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NOVEMBER 19, 2003 Adobe Illustrator CS
I should also add that the Revolve function can be applied to a path at less than full revolution. The example below shows our sphere revolved to 270 degrees rather than the full 360 degrees, which can be useful for creating 3D graph effects, such as pie charts.  [an error occurred while processing this directive]Be careful with this one, however. If you already have artwork applied to an object and then change the revolve value, it's an automatic application crash. The same goes for changing an object's stroke and fill colors after a not-fully revolved object has been mapped.There's also a third 3D Effect called Rotate, which simply allows you to take an object and alter its X, Y and Z rotation and apply 3D lighting. It does not, however, support mapped artwork or any kind of shading other than "none" or diffuse.  Now, none of this is not to say that the 3D functionality in Illustrator CS is perfect. It's not. In fact, it has quite a few flaws, many of which I hope to see fixed up in an update coming very soon. The most blatant flaws are in the category of bugs. If you apply a texture map and then go back in to edit your 3D object with preview turned on, the texture map occasionally disappears, though this problem diminished somewhat after I manually trashed my entire Creative Suite and reinstalled it. Also, at times, the texture map isn't displayed properly. If you change the angle of the object, for example, a whole chunk of the texture map may be missing. And I also experienced numerous crashes when applying texture maps to objects with a high number of "surfaces," though, once again, this was primarily before reinstalling the software. And speaking of numerous surfaces, it's something that you do have to be careful about. In my initial review, I mentioned that Illustrator creates a huge number of surfaces even on simple objects, and that each one of these surfaces has to be individually mapped with an image. However, I've since discovered that this issue can be greatly alleviated by applying the effect to objects that have a fill only--no stroke and definitely no combination of strokes and fills. Using a stroke with no fill, the object above had three "surfaces." Using just a fill, it had only one, vastly simplifying the mapping process. There are still cases where Illustrator can produce large numbers of surfaces that you have to map individually, but this can, at least, be minimized using just a fill with the object. Despite any flaws, the 3D functionality can be used to good effect. If you want to compare it with the 3D functionality in Freehand MX, I'd say it has about as many bugs of equal severity but with some genuine advantages, especially the texture mapping and Revolve functions. Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next Related sites: • Animation Artist • AV Video • Creative Mac • Digital Animators • Digital Media Designer • Digital Post Production • Digital Producer • Film and Video Magazine • Presentation Master • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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