I'm trying to distort text as per http://www.flashfonts.com/flashsite/ima ... -piece.gif

I cannot figure out how to do this at all, whether as text, or converted to paths. Can anyone shed light on it?

Thanks

Rich

This is just the start to give you an idea:

1. Draw a funky square
2. Draw lines over the square with a nice thick stroke to divide for each character. Then convert each line using "Stroke to path" then select all the black lines and do a path > union.
3. Select the black lines and the red square and do a path > difference

You now have a block for each character. Now you can continue carving away the blocks to form letters.

If you can find a blockey/swirly 1970's looking font like the on in the pick, convert it to a path. Then follow this technique:

http://screencasters.heathenx.org/tag/node-sculpting/

Heathens's technique it to combine the path with the box adds some nodes the tweak the whole thing at once using select all and dragging one node at a time to get a curve.

How many lines of text do you need and what CPU are you using? And do you have a fair amount of memory?

You could also in theory try the with it set to repel in some place and attract in others, but it doesn't work the way I expected in .46. It might be better in the developers version. I have tried it there.

Check at http://www.dafont.com/ for a retro font or here http://www.fontspace.com/