Bend text around a sphere

[lorentz]

I need to bend some text round a sphere. i have tried using the bend tool but it doesn't stick straight to the curve, i.e. the middle doesn't touch the curve. I have now tried using a motion path with flow path objects, but when i rotate the path it distorts the text as the lattice doesn't rotate properly. is there any way to just wrap the text around a sphere. this seems the easiest way to me, but i can't figure out how to do it.

[failure]

map it to a cylinder

[drblacksnake]

Is this poly? Extruded or planar?
Increase tesselation (e.g. by meshSmooth) and go back to Bend - it "bends" positons of vertices not straight edges, thats why You get such results.
Anyway, whatever deformer u'll use, think about reasonable tesselation on bending parts of model, otherwise there's no way out, unless You move to nurbs or subD.

[joojaa]

this question can be one of 2 things!

How to bend in cylindrical fashion with bend so that the text actualy works right or

A

[lorentz]

both really. the text is curves from illustrator, with a planar on them. but when i use the bend tool, the text doesn't fit right against the bend curve.

[joojaa]

you do understand that planar wont bend on you wery well! What kind of resolution are we talking here? I Mean theres plenty of ways to skin the fish here!

Morover it would be nice to know what the text will need to do animation wise.

Planar wont offcourse work here! Unless its hugely tesselated polygon version of it.

[lorentz]

well the text just need to rotate around an axis. at the moment i'm using a motion path.

[drblacksnake]

is text wider than lenght of equator of sphere?
if so then think about projecting curves on sphere and extrude them after.
if not, then post more info/pic/scene, otherwise this becomes a "guess, what i want!" thing. just a vaste of time.

[joojaa]

Also if you need the text deformed around this dont project on the speher but instead project on aplane wich you blend into a sphere. Altough granted maya has tools for doing directly curves iin uv space too.

BTW this is the way my image is made its just a nurbs exctrude on a uv mapped text tahts been cut by another sphere.

[codaxe]

i don't understand what your problem is with the bend tool.

Here is what I did.

1) Create a sphere
2) Create the text and surface > bevel plus each curve.
3) Group all the letters together
4) Position the group (letters) close to the sphere
4) Apply a Deform > Create Non Linear > Bend
5) Increase curvature and rotate the bend appropriately.
6) Delete history on the group
7) Place the pivot of the group at the center of the sphere.
should work perfect in every direction

msg me if you need more assistance

[joojaa]

bend only bends in ONE dimension. he wanted to bend in 2 at the same time (and no bending in succession wont work, since tehcnicaly speaking its not a bend at all!)