Text on a glossy sphere

Design techniques, 3D, Tips and tricks, Tutorials

November 17th, 2008

Tips and tricks you can use to create a glossy sphere with a text on it’s surface for your web-to-print template.

Before you start

Add a page frame (Layout/Page Setup/Add Page Frame). This will create a rectangular shape with the exact same size as the paper size of your template and place it as a bottom layer.
Web-to-print draw a circle /

Draw a circle with the Ellipse tool (F7).

Note. Hold the Ctrl key to draw a perfect proportional circle.

Sphere gradient

Web-to-print radial gradient /

Select the circle you drew and assign a radial fountain fill to it in the Object properties docker (Window/Dockers/Properties). Click the Advanced button to open the fountain fill editing options pop-up window.

Web-to-print three color gradient Check the Custom color blend box and assign a three color fountain fill. (Ex. Dark blue, light blue and white).

Web-to-print gradient center offset /

Click on the fountain fill preview box and drag the center closer to the bottom right corner or to any side where you want the sphere to be highlighted.

Web-to-print sphere fountain fill /

The result should be something similar to this.

Sphere glow

We’ll use three different glows to make the sphere appear as glossy as possible.

Web-to-print glow presets /

First, lets add an outter glow to the sphere shape. With the sphere selected, click on the Drop Shadow tool from the right tool box menu and use the Small Glow preset from the Presets drop-down list in the top menu.

Set the glow color to white and adjust the value of the Opacity to 30 and the Feathering to 20.

Web-to-print sphere glow /

The result should be something similar to this.

Web-to-print draw glossy glow ellipse /

Now lets add a glossy glow. To achieve this we need to draw a smaller circle on top of the original one and place it close to the top edge.

Web-to-print transparency tool /

Assign a white uniform fill to the new circle and select the Transparency tool.

Web-to-print glow transparency /

Click on the top edge of the white circle and drag the cursor downwards. You can adjust the transparency transition by draging the nodes to the desired position.

Web-to-print lower glow /

To add a similar glossy glow to the bottom side of the sphere, duplicate the glow shape you’ve just made and mirror the copy verticaly. Scale the shape to make it larger than the top glow and adjust it’s transparency to make it even less visible. We are done with the sphere!

Shaping the Text

Web-to-print dummy text

Input the dummy text and turn it into a variable web-to-print field.

Web-to-print envelope tool /

Select the text and click on the Envelope tool from the left tool box menu.

Web-to-print drag nodes /

Drag the nodes of the text frame to shape the text.

Web-to-print drag nodes arrows /

Each node has arrows, drag them arround to achieve a better flow of the text shape.

Web-to-print text shape /

The result should be something similar to this.

Text blending

Web-to-print text with gradient and shadow /

To blend the text with the sphere’s surface, you need to assign a fountain fill similar to the one you assigned on the sphere itself. This doesn’t have to be complex, a simple two color radial fountain fill will do. Just remeber to place the highlight center as close as possible to the sphere’s highlight center and pick lighter (or darker) colors for the fountain fill.

You can also add a small shadow on the text.