TrueTypeText 2018 for LightWave 2018 (interactive dynamic text generation in Layout)

[Sensei]

Hello!

I would like to inform that TrueArt's TrueTypeText 2018 for LightWave 2018 has been released!
http://truetypetext.trueart.eu/
(it also works with LW 2015.3)

TrueType Text is fully interactive text generating plugin, in which you can enter single-line or multi-line text,
pick up font you're interested in, and change parameters and alignment of text, including edge smoothing/rounding.

To different parts of character there are generated separate surfaces, thus allowing to have different colors for front, back, side and rounding of text.

Everything can be changed at any time. Change of script is updated in real-time. It can be also loaded from, or saved to separate text file.

Characters, words, rows, columns, have specially generated Weight maps, assigning them unique ID,
thus allowing to show text word by word, character by character, during animation
(it has been presented on example video tutorial).
In Displacement Node Editor, you can use Weight maps, to animate parts (characters, words, etc.) independently.



You can read more, watch videos, and order plugin here:
http://truetypetext.trueart.eu/
Plugin costs only $50.

Older users can upgrade to TrueTypeText 2018 for $25.
Please write e-mail with System Information, and I will set up upgrade page for you.

Best Regards!

ps. On screen-shot quote from Wikipedia. Basic quantum physics. "how to create matter and antimatter from light".

[Sensei]

Example nodal set up for wavy and animated text (Char weight map).

Gray gradient used with Rows weight map.

Black surface used for Rounding and Side surfaces, giving impression of outline text.

[Snosrap]

Can the text be beveled and stuff like that?

[pixym]

What a marvelous and long awaited addition for LW !

[papou]

Sensei,
In modeler somes fonts aren't been booleanised correctly.
how are the text Boolean into your plugin?
Do you help Layout to booleanise well?

- - - Updated - - -

Sensei,
In modeler somes fonts aren't been booleanised correctly.
how are the text Boolean into your plugin?
Do you help Layout to booleanise well?

And a question about about LW2018 modeler font's support or Boolean... are they fixed?

[Sensei]

Sensei,
In modeler somes fonts aren't been booleanised correctly.
how are the text Boolean into your plugin?
Do you help Layout to booleanise well?

But Layout does not have (animated) Boolean operation which works on geometry...

You could use Clip Map for simpler cases, if you want to disappear part of text in animation. I tried it, and works fine.

[papou]

oh sorry: I mean the hole in the letters.

[ConjureBunny]

Top notch work man, top notch!

-Chilton

[BigHache]

In modeler somes fonts aren't been booleanised correctly.

Going out on a limb, are these free fonts, or commercially purchased fonts giving issue?

[papou]

Most Operating System fonts works.
but with Helvetica Neue font (very used ), modeler can't do the hole of the A or O correctly.
There is a lot of fonts like that, most of them are free fonts.

(I'm not sure anymore if that is a boolean issue from lw8.x ... maybe just a fonts issues)

[BigHache]

I asked because I have found issues with free fonts in 3D software a lot. In printing most things are fine, but when you bring into 3D and extrude they show.

Take 2 fonts you know do not work. Take a letter from each that is not doing the knockout correctly. Bring into a program like Illustrator, outline the letter, and check the points around the knockout and see if you find two points not joined, on top of one another. If you find that, there is the issue.

I know Helvetica Neue is used a lot, but where did this one come from? There are several sources for Helvetica Neue.

[gerry_g]

If you use a Font prog like Fontographer or Fontlab you will know that fonts characters have their splines set up a certain way, the outside main one uses a clockwise direction for the spline and the inside or negative one uses the converse (so does illustrator) and this how your computer knows how to read it correctly, so properly authored fonts tend to work better than the diy ones, also LW is so old that it predates the introduction of the open type format and that is more likely the root of the problem as they read ok every where else but in LW, just get used to either having auto axis drill checked or if that doesn't work cut and paste all the inner bits to a new layer and stencil them back in.

PS if you had a font utility such as Fontlab, path correction and path optimisation are one click processes

[raymondtrace]

...PS if you had a font utility such as Fontlab, path correction and path optimisation are one click processes

FontForge also offers font cleanup/repair, although with maybe more than "one click processes".

https://fontforge.github.io/en-US/

Being a free application, the only barrier to success is knowing what you're doing. Tweaking fonts can be dangerous in some hands.

[Rayek]

I assume custom kerning per letter pair is also possible? I couldn't find it on the description page. Custom control over kerning is kinda essential to have - I noticed the terrible kerning in some of the demo videos. And is it possible to also edit the text directly in the viewport instead of the separate text editor?

Is it possible to have one resolution setting for the viewport, and one for rendering, in order to speed up things? I noticed in the video editing was quite slow with larger texts - this would be a boon to have.