Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 26, 2012. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Text-Edge
Alongside Cinema 4D’s conventional settings for bevelled edges, Text Edge FX allows users to incorporate their own splines as an edge type. As the icing on the cake, the developer promises an infinite variety of options for this functionality. In addition to the existing C4D splines, the developer has integrated further ones that produce the best possible effects. Everything from effects resembling a picture frame to thread effects can be created in no time at all. By animating certain parameters, users can also create rotating threads. If, on the other hand, users only want to render the effect itself, this is also possible at the touch of a button. This produces interweaving or wiring, for example.
For this effect, the caps, i.e. the front and back, as well as the actual edge effect, can be coloured separately or assigned shaders.
Spline-Edge
The second integrated Spline-Edge module allows the same effects that can be applied to Text Edge to be applied to users’ own splines independently of text. Any spline can be used, including ones from programs such as Photoshop or Illustrator. These paths can be presented to powerful effect at the touch of a button.
The plug-in is available at: http://c4dtools.net/text-edge-fx/
