3D Tutorial for Editors: Confessions of a Two-Dimensional Man

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I want to use this as the basis for an other-worldly landscape, so I increase its scale, drag it to the bottom of the frame, and tumble the layer back in Z space. (Note that Boris has offered the ability to position 2D layers in 3D space since Boris FX was introduced in 1995. Other, even older compositing applications are just getting around to offering it now.) I can either use the default Position tab in the Controls window to do this, or use onscreen controls in the Composite window to tumble, drag and scale. To finish the landscape for my scene, I add the Hue/Sat/Lightness filter (one of RED's 13 color filters), which allows me to cycle the image's hues to a purple-ish family.

For a purple-ish sky, I create a gradient layer. Selecting the gradient's Face track brings up the Boris Gradient Editor. It allows unlimited color stops, any of which may also have any level of alpha transparency. [an error occurred while processing this directive]Illustration: GradientEditor

I'm keeping it simple, though: two colors to match the general color scheme of the ground.
Illustration: Background

A Map to Materials and Textures
I'll turn the visibility of the text layer back on, and add some finishing touches. The default material for extruded objects in Boris is a white plastic, which is good for seeing what you're doing. There are other preset textures, in the Easy section, which, as a 2D guy is definitely where I spend most of my time. I'll show you the Advanced section, but to be perfectly honest, I don't often feel a need to roll my own specularity.
Illustration: Advanced

That's not to say that you can't customize the easy textures -- of course you can. And I will. I want shiny metal text, so I change the texture to Aluminum, and ramp up the shininess and reflectivity. Although I can have different materials on the front, back, extrusion and bevels of my text, I want the same material for all surfaces, so I set the number of faces to one.
Illustration: Easy

Once I have the material, I can also add additional detail with the Textures tab. This is where I could choose to map video to the surfaces of my 3D text, or still images, gradients, solid color, or Natural media. Again, I could map different media as textures on each of the faces, but for now, I'm applying the same thing to every side.

In fact, I don't want any texture at all. I want my text to be perfectly smooth, containing only the reflection of the background scene. You can see RED 2.1's Reflection Map, button highlighted above. Here's how it looks in RED 2.0.
Illustration: Map Button


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