Xara 3D

Because you can make very easy animated text and buttons with Xara 3D, we thought it would be a good idea to make a more detailed guideline at our help site.  First you need the program Xara 3D. Click << here >> to download the complete program and install the program after downloading...

To use the program at his full extends, you will need a 'crack'. When you are not using the crack a logo of Xara 3D will be displayed at each image you make with the program. Download the crack << here >>. Run the crack and a registration code will be generated. Use the button serial to clipboard to copy the registration code. This code can be used at Xara 3D to register. While opening Xara 3D, choose 'purchase'. A textbox will appear in which you have to fill in the unlock code. Past the code from the crack at this textbox and press 'unlock'. After this the program is completely functional.

Below here, a screen dump of Xara 3D.c...

We will first explain all options you can choose at the top button bar:

From left to right you will have:

• Show/hide cursor: enable or disable the cursor at the image... Normally you switch this to disabled.
• Edit Text options (T): here you can add/replace your own text. Also all features to change the look of the text like, font, aligning, size, distance between characters and adding new lines (click the small diamond to insert a break). Just play with it to find out the result of all features here.
• Edit color options: (the pallet). Here you can alter the colors of the text (front, back and sides), background, illumination and shadow color. It is also possible to choose a  texture (an image) to fill up the text or background by activating this feature. When selecting 'tint' you can change the color of the texture you choose (only possible for the text).
• Extrusion options (E) : Here you define the look of the outside of the characters. Adjustment of color, gloss or matt. With the feature 'outline' you can uotline the text and the feature 'depth' will adjust the depth of the text.
• Button options (U): Here you can display the text at a 'button'. Choose the button you like, the size of the button and adjust the look of the corners. By choosing 'import button' you can use buttons made by yourself.
• Bevel options (B): With this one you can adjust the look of the edges of the text. Just experiment with it.
• Shadow options (S): Adjust the shadow options. Switch shadow on and off, type and color of the shadow and many more. You can even select transparency and 'blur' for the sharpness of the shadow. When you want to have a transparent image we advice not to use the shadow and switch it off. When you still like to use the shadow you have to adjust the background color of the image to the background color of your profile/website for the best results.
• Texture options (X): these options are displayed at the left of the screen dump:

Use this to alter the texture of text or background. Change size, position and angle. With 'Load texture' you can get your own image for background or text.

• Animation options (A): This is a very specila one. Her you can alter the way the animation of the text. The easiest way to find out what you like is to start the animation and experiment with the options. Start the animation by clicking at the button at the right of the Animations Options button (the arrow).
  Adjust the speed of the animation with frames per second en frames per cycle (amount of images per second and amount of images each turn). When you increase these values, the size of the image (kb) will increase too, so be careful with that. The quality of the image will be much better but the down loadtime of the image will increase too! Just experiment with all options to see what happens like rotation, illumination etc. The 'Font face only' can be used to hide the back of the image. You will not see the back of the image while turning, maybe not that nice but will decrease the size of the image and with that the download time.
• Lighting controls (the light bulb): With this option you can alter the direction of the illumination and with that the shadow. All arrows represents a light source, there are 4 of them. One light source takes care of the shadow, the other three are for illumination of front and back of the text. You can adjust the color of the light source at   'edit color options', already discussed before.

This were all the top buttons at the button bar. You can move the text itself (change perspective) by clicking at the text and moving it.

At the bottom of the screen you will see the text options:

These are already explained above here.

Whne you like to make an animated image of your design (animated gif) choose at 'File' (top menu),  'Export animation'. Enter a filename and a option box will appear. Here you can adjust the size and amount of colors (color depth). Normally you can choose 'current window size' here and 'crop' (the image will be exactly as on your programming screen and the text will fit exactly into the image you made). When you like you can experiment with the size of the image.

Enable 'transparant' to make the background of the image transparent (only possible when you did not use an image background). When you are using a shadow and transparency it will not look very nice. When you still like to use the shadow you have to adjust the background color of the image to the background color of your profile/website for the best results. When changing the background of your website or profile you have to change the background of the image too. This is the reason we did not choose for transparency at the example below.

Do not forget to save the file at a X3D file too, when you want to change the image later you will need that file. Just choose 'File' at the menu and then 'Save'.