last updated:
Anyway, I made the text in their font utility program, converted it into the bevel and depth you see, and saved it as an 'object' - something like 10,000 nodes. Then pasted it into the rendering program, added a few lights (one point source, two spotlight sources), set up the reflections and colors, and wallah. I tried getting more creative, like having the background reflect in the objects, but I don't have enough RAM to do something like that. pout I probably could have managed it with less resolute letters, but it wasn't all that important. If you look carefully, you will see shadows cast, but since there's 3 light sources, most of the shadows are practically invisible (when I had one light source, it looked pretty cool, shadow-wise, but there wasn't enough light). Next time I'll play with area light sources, and see about getting more textures.
I am trying to convert the wispy dragon you see in the background (drawn by Nancy Chien-Sung) into an 'object.' I've managed to get it into wwf format, in which it's represented as 11 objects and something like 120 nodes -- not very big, but it crashes the Simply3D program every time I try to paste it, so I have to figure out what I'm doing wrong.
The black background isn't lingering from the free speech protest thinggie, it just served as a good background to the letters, and was readily available. Eventually I might try different colored backgrounds, and see which match up.