ave you ever wanted to have a really sharp looking logo to use as a brush for a client (even yourself) in CG, but never knew how? Well, just a few moments here online, and you'll be making great looking brushes with the best of them!

Hotkeys used in this tutorial are in italics; if you don't know 'em, learn 'em. It shaves time off the day's work once you do!

OK, let's get started:
Load the NewTek/Objects/Games/Dart.LWO, and go to the Scene panel and set the first frame 1, last frame 1
(Or feel free to insert the logo of your choosing at this point. The better the texture and detail, the more you'll understand the benefits when we're through).

Rotate the dart ~ -74 degrees, pitch down ~ -13 degrees, and make a keyframe (Enter, Enter)
It should nearly fill the screen from this view.
Now go to the camera panel, Render in medium Res, Low Anti-Alias
In Record panel, click on Save RGB images
Click on Volumes button, save to RAM: as dart1
Render (f10) (It should only take about 1 minute)

Now, we couldn't just load this into CG, as it would fill the screen, and besides, CG brushes have a limited acceptable width.

So exit LightWave, and enter ImageFX (or TPaint)
Click on 'load' and 'volumes' load dart1001.iff
Click on the scissors icon twice to perform a no-background cutout of our brush
Right-click to clear the ImageFX menu from the screen,
Drag out a rectangle around the dart
right-click to bring back the IFX menu
select the Size button
select the Halve option
Select Brush; Save Brush As; OK (ILBM default)
Volumes; RAM Disk; dart1.bru
Quit; return to LW

Now, select camera (spacebar); Mouse|move; numeric (n); x=0, y=0, z=-1.
make your keyframe (enter, enter)
Choose limited region in the Layout screen (l).
Then, while holding down the l, move the corners of the box to just contain the dart outline and release.
Camera panel should show a limited region button checked,with a region size of approx. 130x57.
Change resolution to High Resolution, Medium Anti-Alias. Notice how our region's size jumped to 256 x 114, since we've doubled our resolution.
Go to the Record Panel, and click on save RGB (once deselects; twice re-selects)
Name this file as dart2
Click continue to clear the Record panel, and Render F10
Now, cut this image out in ImageFX in the same manner as above, and save in Ram Disk as Dart2.bru.

Here's where the payoff occurs:
Now return to the Switcher and go into CG (F9) Load both brushes, place on-screen and render the buffer.
I just chose the Dart object so you could see what was going on here.

Some tips to remember:

• If you have a high-contrast object to render out, or something that contains both black and white, then you need to choose a background color in LightWave that is not part of your object's palette; Something wild like hot pink or deep purple is a safe bet.

• The objects, when rendering in High Res, need to be very small in the layout window. It takes getting used to after working so long in Medium resolution, but you'll quickly discover, after loading it into CG, how big your final brush really is.

• The reason we want to render them in High Res, instead of medium, is fine detail. Try putting some fractal noise or a wood image on the logo, and render that out, and you will quickly see what I mean!

The result will be a brush that looks clean, crisp and professional. And hey, why did you spend so much time in modeler making an awesome Logo for your client if you can't use it in CG, anyway? Using this approach, you can move your camera in closer or pull it out farther to create different size brushes (I have found that three sizes are sufficient most of the time).

This should only be a starting point for you. LightWave is clearly the best CG package in your toolbox. Hopefully, this will get you thinking of ways to have that gorgeous looking font ready in CG for your client's visit. As they remark "Wow! That looks great!", calmly reply: "Yeah. Think nothing of it. Free of charge since you're my best client!"

:)

VDO Productions

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