How to Make 3D Text with Blender

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Blender is a powerful free open source 3d program that allows you to create animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality, and computer games. This wikiHow will teach you how to create 3d text in blender that you can later use to make a 3d logo or animated intro, for example.

Part 1 of 3:

Getting Started

If you do not have blender installed on your computer, you can go to blender.org and download it to your computer.
If you're already pretty familiar with Blender's basic controls, you can skip ahead to creating 3d text.

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Understand the Basic Controls

Ctrl-Alt-Wheel to rotate the scene around the global Z axis from your current point of view.
Shift-Alt-Wheel which correspond to vertical MMB dragging

Use Shift-Ctrl-Wheel.

To pan the view, hold down Shift and drag MMB in the 3D View.

You can zoom in and out by holding down Ctrl and dragging MMB.
The hotkeys are NumpadPlus and NumpadMinus.
If you have a wheel mouse, you can zoom in and out by rotating the wheel.

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Creating the Text

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Select the cube with the left mouse button (the cube will be highlighted orange when selected).
Press x on the keyboard.
Select delete in the pop up menu.

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Click “Shift + A” on the keyboard; a list will open on the screen.
Select the “Text” option.

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Select the text with the left mouse (the text will be highlighted orange when selected).
Hit tab to enter edit mode.
Type whatever you want the text to be.
Make sure to spell everything right as later you won't be able to change it.
Hit tab to exit edit mode once you type what you want.

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Go to the text tab on the right side ("a" icon).
In the text tab go to the font section.
Press the little file icon for regular that will say “load a new font from a file” if you hover over it with your cursor.
Select a font from your computer.

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Go to the text tab on the right side ("a" icon).
In the geometry section to extrude your text by increasing the number for extrude.
You can extrude your text to whatever size you want.

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Select the text with the left mouse (the text will be highlighted orange).
Then right-click on your mouse and navigate to set origin.
Then select geometry to origin.

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Select the text with the left mouse (the text will be highlighted orange).
On your keyboard press R
then X on the keyboard
Then type in 90 on the keyboard
Then press enter
This will rotate the text 90 degrees on the x-axis

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Make sure your text looks exactly the way you want it to as you will now be creating an object from it.
Select the text with the left mouse (the text will be highlighted orange)
Navigate to the object menu
Go to convert to
Then select mesh from curve/meta/surf/text

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Select the text with the left mouse (the text will be highlighted orange)
Then press Tab on your keyboard to be in edit mode
Then press A to select everything
Navigate to the mesh menu
Go to clean up
Select limited dissolve
Press tab to exit edit mode

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Go to the materials tab on the right side
Press add new
Then change the base color
This is also where you can create materials if wanted but that will require the use of nodes which is more complex.

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Select the camera with the left mouse (the camera will be highlighted orange)
Select the move tool in the tool shelf on the left side of the screen
If the tool shelf is not visible press "T" on your keyboard to toggle the visibility
Then use the coordinate arrows to move the camera in the X, Y, and Z directions
Also use the location and rotation tabs in the item panel, in the properties panel located on the right side of the screen
If the properties panel is not visible press "N" on your keyboard to toggle the visibility

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Navigate to the view tab on the top
Then viewpoint,
Then select camera
This will show you what is visible to the camera
If your text is not fully visible within the view of the camera, move the position of the camera

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Go to the world tab on the right side
Go to the surface section
Change the background color

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In the upper left-hand corner, click the file,
Then click save as
Choose a location and a name for your project
Then click save as to save your project

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Click on the render option on the top left corner of the application screen to have a rendered view of the text.
This will open a new window where your image will render at.

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Once the image renders in the new window, go to the top and click the image and save as and save your final text.

Expert Q&A

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Adding and positioning Camera and lighting also play a key role to show the view of the text made and its shadow details.

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