an online friend of mine, who's online identity is Zephyre, asked me come up with the opening title for a video-game based movie (machinima) that he's making. This isn't going to make it into the final product because it didn't fit the movie's timeline, but on its own, this one's pretty okay.

the same lighting technique used to illuminate the darker parts of the text (mainly the back), that was used in the blogOSHT banner, was used here. It's a simple and yet powerful trick, to give stuff differentiated lighting. The main advantage of doing this here, is to make sure the back portion of the 3d text doesn't blend so much into the darkness, so much so that it starts to look flat. This iteration was dumped, because it just wasn't according to design.

this one's a different design altogether. It's a first go at plastering a fake reflection map unto the text. As I was experimenting with different maps, I removed all lighting from the scene. That's how the text looks almost completely flat, with no depth at all. What's here is what you see: it's just a plastered reflection map, with no parameters set. It's flat, and the text looks masked. The only step forward here, is the reflection map itself.

The text is made smaller on purpose. By request, and to suit the video my friend was making. Same lighting technique as iteration 1, but slightly tweaked. Nothing much to say, except that, in my opinion, the reflection made this text look really pretty. An animated reflection doesn't say much when it's in a still frame like this, but I suggest you download and view the full animation to see how much substance the reflection map really adds to the text.

you can download and view the fully animated moving reflection animation here: