3d Text in Inkscape

The purpose of the demonstration:

Adapt a great 3d ropes and tubes effect described by Ryan Lerch to logo text.

Tools used to create the 3d-text demo:

• Inkscape 0.46

The intended audience and required skills:

Beginning Inkscape users: familiarity with converting shapes and text to paths, clipping objects, and exporting selections to PNG.

How to make this image using Inkscape 0.46.

1. Type your text using a thick, bold-faced font. I used Arial Black (set to bold).
   


2. Follow the instructions by Ryan Lerch for creating the 3d rope effect.


3. Before making your first clone of the text, however, select your text and, using the following navigation in Inkscape, set the object to a path: Path > Object to Path.


4. The result of steps two and three from Ryan's tutorial should resemble the screen-shot below:
   


5. When I reached step number four in Ryan's tutorial, I substituted a gradient for a color. I flipped and rotated a rectangle that contained my blog's banner gradient, placed it below my 3d-text, and used Object > Clip > Set to fill the text with the gradient.
   
   

I hope that you too can give a slight twist to some of the insightful, online tutorials and achieve original graphics effects of your own.

Helpful Resources

There are lots of Inkscape tutorials related to various methods of affecting 3d text. Try this search to see of the most popular.