Pixar Typestry turns your Type 1 and TrueType fonts into dimensional text. You work in an easy, familiar 2D space but you get amazing 3D results without making you learn a complicated 3D interface. Pixar Typestry includes Pixar's powerful RenderMan so your images have the same professional quality you've seen in some of your favorite movies. It's an ideal product for creating logos, brochures, ads, or presentations.
This version of Typestry is meant to give you an idea of the kinds of things Typestry can do. You can get some stunning images from this demo -- all the quality controls, animation, and effects are intact. However, it is not meant to be used as anything but a demo. For this reason, there are things you can do in the production version that are disabled or absent in this version. These are:
• Opening project files: The only file you can open is the one provided.
• Typing characters in the Text dialog: The word "Pixar" appears in the project window; you may not add any more text.
• Saving files: The Save menu item is disabled. When you quit, no changes will be saved.
• Rendering to a file: You can render only to the screen.
• Saving a rendered screen: Whatever you have rendered to the screen cannot be saved as a file.
• Combining frames into a rendered animation: The Pixar MovieTool is absent from this demo. The MovieTool allows you to make a QuickTime movie from a set of rendered frames.
You can get help for any tool or menu item by turning on Show Balloons in the menu bar, available under the balloon icon near the right side of the screen.
If you render an image that uses shadows, you may notice that some disk space gets used up. This is because an invisible temporary file gets created for every light that casts a shadow. These files exist until you reboot your machine and empty the Trash.
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GETTING STARTED
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To render your first picture, follow these steps:
1. Double-click on the Typestry icon to run the program.
2. With the Text tool selected (the top tool in the toolbox), click ONCE in the project window. This brings up the Text dialog.
3. Select a Font and a Bevel Style for the text, and set the Bevel Size. Note: In this version you can't type in the dialog. You can only change the settings.
4. When you're done, click on Build Object. This creates a 3D version of the text and puts it in the project window.
You can have more than one text object in the project window (but in this version all text objects will be the word "Pixar"). With the Text tool selected, just click in the window again to get the Text dialog back.
5. Play with the tools in the toolbox and manipulate the text. You can move it, rotate it, scale it, or change its thickness (extrusion).
Anything you can do to the text group, you can do to a single letter. Just double-click on a letter to select it. To select the text group again, click in some empty space and then click on the text.
If you get the text in a weird orientation by rotating it, and want to get it back to something reasonable, select Reset Orientation from the Edit menu.
6. Select Backgrounds from the Effects menu, then Wall. This will put a back wall in the image, but you won't see it until you render.
7. Select Show Looks from the Windows menu. This brings up the Looks window.
8. Select some text by clicking on it, then click on New Look in the Looks window. This brings up the Browser. Use this to find a Look (in the Looks Instances folder).
9. Click on Select to apply the Look to the selected text. (You can apply a different Look to the wall by clicking on the Wall in the Looks window, and then on New Look.)
10. Select Show Lights from the Windows menu. This brings up the Lights window.
11. Click on the middle box to the right of Light #7. This brings up the Gels dialog. Click on the bottom middle gel, then click on OK.
12. From the Render menu, select Render to Screen, then Reasonable. If you'd like a higher-quality version, use Excellent 'n' Slow. But this will take longer.
Now that you've got the hang of it, go have some fun!
