Corel Draw Tutorials

Current CorelDraw 10, 11, 12, X3, X4 and X5 Tutorials

A Beginners guide to Extrude - Corel CorelDraw Tutorial

Tim Carden 1 With Corel switching most of it's tools from the user-friendly rollups to more efficient but sometimes less approachable interactive tools, some of the original DRAW classic tools have been abandoned by new users and veterans a like. The Extrude tool is one such tool that can be incredibly useful for generating realistic 3D effects, producing unique logos and numerous other activities, but can also produce some of the most tacky and clich effects ever seen. You must be careful not to get carried away and remember to objectively evaluate the final product ignoring how much fun it was to create :) To begin our experimentation, start by creating a single character in a font you like. Select the extrude tool from the interactive tools fly-out and click and drag on the character you created to drag out in 3D. If you haven't already set a color for the extrude, do so now by clicking on any color in the color palette. You will notice that the 3D shape is not very clear at this stage. Let's take a look at the controls on the interactive extrude tool. The Vanishing point "x" can be dragged around to select where the 3D perspective on the shape is vanishing to. For a parallel extrusion (selectable from the extrusion type button on the property bar) this vanishing point is simply the direction of the extrude. You can change the depth of the extruded shape by dragging the depth slider.

The reason the 3D shape is not looking very obvious is because we have no light shining on the object. Light and shadows give a 3D object its 3D properties. On the property bar you can add up to three light sources and position them around the 3D object with custom intensities. Click on the light bulb with the "1" on it to turn on the first light source at default location and intensity. Presto! The 3D object is suddenly looking a whole lot better.

Such simple extrudes can be added to primitive shapes, logos, complex text and a whole lot more. By experimenting with the lighting, depth and vanishing point settings you can achieve a great variety of effects. One popular technique is using a wireframe version of the extrude in a background with a rendered smaller version in front. To make an extrude wireframe simply set the fill to nothing (click on the color on the palette with an "x" through it). Set the outline to 1pt or more depending on how thick you want the lines in the wireframe to be. Try turning off

the light-source(s) and filling will white for an alternative wireframe look (you will still need an outline of some kind). Here is something I made using several copies of a single extrusion at different sizes and different fills.

Here are some more ideas created in moments using text objects and changing the depth and vanishing point settings. You can apply drop-shadows to extrusions if you break them apart first (break apart from the arrange menu).