3D Rotating text and objects

[yellowman]

This tutorial is available as a PDF. Click here to view or download it

 

Moderators notes: Pictures provided by ReMake to eliminate the Photobucket logo and to move it from the Graveyard.

In this tutorial we are going to learn how to do a Curved or Circular Text, and how we could add some 3D Effect and Animation to it. We don't need any dedicated program or 3rd party program, all will be done by Paint.NET, and nothing else. All this will be explained with really boring details that lets even a newbie follow the steps. Anyway, we are making this:

 

Plugins needed for this tutorial :

1- Tile Image by Curtis
2- Polar Transformation by MadJik
3- Animated Image 1.7 - Animated GIF and Animated PNG by Simon Brown
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Let's start:
1---- Click on File in top-left, then choose New from the list and in the New popped_up window put 1000 for width by 200 for height for the file size, look at these two images below for help:
 click New to get-> 

You will get something like this:

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2---- Now click on Layers button and Add New Layer as in the image below:


Now rename this new layer text. To do that look at the image below and follow the 1 and 2 shown in red, leave other options on default:

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3---- In the Tools window click on T and type your text on the text layer and make sure to align it in the lower half of the image as below:
I used Verdana for font style and 48 for the size and Bold for decoration:

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4---- Now click on the Image button in the menu bar, select Resize, and in the Resize window change the Height to 1000 pixels see the image below for help:

 

You should get something like this:

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5---- Find the Tile Image plugin in the Effect > Distort > Tile Image for help see how in the image below:


Open the Tile Image plugin window and put a value 1 for the Horizontal Repetitions and 2 for the Vertical Repetitions, you will get something like this:

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6---- Now find the Polar Transformation plugin under Effect > Distort > Polar Transformation look below to see where to find it:


Open the Polar Transformation window and choose Transform rectangular to polar and leave other options on default as below:


In this step we learned how to make a Curved or Circular shape text
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7---- Now let's downsize the image by clicking on Image > Resize, and put 500 pixels for Width and Height , (this is to make the file size smaller when saving and to have better performance for the next steps, the reason we use a bigger image size in the beginning is to get a smooth text when apply the last two plugins):

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In this step we will learn how to give some 3D Effect and Animation to the text:
8---- Duplicate the text layer 11 Times 🤯🤯 as below. This means our animation file will contain 12 frames (more frames for a smoother transition between image).😞
If you feel you will get lost then rename the layers as (text1, text2, text3......text12). As we learned the renaming in step 2 above.

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9---- Now select the top (1st layer) layer by clicking on it in the Layers window to highlight it, then open Rotate / Zoom effect by clicking in the main menu bar on Layers then select Rotate / Zoom from the list:
And put these values:
 00.00 for Angle
-90.00 for Twist
 70.00 for Tilt  You can change this last one as you like, more value more tilting and less value less tilting (ZERO value will keep the circle shape unchanged).
And leave other options on default (like the Zoom and Pan and others keep them unchanged).

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10---- Now select the 2nd layer from the Layers window and apply the Rotate / Zoom then change just the first value for the Angle from 00.00 to 15:
The new values for the 2nd layer are:
 15.00 for Angle
-90.00 for Twist
 70.00 for Tilt


Select the 3rd layer and apply the Rotate / Zoom effect again and put these values respectively :
 30.00
-90.00
 70.00


As you see we are just increasing the value of the Angle option by 15 Degrees in the Rotate / Zoom for each next layer. The last layer (bottom, 12th layer)the values should be:
 165.00
-90.00
 70.00

If you are not sure about the values of every layer just ask and I will put the values for all 12 layers.
Hint: As we said before, more layers (Frames) for smoother animation, so if you increase the amount layers to 18 you have to use an increment of 10 degrees of Angle for each layer in the Rotate / Zoom effect, starting from 00.00 ending with 170.00 
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11---- We will end up with this weird image :

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12---- Now let's downsize the canvas for a more organized look by cutting out the white empty spaces from the top and bottom areas of the image , use the Rectangle Select tool from Tools list window, and select around the black circle leaving some space as u like, then click on crop :Crop: in the menu bar:


And delete the white background layer, we don't need it anymore. The final image will be something like this:
Hint :You can check your History window and Layers window with the image for comparing purpose.

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13---- Let's move now to the saving step, click on File in the menu bar and select Save As

 

A saving dialog window will open, choose a location for the file (I saved it in Desktop), name the file in the File Name field (I named it rotating text), in the Saving As Type choose Animated PNG(*.apng) and click Save button, just see the image below for help:


A new window will open (Save Configuration) for the Settings options, put 100 for Delay and 0 (zero) for Repeat:

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14---- We reached the final step. Now go to the location of the saved file and change the file extension from apng to png (just remove the a from apng) and click on any empty space in the desktop or in your folder location to confirm the renaming.
See this image below for help renaming the file extension:

If you saved the file as agif (animated Gif) then do the same thing exactly by removing the a from the agif file extension.

