Apply a custom material

You can use your own image or clip to create a custom 3D text material layer. As with the preset materials, you can add paint layers, finish layers, distress layers, and emit layers to your custom material layer.

Canvas showing basic 3D text and 3D text with custom image mapped to front facet, wood applied to side facet, and front edge set to Round

Apply a custom image or video clip as a material

  1. From the File Browser or Library, import the image or clip you want to use as your 3D text material into your project.

  2. In the Layers list, Timeline, or Canvas, select a 3D object, then in the Text Inspector’s Appearance pane, click the Substance pop-up menu and choose Generic.

    Choosing Generic from the Substance pop-up menu in the Appearance pane of the Text Inspector
  3. Click the Surface pop-up menu, then choose Image.

    Choosing Image from the Surface pop-up menu in the Appearance pane of the Text Inspector

    An image well becomes available in the Image Options controls.

  4. Drag the image or clip you imported in step 1 from the Layers list to the image well.

    Dragging custom image to the Image well in the Image Options controls in the Appearance pane of the Text Inspector

    Note: Click and drag the image from the Layers list in one continuous movement. If you click the image and release the mouse button, the 3D text is deselected and the image well is no longer available.

    The image is mapped onto the 3D text object and the preview thumbnail in the Appearance pane is updated.

    3D text in Canvas after custom image is applied
  5. Adjust how the mapped image appears on the 3D text object using the Image Options controls.

    For example, you may want to adjust the scale of the image or apply the image individually to each text character rather than have it mapped across all text characters.

    Image Options in the Appearance pane of the Text Inspector

    In this example, the Scale parameter is set to 20 percent so the image more clearly appears on the front surface of the 3D text.

    3D text in Canvas with custom material Scale set to 20 percent

    For a description of the Image Options parameters, see “When Substance is set to Generic” in Substance controls. For a description of the Placement parameters, see Placement controls.