Creating a faux hung banner

I love new and original challenges when we make a sign. Generally as I design the concept drawing I have a vague idea of how we are going to build it - just enough to not lose any sleep. The actual figuring out of how we will accomplish this is left until we begin work and not a minute before. That's what makes my work so much fun!

For this project we started with a client's design for a new ride in a theme park. Most often we insist on creating our own artwork but this was fun and quirky enough to go ahead as is - save for some color switches.  The vectors were ready to go minus the drop shadow on the lettering and white highlights on the dots. To get rid of those we just had to delete those vectors.

The client wants a fun but natural looking theme. We went with mechanical bugs and added some gnarly trees. I wanted the sign to look like a cloth banner, but it needed to be tough and look good for decades. I also wanted the letters to be dimensional. That meant we would route the sign from 30 lb Precision Board and imbed a steel frame in the middle for strength. Somewhere in it's lifetime someone is bound to do some chin-ups or climb up for a selfie. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

I imported the lettering and quickly drew up a banner shape. Notice the lettering although plenty fun does not droop like the banner.

Luckily the latest version of EnRoute has a handy dandy warp tool (transform) to do the warping for me. I selected it and then opened the warp took. It is a simple matter of grabbing the handles and adjusting things until I was happy. 

Then hit enter to see what the final result looked like. I was happy! I added a couple more nodes and adjusted the corners of the banner.

I duplicated the banner and created a cutout for the structural steel which would be laminated inside. As a last step I created an outline around the letters using the offset tool.

I wanted the fabric of the banner to wrinkle up a bit to look like it was being suspended by the top corners. To do this I opened a screen shot of the banner outline in Photoshop and then created a quick bitmap. As always I thought about how the bitmap would work inside EnRoute. White raised - black does nothing and greys react somewhere in between - depending on their value. I knew a blended bitmap should work pretty good.

Once I had the bitmap in hand I created a flat relief in EnRoute. 

I then imported the bitmap and located it over my relief. I assigned a value of .75". This meant the white areas of my bitmap would raise that location by .75" and the black would do nothing.  I hit enter and then the render button to see it my plan worked...

It worked perfectly!

I then modified this relief by raising the area around the letters.

I modified the relief two more times with the lettering and dot vectors. Everything perfectly followed the contours of the folded banner. I love it when a plan comes together! :) I can hardly wait to see it routed!

Merry Dragon - part one

Each year we do a special display piece for our friends at Coastal Enterprises. They manufacture Precision Board high density urethane - the board we use to make many of our projects. We discussed this year's feature and decided a little pub sign would be just the ticket. I whipped up a sketch which was enthusiastically approved.

I found a font I liked and tweaked and modified it to suit the little sign. I did this work in Illustrator. I then imported the vectors into EnRoute and began building the routing files.

I drew up three separate boards using the drawing tools. It was important they be three separate boards as I wanted to use my new wood texture collection to heavily modify them.

I first made these three boards into a relief. I used a value of 0.5"

I started with the centre board. I first applied a wood texture bitmap. I used a little bigger number than usual to make the grain more pronounced - 0.25"

I then imported a modifier bitmap from the same collection. This would warp the board. Once again I used a fairly big number 0.4" as a modifier to create a more dramatic effect.

I checked the front view and could see the effect the bitmaps had created.

In the side view the effect was apparent. The board had warped - just as I had envisioned.

For the next board on the right side I opened two bitmaps. One was a modifier designed to bring out the weathered effects of the woodgrain. The other was the woodgrain itself. I sized them at the same time to ensure I could easily line them up. They would be applied one at a time.

I then applied a third bitmap to this same board. Knowing that white affects the relief and black does nothing I knew it would effectively twist the board.

The third board received a flat grain bitmap.

Flat grain boards in real life will often cup and so I then applied a bitmap to achieve this effect.

I checked the front view to make sure I had achieved what I desired. All was good.

It was then time to turn my attention to the lettering. I started with a raised border which was created as a separate relief.

I then drew a rectangle vector under the boards which I made into a relief. I combined this rectangular relief with the board reliefs.

I then duplicated the board background relief and flipped the copy for the back side of the sign.

The letter outline was then merged highest with the front and back of the sign.

The lettering was added by modifying the board relief using the bevel tool. This made the sign file ready to tool path and send off to the MultiCam.

The sign faces were routed from 1.5" thick 30 lb Precision Board.

The sign will be comprised of four layers of 1.5" Precision Board. The centre sections has pockets routed into them to allow a 2" square tubing frame to be laminated inside. The slots along the bottom are where the 1/2" thick steel sign bracket will be pocketed. It will be welded to the square tubing for a secure mounting.

New bitmap magic

Our TEXTURE MAGIC COLLECTION of bitmaps works really well, allowing us to achieve a whole lot of fancy and creative textures in a hurry. But many have asked me to work up more woodgrains for the next collection which will be released soon. I'm all ears. But I also wanted to take things a whole lot further to make the textures do much, much more. It is exciting to watch the new collection come together.

There will be lots of new woodgrains to choose from. But they will also be paired with some secondary bitmaps which will make the woodgrains much more believable. Special effects will also be possible with a third set of bitmaps in the collection to allow the wood to look twisted, warped or bent. Imagine what will be possible!

I tested the first set of bitmaps today by creating a name plaque for a new friend.

The thing to remember about bitmaps is that they work by reading the values. Black does nothing. While raises by the value you enter. Greys do something in between.

The bitmaps I used on this file are below. The top one was used to warp the board. The middle bitmap were used to enhance and add the character of the woodgrain on the bottom.

To start creating the file I first opened the bitmap files. The thing to remember in using multiple bitmaps that must be matched is that they need to be resized at the same time to maintain their proportions. I used the bottom woodgrain bitmap as a reference as I drew out the board vectors. I wanted this board to look weathered and old. 

Because I would be warping the board I created a second rectangle which I would use to build a separate relief and warp the to match the board. The lettering would be built up from this surface and then merged with the warped board. This way the two surfaces would match. The rivet band relief which would go along the right edge was also built separately and warped with the same bitmap.

I used the distort tool to wiggle up the rectangle and rivets. This would make them instantly old when I created the relief.

With the vectors complete I started making the simple flat reliefs. I started with the board.

The relief which I would build the lettering on was next.

The rivet band was last.

I then positioned the twist fade over the reliefs and applied it to all three of the reliefs. The resulting twist was subtle but most visible in the 3D render.

Next up I used the prismatic tool to modify the rivet band relief and create the rivets

The woodgrain was then applied to the biggest relief.

The woodgrain looked good but was naturally flat.

The paired relief which created a much more weathered and textured look fixed the flatness in a hurry!

I then added some weathering to the rivet band using the splotches bitmap (from the original collection)

I checked the end view to see how much the rivet band was sticking above the weathered wood. The twist of the board is evident in this view.

I then modified the rectangle relief by raising the lettering outline. It protruded through the woodgrain.

Once I had checked it and nudged it (up or down) appropriately in the front view it was time to MERGE HIGHEST with the wood relief. I also combined the wood and rivet band reliefs.

The lettering was then created by modifying the base relief using the lettering vectors as a mask.

Using those same lettering vectors I added the splotches bitmap to the lettering surfaces.

The file was then ready for tool pathing and was sent off to the Multicam to be cut from 1.5" 30 lb Precision Board. Once it was cut I used an air powered die grinder to add texture to the edges of the board plus cut a hole to create a knot hole in the board. It only took about five minutes to get the board ready for the hand sculpting, paint and gold leaf. Stay tuned for those steps.