Pixar Typestry

Typestry1.jpg
Typestry2.jpg
Typestry3.jpg
Typestry4.jpg

Pixar is known more as a high-end animation house than as a developer of marketable computer graphics products, the only exception being their proprietary "RenderMan" software (used by many Hollywood studios to produce state-of-the-art computer rendered animations). Typestry doesn't pretend to be an all-around 3D program, but centers instead upon one narrow targeted aspect of 3D graphics, 3D text graphics and animation.

Features: Drawing from their Renderman technology and experience, Typestry exhibits more professional options than many programs that claim to be full featured 3D art and animation programs. We will look at its features under four separate headings: importation of text objects, addition of backdrops and lights, rendering options, and animation capacity.

Text Objects: Importing a text object into Typestry couldn't be more straight forward. Just select any typeface you have, write your message (any number of lines that will fit on the screen), and render. This will give you a front faced 3D text rendering. A digital object has no personality without a texture, and Pixar calls Typestry textures "looks". Typestry comes with a special Looks CD whose libraries are "unlocked" as you purchase them. There are dozens of textures in each separate library. A default Looks Library comes with the software. Included are metals, marbles, woods, and other more esoteric algorithmic textures that take on the personality of organic textures, skin, glass, and non-earthly looks. Any objects stored as a font file can be translated into a Typestry element. Adobe Illustrator saves can be imported into Typestry as text objects, rendered with any chosen Look, and animated.

3D text can be built as a normal extrusion, as a tubular arrangement, or as a 3D "Flag". Extrusions come with their own bevel editor, so one need not be chained to default extrusion samples. Tubular text has the look of outline- only text. The tubular outline’s cross section may be circular, square, or scooped out. "Flags" in Typestry are special 3D surfaces (wavy flags, banners, disk, sphere, cylinder) upon which the text is placed. You can choose to see only the text, the text as a cutout on the surface, or just the surface. A "PixarPerfs" font is installed with the program that allows you to create all sorts of interesting objects for use as props or for integrating with the text. Animation can be targeted to Typestry flags so that they move over time. Typestry renderings can be set to “quick and dirty” modes or very high quality renderings. Typestry eats up a lot of RAM in its rendering process, so the more RAM you are able to have on your system when using Typestry, the better. It’s not a good idea to multitask while Typestry is running unless you have more than 30MB of RAM available.

Backgrounds and Lights: You can select backgrounds from Typestry's background effects or use one of your own saved graphics as a Typestry background. Typestry's internal backgrounds are specialized graphics designed to highlight foreground text. You can select from "Wall", "Floor", or both "Wall and Floor". Selecting both gives you the appearance of a 3D perspective environment. Walls and/or Floors may be texturized just like any 3D text object, and either may be placed at different distances from the eye or "camera". Your original graphics can be painted to a background as a planar surface or as seen through a fish-eye lens.

Typestry's Lights is represented by a graphic matrix with paired sliders that address nine separate lighting positions plus ambient lighting and environment mapping. The lights can act as slide projectors for images in addition to other more esoteric options, an effect that causes subtle light changes in an animated sequence. Shadows can be toggled on or off, and the intensity and color of all lights can be set. Full front lighting and back lighting are also supported.

Animation: As with most other 3D computer animation software, you deal with keyframe events and timelines to produce animations in Pixar’s Typestry. The whole process is called "composing a score”. Numbered single frames are saved out to a file, then composited into an animation by a utility called "Movie Maker”. This process is used to create both QuickTime or Video for Windows animations.

Particle Effects: Typestry has a fully implemented particle system on board that allows you to add animated particles, from sparks to marbles, to finished renderings. The particle generator is accessed by a specific series of commands, all of which are given high visibility in the documentation.

Pixar's Typestry is a complex high end package. Don't expect to master it quickly. Getting walls and floors to render logically by understanding their placement is a difficult task, as is understanding how to apply pictures to backdrops or objects (reflection settings). You will not be able to produce the fancy graphics shown in the manual without some long effort and dedicated study.