anyway to import *.ai?
nope
Hello, I just played a bit around with all that and was able to import illustrator shapes into blender! But it only worked for polygons, all bezier curves and other smooth stuff was converted to meshes. This is not a big problem, since you can subdivide all your smooth stuff within illustrator before saving. To do that in my french version of illustrator 10 I have to do:
menu objet => trace => ajout de points d’ancrages
If I translate that to english it might be something like:
object menu => shape => add anchor points
Then you must save all that in an illustrator 8 file. Then download the free, cool and small [2Mo] wings3d program. You can find it on http://www.wings3d.com/. This is a great polygon modelling tool that is still very easy to understand. And what interests us most now is that it’s able to open Nendo (NDO), 3D Studio (3DS), Wavefront (OBJ) and above all Adobe Illustrator 8 (AI) files! The export list is also very interesting… Ok now in wings you can do:
file menu => import => adobe illustrator [.ai]
and then:
file menu => export => wavefront [.obj]
Now we have to import that obj file into blender, you can do this thanks to the great obj import/export script that you can download here [right click => save link as]:
http://jmsoler.free.fr/util/blenderfile/py/obj_io_modif228.py
To make this script work in blender, you have to open a text editor window [shift-F11] and then file menu => open => choose the script file => press alt-P with mouse over text window to launch the script once you have imported it in blender. This script should display a few buttons where you have to enter the path of your file [the easiest is to place your obj file into something like c:\myfile.obj] and then press import and done.
Voila! There are of certainly other ways to do that but they are probably similar, there no trivial way to do that…
Cheers,
Gabriel
So far the lack of any kind of direct vector/EPS (Encapsulated Postscript) import hasn’t cause me problems, even though I was used to having it in other software. But it has been mentioned by others I’ve spoken to as a reason they couldn’t use Blender yet, mainly because so much of what is given to them to work with is in EPS format. When you’ve got four hours to crank out an animated logo, you can’t take time to play with scripts or other software to get the logo into your 3D app.
EPS files are pretty universal and can be exported from most pro drawing apps, including Illustrator and Freehand. EPS is still a standard for how pros transfer still work for reproduction in print and video, so it would a welcome addition for anyone interested in using Blender professionally.
Even for bitmapped logos and graphics there are autotracing tools in Illustrator that mean the vector geometry doesn’t always have to be done by hand. Two-dimensional EPS graphic importing has been the 3D modeler’s friend for many years…
well i think using bezier curves and that are easier in blender anyway. tracing in illistrator with curves is so frustrating.
you can convert .ai to ttf ( true type font ) and feed that into blender, convert to curve, and convert to mesh as well if you wish.
That’s very true and I must admit that I really don’t like illustrator’s way of editing beziers. But it happens sometime that you need to import stuff that someone else made into blender… Last time I abandonned my import tests for blender and used 3ds instead, I really regretted my choice, it was the most frustrating 3d working time I ever had. I even finished by using flash and doing a 2d animation instead of doing 3d with 3ds! 
[>] For the TTF way, how do you export your shape in TTF? Is there a free [or at least gratis] program that can do that conversion, or can illustrator directly do that?
Gabriel
Nice workaround! Yet another amazing tip from… the MODRON. (theme music plays in background and Modron appears in tights and a cape)
I’ve been using Cinema 4D to convert things. Even the freebie version will import most common graphics and 3D formats and export them WRL so Blender can import them. I don’t think that’s what Maxon had in mind when they created the freebie version, but it works pretty well.
Blender is such a brilliant piece of software. I cannot appreciate enough for the people’s endevor which has been refining the software day and night.
Tracing on picture using bezier curve is easy and it produces a nice result. Thanks to various documents being made available by blender experts, it has allowed us to enjoy blender even more.
http://download.blender.org/documentation/html/c2759.html
But it becomes a whole different story when you want to vectorize about 100 or 200 pieces of parts from a picture at a time. That’s why I am using photoshop, illustrator, wings3d and the script to import those bits and pieces into blender. I do not mean that favorable results cannot be achieved by using only blender. It is simply a matter of using right tools for right time to maximize efficiency.
I also have to say that I have to buy the blender manual to maximize my efficiency, and show my support at the same time.
Thanks all for the informations. Great tips to know.
One thing, kind of hard to understand is:
no dxf out of wing3d?!
how do you actually bring a ttf into blender?
I see this is more interesting than the ‘wing3d’ way, but I need more informations to follow. Please…
Yes, same for me! I’d like to know what software you use to create a TTF out of your drawing… I think that it’s possible with some expensive font creation suites such as fontlab if I remember well, but there must be a better way. Please give us some more detail about your method.
Gabriel
Yes, same for me! I’d like to know what software you use to create a TTF out of your drawing… I think that it’s possible with some expensive font creation suites such as fontlab if I remember well, but there must be a better way. Please give us some more detail about your method.
Gabriel[/quote]
it seems that Cinema 4D will do a pretty straight forward job, but the domo version blocked all saving options.
get a shareware program called font creator 4. you can use it for 30 days.
Get an old version of CorelDraw. Even the first version I used (Corel 4) had a Truetype exporter. Be careful, I once bought a LE or SE edition, which didn’t had much Import/Export filter (*.ai for example)
For Linux, there’s Pfaedit, which is a free font-editor.
The only free font-editor for windows I found is Manutius. It’s quite old (Win 3.1), for type 1 fonts only (which is, of course, no problem for Blender) and … in german only! But importing an EPS and exporting a symbol font should be easy.
D.
BTW: Does anybody know a way to convert SVG to EPS on Linux?
Modron,
I just downloaded Font Creator, but i can’t find a way to import .ai file.
got a solution??