazine. Your illustrator help file may also have some additional info.

thanks but i've tried that. and this is the result.
it doesn't look right. I would like it to be clean and not curvey, just for the letters to come straight down.

thank you for the suggestion though.

 

Reply With Quote

Catbox

 

Reply With Quote

ProSeparatorNJ

LOL. I'm a huge fan of Illustrator, yet, this is one area where it's amazingly not strong. If you have access to Corel Draw, extreme custom envelopes are dead easy and intuitive. One this easy is literally, 10 seconds to do. Not only that, you can save the envelope and apply it to different text.

This can of course been done in Illustrator, but Illustrator doesn't provide the proper constraint controls that help prevent you from "warping" it out. So you have to go very carefully in Illustrator and get the best result you can as opposed to a perfect result in Draw.

This envelope took me about 15 seconds to shape the word, then I saved that as an envelope. Then I typed a new word and simply selected that last envelope as the envelope for the new word. Envelopes are very powerful in Draw.

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.p...giye1j&thumb=5

 

Reply With Quote

ProSeparatorNJ

Actually, I did this in a few seconds in Illustrator too. Use the mesh warp tool and use the very minimum rows and columns. Then use the "Direct Select" tool to pull the center top anchor point up. Then use the "convert anchor point" tool and grab one of the "handles" coming off the node and pull it straight down. Then do the same with the other handle on the other side and you're done. You only have to edit that 1 anchor point.

 

Reply With Quote