Hello everyone! Thanks for taking the time to read and for any advice or direction you can provide.

Image Description:
Similar to a shark's tooth - yet w/a flat front. (see attached file)

Need:
3D render of unique Illustrator shape. Looking for a 3D render (ideally in Illustrator) so I can change angles and the shape, lighting etc, keep in-line (vs. having to redraw each and every time.)
Purpose: Piece of a logo. Logo will be 3d (or faux 3d.)

Closest Solution:
Take the original flat shape, do an Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Then an Object > Expand Appearance. This effect tends to render what appears to be 1.5 million slivers shaded insets (which is great if this is how it is meant to work.) I'm not sure how

Issues:
1) Corners are not rendering properly. I can take each 'sliver' and modify to fake the corners out, but prefer a clean 3D translation.

2) This appears does not appear to lend itself to changing angles on the shape - as if need to redraw each time.

Thanks everyone. The image is enclosed with a few versions. Any help would be great!

-PixelRogue

encl: test.ai (CS3 in .zip file)

downloaded,
lets see...

your talking bout 3d solution,
but therfore i need to know what 3d program you have...

i could try to make 3d mesh....
i'll take a look at the ILL file first.

avoiding problems, change this option:
Click to view attachment

But off course you should tell a little more what exacly your after.

Thank you for your help.

You mentioned "avoiding problems, change this option." Which problems and which options?

What I'm going after: The equivalent of a shark's tooth w/a flat front. That is the best way I can describe it. The shape itself resembles a shark's tooth...from a wire frame point-of-view. I'll be using a few of these images in an abstract illustration. The idea is to get the top flat, shape w/dimension..bevelled sides. That gray image seem is the closest.

extruding outward to avoid the problems with the corners and changing to classic will give you the best edge, since ILL tends to mess up when a very sharp edge needs to be beveled.

Also i would suggest to keep it grey and make a texture to put on it, you can see the update realtime in your file.

i'll prepare a file for you to look at (DVD box); but that will have to wait till wednessday.

That would be great... thanks for the help. If it is easier give a shot w/the .ill file attached to the thread...

Say - your tip really helped out and got the image closer. Can the effect be tweaked after the window's been closed (the 3d effect window) as I'm finding myself having to recreate from scratch each time to experiment.

I'm looking to use a few of those shapes w/a single light source, which would light up each shape differently (light in the middle of the shapes).

On your idea of keeping the image grey and mapping a texture - i understand the concept but haven't tried yet (never tried) so I'll get to experiment w/that next..not sure where to start.

yes,
in the appearance palette, double click the effect and it will reopen.

Dont you just love Illustrator.

Remember that you can use anything to "texturize" it.

Click to view attachment

Ok. Fantastic - btw- your tips have taught me a ton!

Now when it comes to mapping, I created a solid color and made it a symbol and went through and mapped the shape (fit to scale mode). Is there a way to apply the one symbol globally to the entire shape (vs. the 7 clicks per piece of the shape mapping each and every one manually).

That being complete, it appears the color is laid over top of the grey, so the result is more of a color hugh to the grey. I'm looking to make the symbol(s) a solid color - 3d shading. it is getting so close but I'm not doing something right w/the mapping...


[update] Mapping a solid color to the shape gives the same result as selecting the shape and picking a color from the palette.

[update] It appears the shading color in the 3D window is what is going on. This will take a while to get the right shading color going. Any tips?