

Once you have everything set, click on the Animate button to see how your work will look.Ī few caveats here - don't be worried if the quality during the test animation looks a bit choppy and rough, especially with regards to the edges of your text against the background. Finally, control the animation objects by clicking on the animation button and setting things like the frame rate, whether or not you want the lights to rotate too, and which axis of rotation you want to use. Click on the lightbulb to display the light objects in your project so you can move them around and change their colours. Select the Bevel options button to give your text a nice "carved" finish. Click on the Extrusion button to control how much "depth" your text will have. Choose the text button to change the text string.


The navigation bar provides quick access to functions that you will use in every single graphic you create. Xara3D has an interface that is very intuitive to use. I guarantee it - within five minutes of installing this program, you'll have a spinning graphic somewhere on your web site. Xara3D lets you create these special graphics with almost no work at all. Used in the right amounts, in the right situations, they can look downright fantastic.

Used in excess, they can make your site look gawdy. Consider how many times you have wandered around on the internet, seeing spinning logos aplenty. What does Xara3D do then, exactly? Xara3D is a program that lets you take a block of text (as simple as a single character, or an entire sentence), apply some 3D effects to it (beveling, extrusion, special lighting), and then export it either as a static image or as an animated GIF or AVI (Video for Windows) file in which your block of text is rotating around an axis. Take out the excess, remove the fluff, and create products that do one thing really well, rather than a bunch of things so-so. Xara actually refer to their product as "slimware". When I offered to review Xara3D 2.1, I wasn't sure what to expect.Ī 3D program that fits on a floppy can't have much in it, can it? Well, Xara3D is special. Just what we need, right? Well, maybe, maybe not. You are here: irt.org | Software Reviews | Graphics | Xara 3D 2 by Jason Nugent īah - another drawing program.
