So I've been following this forum for some time now, and followed the super3boy tutorials on youtube. This is my first try at writing a tutorial, so please be gentle
I wrote this tutorial, because I couldn't find any really good text tutorials and searching for "text" brought up a lot of texturing hits.
The thing I'll run you through making will be something like this:
(btw. Kaizers Orchestra is a brilliant Nowegian band - see http://www.kaizers.no/)
Step one will be to delete the default cube and insert some text
The default text "text" is shown. The first thing to do now is to make it say Kaizers Orchestra instead, either that or convince the band to change names to text, for this tutorial I'll be going with option number one.
Of course editing text is done by going into edit mode (press tab) the text will now have a somewhat ugly cursor after the text, use it like your favourite text editor.
Now change the text to Kaizers (or whatever the first word of your favourite band is), the reason for doing this is that it will be easier to position the text afterwards than if it was created using an enter sign. When the text is changed, switch out of editmode (using tab).
As I am an engineer of profession I prefer to set up the scene using the control button when moving etc. so switch the alignment to center, this is done under the editing tab and the Font box, we'll be using this box a lot more, so go find it now.
*EDIT 2.5: The alignment is now changed by pressing the "Origin" button on the left side (Tool bar?)
Next step is finding the right font, the font I used is under open font license and found at http://openfontlibrary.org/media/files/PintassilgoPrints/430 please make sure you always have an open font, just using the fonts that come with windows might get you into trouble one day if you do not know what you are doing. Openfontlibrary.org is a fine place to get your fonts for blender.
I was a bit discouraged when I read a post on the blender forum that blender doesn't support truetype fonts but needs Postscript type 1 fonts, gladly, much have happened since 2002 and today blender happily took the ttf file.
Now in order to use the correct font, save the Parafuse font (or whatever other font you like) to a directory you know where is, for example your project directory. Now hit the "Load" button in the font box and select the ttf file in the file chooser directory, and hit the SELECT FONT button.
*EDIT 2.5: Along with the materials, modifiers and other goodies, there will now be an "F" tab called "Object data", under this, find the "Font" section and change the "Regular" option by clicking the folder icon.
The font should now be changed.
Now add the second text, edit it to read "Orchestra" (or floyd or John or Dion or whatever) center it and move it down by pressing G Y so you keep the alignment. Remember to change the font face again, you should now be able to select it from the drop down box, that says <builtin>
Now if you want to extrude the text etc. you will need to convert it to a mesh, this is done by hitting Alt+C, this will not be needed for this tutorial though, it is just added for completeness.
Now add the plane beneath the text so you can make cool shadows and reflection textures. A neat fix because of the angle I had to do was to move the plane slightly off centre so it seems on the centre axis.
Please post your text tryouts here, I hope you enjoyed this, my first, tutorial
