How to Make Text Blend With Texture at a Vanishing Point

Make text blend with a texture at a vanishing point by using the perspective and texturing tools of an image manipulation program or a 3-D modeling program. You won't need to manually converge text or texture to a vanishing point in 3-D programs because they perform vanishing point calculations automatically. One advantage of using 2-D imaging programs to produce the blending effect is that you can use the Paintbrush tool to tweak textures.

Instructions

GIMP and Photoshop

1. Click the "T" icon from the "Tools" panel if you're using Photoshop. Click "A" from the "Tools" panel if you're using GIMP. These actions run the "Text" tool.

2. Click on the canvas, then type the text you'd like to blend with texture. Press "Control" and "Enter" simultaneously to end text-entry mode, if you're using Photoshop. Click the "Close" button on the open dialog box in GIMP.

3. Press "Control" and "T" simultaneously to run the "Free transform" tool in Photoshop. Right-click the text and click "Perspective," then drag the mouse on the left or rightmost edge of the text to converge it to a vanishing point. Click the trapezoid icon in GIMP's toolbar to run its "Perspective" tool, then perform the dragging instruction just described for Photoshop.

4. Click the rectangle icon from the "Tools" panel in Photoshop and GIMP, then drag on the canvas to draw a rectangle next to the text's vanishing point. Click the "Filter" menu in either program, then click one of the texturing commands under the "Texture" sub-menu, if you're using Photoshop. In GIMP, click one of the commands under the "Map" sub-menu. These actions fill the rectangle with texture. Apply the perspective transformation you applied to the text to converge the texture to the same vanishing point as the text's.

Sketchup

1. Click the "A" icon on the toolbar to enter the mode for creating text. Type some text in the dialog that appears, then click "Place" to close the dialog and insert the text on the canvas. Press and hold the middle mouse wheel, then drag the mouse until the text converges to a vanishing point.

2. Click the square icon on the toolbar to run the tool for drawing rectangles, then drag on the canvas to create a rectangle. Click the paint buck icon on the toolbar to run the tool for applying textures, then click a texture from the gallery that appears. Click the plane to add texture to it.

3. Click the circular icon on the toolbar to run the "Rotate" tool, then drag on the plane until it converges to the same vanishing point as the text.

References

• GIMP User Manual; GIMP documentation team
• Photoshop CS5 Bible; Lisa Dayley
• Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual; Chris Grover