Font help for nameplate

[deltic009]

Hello all.

As you know I am busy ambitiously constructing fully 3D nameplates for the GEML 90 fleet in their Blue and Silver/White days. 90005 has different nameplates for each side and this uses a different font to the standard BR font. I have the BR font installed and am able to make 3D text from that in Blender - the problem is the font for 90005's plates is commercial and costs about £40 - steep under normal circumstances but particularly when I want to use it just once to make these two nameplates.

Is there anyway I can get from a screencap of the font /screenshot of the nameplate to 3D text in Blender easily, without having to pay out for the font? I'm aware that buying the font provides the easiest possible workflow but it is a necessary compromise I have to try and take. The font matching websites I have used return free fonts that are miles wide of the mark, otherwise I would just use one of them.

[Merlin75]

If there is no way to get the correct font I'll say just use the BR font that you have. It's not like these nameplates are going to be sold they are freeware so don't spend money on a font.

[deltic009]

I've actually found a website with a tutorial which may give me a basic enough font that I can use it in Blender. I want the plates to look the part as much as possible, so it is semi-important to me to try and get some parity with the font used.

So far I've been doing the BR font plates that I find and have done:
90003 - City of Colchester
90004 - Raedweld of East Anglia
90005 - Vice Admiral - Lord Nelson

There's 2 in particular that pertain to local printed press I believe, and they are tricky shapes excluding the font.

[chrisonline]

What is the name of the font you are looking for? Someone may have it!

And BTW, what is the official "BR" font?

Chris

[deltic009]

I got the official BR fonts from a link on an RMWeb thread, if you Google rmweb and british rail font that should kick it up, if not pm me your email addy.

I can't remember the name of the font I need whilst I'm away from the computer, but will add it to the thread later.

[rfletcher72]

What is the name of the font you are looking for? Someone may have it!

And BTW, what is the official "BR" font?

Chris

The BR font I use is called 'Transport' and is freely available on the net. The only difference I can see is in the lower case 'L', which appears with a leg whereas the BR version did not - easily amended though.

Regards,

[Merlin75]

Fleet numbers don't seem to match the names.
90003 is Raedweld of East Anglia
90004 City Of Chelmsford This seems to be a new name.

But look forward to seeing them and glad you've found a font that works.

[deltic009]

Fleet numbers don't seem to match the names.
90003 is Raedweld of East Anglia
90004 City Of Chelmsford This seems to be a new name.

But look forward to seeing them and glad you've found a font that works.

That's me getting them backwards in my head as I'm off my machine. Still need to get the font for Roger Ford/Modern Railways but I have found a tutorial on how to make a font from an image file so hopefully onwards and upwards later on this evening.

[deltic009]

Just a quick update, I was able to follow a tutorial to get some screen captures of the text I was after in 'font preview' windows online. From this I used a free, open source program called Inkscape to turn a Black and White image of the text into paths in .SVG format. This could then be imported into Blender and converted to a mesh and finally scaled, extruded and then added to my standard nameplate template until I got the results you see below, comparing the Blender textured preview at the top with a photograph of the nameplate. Overall I am extremely happy with the results and am very glad that I haven't had to resort to using a different font that looked very out of keeping and lost the essence of the original item I am attempting to duplicate.

Thanks go to the anonymous person who started a thread I found in 2011 wanting to achieve the same thing as me which gave me the above steps to follow to make my nameplate.


Roger Ford comp by MJ Wilson, on Flickr

[DavidVI]

That's great!!