Hi everyone,
I’ve created a few basic handwriting and symbol fonts, but now I’m taking the plunge and trying to do something complex.
What I am trying to do is create a font family consisting of an outline, a shadow, and a fill, all of which will be layered in CorelDraw or Photoshop.
To start I am practising on the font Altea rather than making my own from scratch. (Just for personal use, of course)
The problem I am having is that when I apply the fonts in the art programs I have to further adjust spacing or shift the entire line of text to align with the other layers. The whole purpose of creating the fonts is to save time in the long run, not having to break text apart, combine layers, etc. I tried copying contours from one font to the other as a guideline, then aligning them and deleting the unnecessary contour, but when I do that the left and right bearings start jumping all over the place. Does anyone have any advice or insight as to what I’m doing wrong?
Thanks!
P.S. Mods: I always have trouble picking which forum is appropriate for posts… this one is no exception. Feel free to move to “tutorials and solutions” if you think it fits better there.
I tried that, in fact with the font I’m using as practice, I started with the full font including outlines, shadow etc.
To get the “fill” font I just deleted the outer contours. As soon as I removed the largest shape, the left and right bearings shifted out of place. Using the origin coordinates and the bearing toolbar, I tried to figure how to put them back, but it didn’t seem to work.
I’m starting to think that there must be a setting to turn off Auto-adjusting bearings…is that the case? If so I must have missed it when I searched the manual.
Move the contour to the right of all other contours before deleting it.
When pasting contours, move an existing contour to the left before pasting the contour.
Ths will stop bearings from being adjusted. There is also a Glyph transform to reset bearings to zero and an option on the Transform toolbar, bearings tab.
To get the “fill” font I just deleted the outer contours.
Well, I have not seen the font with which you are working, but when I produced my Galileo Lettering Enamelled font from a copy of my Galileo Lettering font, I deleted the inner contours, not the outer contours.
The fonts are available at the following web page, just over half-way down.
Now for something more difficult:
Here is the lettering I was trying to create. There will be a shadow, a fill, the fade-lines inside the fill, and two outlines-5 fonts altogether. To answer your question, yes I’m insane. :mrgreen: I anticipate a lot of problems getting the kerning to match from one font to the next. If anyone has any advice as to how I should tackle this project, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Font Editors can only work in black and white, so you need to use another tool such a Photoshop or Corel Draw to add the fill. The shadow will also be easier to add there. I would suggest just trying the outline in Font Creator, remembering that the black contours will be filled in your graphics program, not the white contours.
Sorry I should have been more clear… I’m developing this font in Photoshop and FCP to use in Corel Draw, so Ive already accounted for the colors. The picture I posted is the (hopefully) expected result.
Just since I did that last post I decided I’m going to just do the gradiated line “Fill” effect as a vector and powerclip inside of the lettering. No sense driving myself completely nuts.
Move the contour to the right of all other contours before deleting it.
