flash actionscript: I need to render a name (visitor of the site - input comes from an input text
field) on a glass. Not letter by letter but the whole name onces the visitor
clicks ok. I'm using an embedded font. Any ideas how to do this?

Hi kglad, how are you?

lol. hope it's a big glass like say a riedel burgendy.

you'll need to use a textfield that's a child of a movieclip. you'll then
need to create a bitmap object and use the draw() method of bitmaps to copy the
movieclip to the bitmap. and then for the hard part, you'll need to remap (i
haven't worked that out) the bitmap to produce the effect you want.

i'm sure it's doable. and i've lately been thinking about creating an
extension of the bitmap class to transform bitmaps, but i haven't implemented
it yet.

(i like thinking about projects for a while before starting them.)

Yep, and it's exactly that hard part that is bothering me. Was thinking about
using Sandy but don't know yet for sure if Sandy provides the tools for this
effect. I'm not a native speaker as you know. Do you have a suggestion for
search words?
This guy has it worked out - http://lab.mathieu-badimon.com/ -> warped text

ouch. that crashed my browser. and i don't care for the coding, but
otherwise... .

i'm not sure about sandy. i recently saw a distortimage method of sandy
(referenced by someone on this forum) but i don't know whether it could be used
to wrap text around a cylinder.

Well, if you would like to do this, I can ask for the budget with project
management. If you like you can send me a price. I believe you have my email
address. Or I can send you a mail so you can reply.

i'll do it for free if you can accept an approximate solution. i'll get some
work done on it and let you see if it's close to acceptable.

you can take credit for it and ask for a raise or count it towards helping
anglo-dutch relations. (are you dutch?)

[quoted text, click to view]

http://www.rhgrafix.com/stc.swf
is this the effect you are looking for? I can give you the source if
you'd like.
Ramey

Yes, I'm Dutch. And I freelance, mostly in Amsterdam but also regularly in
other European countries. It just so happens that I saw the design of that
specific feature of the site today and we will be zooming in very closely on
(the top part of) the glass. With only short names I would be out of trouble. I
saw the design with a short name (a brand name in fact) and there is no
apparant curveture on the outer letters. But when names get longer the name
needs to curve on the surface of the glass. And since there are longer names
out there... we need the effect.
But doing it for free... man, you have to know, although this is a relatively
small feature of the site (but God is in the details!), this is a commercial
project and a very big one I must add. So, I'm okay with doing a test so I can
convince project management but if they want it, you should be payed for the
work. At least, in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong here - it's really great that you are willing to help, that
goes without saying.
Well, think about it, we still have more than a week before I get final
artwork.
Again, I appreciate this very much!

I'll send you an email with some more details. I cannot disclose more here.
Have a nice weekend!

First of all: thank you both for your input! I really appreciate it.
kglad: it might be adequate enough once set in the correct font (unfortunately
I don't have the specification of the font yet - maybe Monday). Ultimately the
visitor should experience the effect like his or her name replaced the brand
name so it must be next to perfect. I'm going to send you an email with a
visual from the storyboard.
abeall: cool! Yes, I get the idea. I think I can safely report to project
management that this effect can be done. Great!

If the examples could stay online untill Monday I can show them to project
management. Thanks, guys.

check this screenshot of the results of applying a textwrap class i made. the individual letters of text are NOT curved. is this adequate?

[quoted text, click to view]
the trick?

http://abeall.com/files/flash/tests/Flash8/glassTextWrap.swf

A better displacement map would yield more realistic results, but you get the
idea.

[quoted text, click to view]

I don't know what that means, it's just action script and you can
adjust the alpha.