Text color "Chrome"

[GatesOfOregon]

Just a quick question. Love the 3D product. Will be able to do some nice graphics with it.

BUT, I am attempting to color my 3D text to look like polished chrome. Something like from free weights or barbells. Will be for a personal trainer's web site.

Any suggestions for the three values for "Surface Color" And "Specular" color (under the path Object/Properties/Color)
I am currently using for
Surface color
R 192
G 192
B 192

Specular
R 217
G 217
B 217


Any better suggestions?

Thank you for looking!

Greg

[Ken Berry]

I'm sorry but I have no idea how you go about setting RGB-specific colours in MS 3D... Since you asked the question I have been searching the program, but cannot find any way of doing so. I have used it since it first came out many years ago now, with no revision since. But I still use it for excellent titles....

However, as far as setting colours have been concerned, I have used both gold and silver (though never specifically chrome since silver was all I was ever wanting and found satisfying...) And to do that I simply chose one of the silver samples in the program's Object presets. Or even one of the Text presets, which also exist in silver. Then if you want to vary them, you play around in both surface colour and specular, and of course lighting too, until you a specific effect you are after. But I have never been aware of setting specific RGB values, and have used only the sliders in the above settings.

As far as I can see, the only places where you can set actual figures are under Project for both background and for ambient highlights. But the rest, as far as I can see, are just the sliders as already mentioned...

If anyone else knows how to set specific figures for the RGB settings, or if you yourself could explain how you chose those figures, let alone applied them, I would be happy to learn something new...

[GatesOfOregon]

Ken

Thank you for the quick reply. The feature to always match your color works great.

• * Just go to Object/Properties/Color.
  * Then the "Surface" and "Specular" colors will display
  * In the little square box that shows the color for Surface, left click.
  * Click on the phrase "Corel Color Picker.
  * Then screen for the EXACT Surface and Specular colors come up.
  * In this manner you can pick/coordinate utilizing the EXACT color features each time.
  * My guess you other image/paint products have this feature. Dare I swear and say one using the feature in Photoshop all the time to match colors. LOL

But I am going to try your suggestion with one of the pre-made 3D models that looks Chrome'ish. Wish me luck.

Greg





PS: this is a GREAT text product!

[Ken Berry]

Thanks for pointing that out. While I have sometimes looked at the Color picker first page, I have always just picked one of the set colours on the palette, but never gone beyond that... More usually I just do as I suggested above and choose one of the preset texts or objects and vary that with lighting etc.

But I certainly agree that it is an excellent text tool. Pity Corel has left it alone for so long. I started off using its long-gone predecessor, a Ulead program called Cool 3D or something like that, and its more professional older brother whose name I now totally forget. It too was excellent but took hours -- literally -- to render a complicated 10 second title. I was particularly happy when Motion Studio 3D was released and found rendering times were greatly reduced.