3D effects can create emphasis, especially in text. Unfortunately, all of the tutorials I've seen that create this effect are tedious or redundant. There's an easier way to achieve the effect that I learned. This tutorial will teach you to create 3D-looking text easily.

First, start with a blank canvas. It doesn't matter what size just as long as you can work with it. I prefer working at around 500% zoom.

Start by typing the letters you want to apply the effect to. It doesn't have to be text because the technique works with any shape. 3D effects work better on blockier fonts so avoid curved fonts.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g144/ ... nk3d_1.png

After typing the font, make sure there is enough space between the letters. Now the letters have to be broken up. Convert to shape (Ctrl+Shift+C), Ungroup (Ctrl+Shift+G), and Union (Ctrl++). The Union step is optional if you'd like to extrude the letter individually, which may be the case if some parts will overlap.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g144/ ... nk3d_2.png

The letters should be all outlines now. You can change the color of the letters to simplify the next step. To make the extrusion, start by selecting the tool. Select the letters and duplicate (Ctrl+D) them. Change the duplicate's color to black (or any other color other than the color of the main letters) and send it to the back (End). Duplicate the black letters again and send it to the back again. This duplicate is what will set the extrusion. For this example, I will just move it to the bottom right by an even amount of 2 right and 2 down.

It should look like this now.
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g144/ ... nk3d_3.png

Right now it only looks like a drop shadow. But the 3D step is next. Click on the top layer of letters which would be the blue ones. Alt+Click the same spot to get to the black letters directly under the blue ones. Now Shift+Click the shifted black letters and Union them. Now that both shapes are combined, switch to the tool and zoom in.

Click on the nodes between the two shapes as seen in the picture. The red nodes will be deleted.
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g144/ ... nk3d_4.png

When you delete those nodes, you automatically create a line. Do this to all corners in the text to create the extrusion.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g144/ ... nk3d_5.png

Round corners are more difficult and won't get the same effect as the corners. Try deleting the nodes I boxed.
Repeat the technique until you finish with all the letters.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g144/ ... nk3d_6.png

The final product should now look like that. There's not much more to it. The effect is simple and quick. You can always try adding more effects to it which gets trickier.

After some customizations, this is what I got it to look like.



That is all to the tutorial. I hope it was useful.

Any video for this tut ?

I am beginner & confusing in this step :

Right now it only looks like a drop shadow. But the 3D step is next. Click on the top layer of letters which would be the blue ones. Alt+Click the same spot to get to the black letters directly under the blue ones. Now Shift+Click the shifted black letters and Union them. Now that both shapes are combined, switch to the tool and zoom in.

Welcome to the forum

If there were a video tutorial, I'm sure they would have posted a link to it. This was posted almost 2 years ago, and the member hasn't been active for almost 1.5 years. I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials for extruded text or other objects, but I don't know of any, or which might cover this particular technique.

We can probably help you with this one though. A few different things are covered in the quote you provided. Can you tell us which part you need more info on? For example, do you not know what a drop shadow is; does yours not look like a drop shadow; do you try the Union and it doesn't work; can you not select the right letters; etc., etc., etc.????

Thanks for reply,

My result does not look like http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g144/mega_rock_exe/ink3d_4.png

After combined its all black ? did I miss something, or there are another technique ?
I am using 0.48 portable version.

There is an extrude extension (Extensions>Generate from Path>Extrude). It take two shapes to make it work, for instance, the very front face of a letter and the very back of a letter. You can shade the sides of the extrusion to suite. Attached is an example for you to pick apart.

Yes, the Extrude extension is one of the other techniques. I don't have any experience with it though, so I can't really comment in any helpful way. You could check the manual though: http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL ... ns-Extrude

I think in this tutorial, some necessary steps seem to be omitted. If you leave the Unioned black letters selected, you could just add a stroke and remove the black fill. THEN they will be all outlines, and you can continue with the tutorial.

I'm sure heathenx's file will be very helpful too

heathenx wrote:There is an extrude extension (Extensions>Generate from Path>Extrude). It take two shapes to make it work, for instance, the very front face of a letter and the very back of a letter. You can shade the sides of the extrusion to suite. Attached is an example for you to pick apart.

In example, that's exactly what I want.

here my step :
- create text > duplicate > send to back.
- select both text
- Extensions>Generate from Path>Extrude

but the results :

'import site' failed; use -v for traceback

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "extrude.py", line 22, in <module>

import inkex, simplepath, simpletransform, sys, cubicsuperpath

File "xxxxx\PortableApps\InkscapePortable\App\Inkscape\share\extensions\inkex.py", line 22, in <module>

import sys, copy, optparse, random, re

File "xxxxx\PortableApps\InkscapePortable\App\Inkscape\python\Lib\optparse.py", line 77, in <module>

import textwrap

File "xxxxx\PortableApps\InkscapePortable\App\Inkscape\python\Lib\textwrap.py", line 10, in <module>

import string, re

File "xxxxx\PortableApps\InkscapePortable\App\Inkscape\python\Lib\string.py", line 83, in <module>

import re as _re

ImportError: No module named re

Is this error only in portable Inkscape ?

I don't get any errors with 0.48.1 on Win7 64-bit. And it clearly works for heathenx. So it may be the portable version is malfunctioning. I'm not sure if the portable version is considered stable.

I don't have time to search Launchpad at the moment, but it could be a bug. Hhhmmm....it might be Saturday before I can check on it. Meanwhile, you could search Launchpad, if you're interested https://launchpad.net/inkscape.

Did you convert the text to path, before you applied the extension? After you type the text, do Path menu > Object to Path, then Ungroup, then Path menu > Combine (or Union). Then try the extension on the 2 paths. Does that work better?

brynn wrote:'import site' failed; use -v for traceback

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "extrude.py", line 22, in <module>

import inkex, simplepath, simpletransform, sys, cubicsuperpath

File "xxxxx\PortableApps\InkscapePortable\App\Inkscape\share\extensions\inkex.py", line 22, in <module>

import sys, copy, optparse, random, re

File "xxxxx\PortableApps\InkscapePortable\App\Inkscape\python\Lib\optparse.py", line 77, in <module>

import textwrap

File "xxxxx\PortableApps\InkscapePortable\App\Inkscape\python\Lib\textwrap.py", line 10, in <module>

import string, re

File "xxxxx\PortableApps\InkscapePortable\App\Inkscape\python\Lib\string.py", line 83, in <module>

import re as _re

ImportError: No module named re

I downloaded the latest version of InkscapePortable (0.48.2 r9819) from portableapps.com. The extrude extension appears to be working normally without error for me (Win7-64). Let me poke around and see if I can find a solution. I do have the latest version of Inkscape installed on my desktop so here's hoping InkscapePortable isn't using any of my local files/libraries.

I think it might be because p3m4la5 used the text, without converting to paths. When I tried it on text rather than paths, Inkscape crashed!

I am try to :

- re download portable inkscape from portableapps
- re try extrude method
- Its work, cool....

Sorry for bothering you all. It was my mistake, may be its some error in previous download.

Thanks

p3m4la5 wrote:I am try to :

- re download portable inkscape from portableapps
- re try extrude method
- Its work, cool....

Great! I was starting to think that portable was pulling stuff from what I had installed on my machine (which makes portable apps useless imo). Was going to try it in a vm next but I see it's working for you now.

Cheers!