Go back to the previous layer, select the back faces of your logo [FIGURE 2], cut and paste them into the same layer as the front faces.

Again back to the previous layer: this time cut the side polygons [FIGURE 3] out of your logo (leaving only the bevels) and paste them into a new layer. Now go into each layer and assign polygon surface names to the individual elements - and since you've already separated them, you don't need to do any additional polygon selecting.

In the layer containing the front and back polygons of your logo, go to the Polygon Surface Panel and name them something descriptive like "LOGO - front/back". Follow this same procedure in the layers containing the side polygons and the bevel polygons, being sure to give them individual surface names such as "LOGO - sides" and "LOGO - bevels". Now it's a simple manner to multi-select the three layers (selecting the layers while holding down the shift key ) and to save the new object. You'll end up with an object for which you'll have complete control over smoothing and reflections. The above operations can be achieved in a slightly more efficient manner than outlined, but I'm trying to keep the concepts as simple as possible. For example, you can pull off the same results while staying in the same layer by first selecting the logo elements, naming them, and while the segment is still selected, doing a quick cut and paste right back into the same layer.

I'm taking it for granted that you've been careful to save your work in progress as you've been going along so as not to make a mistake and lose all your work. Don't let Modeler's improved undo function lure you into a false sense of security. It is far too common a mistake that all of us are guilty of from time to time. But a real production deadline doesn't often afford such an oversight, so save your work as you go, and save yourself some potential anguish. Whenever I do a 3D project, that project gets its own subdirectories within the scene, objects, and images directory. This way, I can easily get the project to another machine (I've seen too many animators throw all of their project elements into the roots of these directories). But inside the objects directory, within the project subdirectory (For example, a project named "NEWLOGO"), I create an additional directory called "SCRATCH". This is where I'll throw in things on a fairly regular basis while modeling. Every time I make a change that took a few minutes or more to achieve, I'll toss it in this directory with names such as temp01.lwo, temp02.lwo, temp03.lwo, etc. When the logo is in its final form, then I'll save into the root of the actual project directory. As you might guess, this is also a good practice when dealing with surface experimentation in Layout. So of course, I have a scratch directory within my surfaces directory as well. How many times have you tweaked surface settings and found that you've strayed too far from the look you had, and no matter how hard you try, you can never get that exact look again? As for myself, too many times. It's the nature of a 3D artist to tweak settings, but it takes discipline to remember to save as we go.

Another common mistake I've seen animators make in creating logos from available fonts is that they'll often be content with whatever spacing that Modeler placed between each character after they've generated the text. You should never consider this auto-spacing as the ideal amount of kerning. It will almost always put some characters too close or too far from each other. Initially, I like getting a little space between the characters for breathing room while I work on them ( point editing, extruding, beveling, etc.. ) and then, once I'm done, I'll move the characters closer to each other. If you like, you can try actually hitting the space bar between each character in the text entry box of Modeler's 'Make Text' Panel to give you the space you need. But once you're done editing the text, how close together should you manually move the characters? Well, this is just an opinion of mine, but I believe a logo with text spaced too comfortably apart has an amateur feel to it. For the most part, I like to keep the characters very close together. The only time I deviate from this is when it obviously detracts from the readability. But like I said, this is an opinion. There are no hard rules here, however, I encourage you to make the comparison yourself for each logo you design. I think you'll find that text spaced too far apart gives a weaker impression [FIGURE 4].

For our next installment, in which we'll explore a few different surface possibilities for professional looking logos, we'll gear more toward Lightwave's Layout.

Until then, render 'til ya drop!