Objects: Creating Custom Digital Gobos - PRG MBOX User Manual

3D Objects: Creating Custom Digital Gobos
Overview
Custom digital gobos can be created for use with Mbox. Custom digital gobos should use the SVG file format. Adobe
Illustrator® is the best application for creating custom digital gobos because it provides the best toolset for features that
Mbox supports. Mbox's vertex array compiler pays attention to "object fill" information in these file types. Path and
Stroke information is ignored, unless special steps are taken with the file. (Refer to the Adobe Illustrator documentation
for more information on path, fill, and stroke)
Scale-To-Fit vs. Arbitrary Fit
Before beginning, determine the intent of the digital gobo. When creating an SVG gobo file, there are two options for
how a layer's texture will be mapped to the digital gobo:
+ Scale To Fit - The texture will be scaled (up or down) to fit onto the digital gobo.
+ Arbitrary Fit - The texture will be applied to the digital gobo with a specific fill factor given to the texture. This option
is useful if the digital gobo is being used as a texturable masking aid or if the texture should not be scaled.
Creating a Digital Gobo with Adobe Illustrator CC 2015.3
The following steps provide a general guideline for creating custom digital gobos using Adobe Illustrator CC 2015.3.
Note that older versions of Illustrator may require slightly different steps to achieve the same results. For more
information regarding the use of Illustrator, consult the Illustrator Help documentation included with the application.
Step 1. Start a new document and name it appropriately. The orientation of the document are not critical at this
point, nor is the color space (RGB or CMYK). While the size of the artboard is also not critical at this point
(see Step 7), to keep things simple there should only be one artboard. For now, just make sure the artboard
is large enough to hold all of the objects.
Drawing Tools
Document Name
MBOX® USER MANUAL
84
Artboard Other Tools