How to bend or round out text?

[Dillon Wright]

I would like to know how to bend a text so I can use it for rounded signs and text that is in a circle(like the Mickey Mouse Club circle logo). 

[Rodney]

I do wish OpenToonz had some more director distortion tools to use while drawing BUT... there are several ways to bend or curve text (and shapes in general).

For complex text shaping (and kerning) I recommend programs more dedicated to that task (Blackmagic Fusion has an incredible Text capability).

At any rate, outside of Distort FX the main way to curve text in OpenToonz would be to use the Plastic Tool.

- Draw a simple rectangle and use that to create a Plastic mesh.

- Then add some text to another level and make sure it fill fit inside the shape of that rectangle

- Build the Plastic Skeleton so that it has enough nodes to be able to distort the shape without awkward breaks etc.

- Parent the Text Level to the Mesh level (and disconnect the Rectangle level... you don't need that any more)

- Animate the Plastic Skeleton to bend the text.

Render and adjust to taste.

Serve with dessert.

 

[Rodney]

You can also do this per letter of text but that can take a considerably more complex plastic skeleton so when in doubt keep it simple.

Another plus to using the rectangle (or larger shapes) is that we can swap out the text or image and it will automatically bend the new image/text without setup.

If each letter has it's own mesh... we can't do that.

Added:  Here I swapped out the text with some drawn letters and it automatically bent according to the settings I had for the previous text.

[Dillon Wright]

What about manually selecting each letter in the text and rotating it to fit its desired position? More work, but more accurate.

[Rodney]

Sure.  As long as you have time you can do almost anything.  :)

Where that might get harder is when you have a whole lot of text and images you want to shape.

I would say for most people manual adjustment won't be more accurate because most of us don't have the patience and we are all prone to mistakes.

So 'accurate' will depend on the person and the time, skill and experience mixed with patience they are willing to devote to the task.

I know I would not want to do it manually unless I absolutely have to.

For a high degree of accuracy... invest in learning and using a program dedicated to that level of accuracy.