That's how you'll get this image:

For animation png supporting browser FireFox (good quality):

 

For GIF file in all other applications (bad quality) adding some blue and red blinking effect:

 

This with some additional effects png file

 

Just the propeller of the helicopter is using this tutorial
And the background animated with help of Panelling plugin:

GIF.................PNG

 

GIF animation (not good quality)

Unfortunately my APNG file type is not working on more than 21 layers and this Galaxy is 35 layers 

[david.atwell]

I think you've forgotten the use of the Animation plugin... In addition, this is probably more text effect than anything. Also, please add links to all plugins at the top of your thread. :-) Thanks!

Otherwise, good job! This should help answer some questions.

[yellowman]

Thank you david.atwell very much yes I will add a list for all 3 plugins used in this tutorial but I posted quickly because I had a bad connection and was scaring of losing every thing, then I will be so mad :evil: , I am still working on it I hope I can finish it without getting any troubles

Edit/ well there is some more applications for this tutorial, not just text I posted them as well.

[pophiri]

Brilliant tutorial Yellowman.

Lots of ideas for how to use it, just have to find the time to try them out.

Thanks

[Possum Roadkill]

First off, just learning how to do text in a circle/arc is very useful to me. I have always wondered how to do it, but realized figuring out the process was beyond my understanding. Now I understand ! Thanks so much ! This is so easy even I can do it. Thanks Yellowman. Again, another very useful tut that is well done, easy to understand and teaches something that people can really use. You are a master teacher.

Secondly, after much confusion on my part, I realized that the Anim plug-in goes in the file types not the effects folder. Then I was on my way ! Thank you so much Simon Brown, this really changes everything !

[Museless]

I followed the tutorial but one curve ball. All I have to save for the save files are ANIMATED GIF (as opposed to animated PNG). And my file says "GENERATING PREVIEW" (in windows) and when it loads it just a black box.

[yellowman]

I followed the tutorial but one curve ball. All I have to save for the save files are ANIMATED GIF (as opposed to animated PNG). And my file says "GENERATING PREVIEW" (in windows) and when it loads it just a black box

Did you complete step 14? You have to change the file extension from *.agif to *.gif or *.apng to *.png

Windows can not open agif and apng files if you don't remove the "a", try to open them with FireFox instead.

Hint: windows usually hides the known file extensions, so you have to view it to be able to change it, I hope this answered your question.

[Onemorelevel]

:shock: Wow, Great use of PDN, could be used for many text effects!

P.S. a lot of newbies ask for this too, so, thanks.

[yellowman]

Thanks, and you can also use Shape-3D, to make the curved text, like this

[Spankie]

thanks for the circular text info, once you said polar inversion,the voices in my head said "Duh". But I do have the same problem with teh black box issue. I saved it to my desktop as "Rotating Text.agif" then renamed ot "Rotating Text.gif" but it just came out to be a black box.

I'm more than certain I followed all the steps, which probably means I missed one lol. Any help would be nice, thanks

[yellowman]

Do you have same result when saving in *.APNG format? If not, then you need to select the transparent spaces and hit delete on your keyboard, do that to each layer using the Magic Wand with a Global option, then save the animation as *.agif , your layers are not 100% transparent, hope it will work.

[Dgalmun]

Cool, but everytime I save it gets a black screen, I followed all your directions but it gets messed up. I have all the plugins. The problem is also the png, I don't have the animated png filetype. It'll be so much better if it's in a video...

[yellowman]

Cool, but everytime I save it gets a black screen, I followed all your directions but it gets messed up. I have all the plugins. The problem is also the png, I don't have the animated png filetype. It'll be so much better if it's in a video...

You mean to do this tutorial in a video? Sometimes the PND *.agif plugin doesn't support transparent background, so just do the steps I explained them to Spankie ( above your post) and tell me.

I just tried it and worked well, but as I mentioned in the tutorial the quality is not so good for agif files, especially with transparent background:

[Dgalmun]

Cool, but everytime I save it gets a black screen, I followed all your directions but it gets messed up. I have all the plugins. The problem is also the png, I don't have the animated png filetype. It'll be so much better if it's in a video...

You mean to do this tutorial in a video? Sometimes the PND *.agif plugin doesn't support transparent background, so just do the steps I explained them to Spankie ( above your post) and tell me.

I just tried it and worked well, but as I mentioned in the tutorial the quality is not so good for agif files, especially with transparent background:

Tried that and I'm still having problems

[Briamoth]

Nice Tut! I'll be using this in the future.

For those with trouble: It is much easier with the .apng extension. To have this file type supported follow Simon Brown's instructions by following the link to the plugin above. The instructions are under one of the hidden flap things. Hope this helps!

[Woodsy]

Again thanks go to @ReMake for providing new pictures in this tutorial moving it from the Graveyard and eliminating the Photobucket logo.

It worked for me!