3D Font Creator for Windows 95

Fancy WordArt in a box? Pretty much! After a moment of eBaying weakness, let's unbox and play around with Expert Software's 3-D Font Creator from 1996. FONTS.

[ian_b]

People may laugh now, but kids today don't understand how expensive 3D fonts were back then. Just one 3D font was a major investment and many families had no 3D fonts at all, or had to rent one. As a kid growing up, I dreamed of having a 3D font but I never thought I could have one. Then, one Christmas, there was a package under the tree. A lumpy, 3 dimensional package. It was the only present; my whole family had got together to buy it. Thrilled and bubbling with anticipation, Christmas morning finally came and I had to wait as my family opened their presents first; my dad got a secondhand toothbrush, my mum got a lump of coal. My sister was thrilled by her post-it notes and my gran got a biscuit. And then it came to my turn and my gran said, "we all got together and I went and chose it just for you" and I tore off the newspaper wrapping and ribbons made of recycled strips of sock.

it was Comic Sans.

[TheTomimt]

3D fonts were the coolest thing back in the day. I guess many a homework was returned with a 3D title proudly on top.

[RandomlyDrumming]

2:15 Damn, Clint, you got me there for a moment! xD I was like "what the hell are you doing, dude, you're ruining the box!?!" :)

[ToiletPlugger]

Starting the day with an "Oh Dear" sums up the existential nightmare that is 2020.

[willm]

WordArt and the 3d fonts was my shit when I was at primary school. I'm a Graphic Designer now, and I'm 100% sure that its down to this kind of software being about haha

[fenixdg]

The thing I love about so many old desktop applications is when they list "8-bit or higher sound card required". How? Why? What audio requirements could a 3d font maker genuinely need to function :D

[Dogy]

I love these blerbs where you look at weird old programs, I’m kind of obsessed with buying programs like this whenever I find them at garage sales, lol.

[IgnatSolovey]

As a 1990s kid who had quite an experience with more or less equivalent Russian DOS software called “PlakatIndex” (it made 3D-ish text and could compose printouts on perforated paper... we made a heavy use of it in 1992–1995 at school where we were, quite innovatively at the time — and indeed wisely — taught not only Basic programming and charting algorithms but actually using what was modern software then, i.e. DOS, Lexicon text processor, Windows 3.1 and later 95, Word, Excel... as well as played Wolfenstein, DOOM, and Mortal Kombat during recesses and after classes — a perk of having an “informatics” teacher as what in the US would be a homeroom teacher), I'd say that it wasn't Expert Software staff who did samples... rather their 10–12-year-old kids. I see a fifth-grader experience and a sixth-grader humor.

[AndyKazama]

Thanks for keeping 90s computing alive.

[hester]

You had me at, "wood 3D font." I'm sold

[destructionator]

I had Expert Astronomer back in the day and I loved it... I still actually miss its easy little starmap creator ui.

[brycevo]

Can't wait to see you use these for thumbnails and other video arts

[phazonclash]

I would have had a blast back in the days with that program, when I was 11-12yo!

[kbpipes]

Expert has a landscape creator. I played with that program for hours a day. I would manipulate the houses, cut and paste parts of the houses together to creat unique homes. Then I would landscape these homes. I had two versions of the program. 3d landscaping and regular expert landscape. I would print them out on my 9pin printer. Never was there a boy with his 386 more content.

[rolandkatsuragi]

I love how the fan starts screaming after the textures are applied

[lupinzar]

Fun facts! WMF files can be imported into Inkscape. They were also used for the majority of graphics in Microsoft Bob.

[Elliesblossoms]

I felt so cool using word art in my school projects as a kid. I really thought I was a tech genius

[sjmoorez]

Clint: draws on plastic wrap. /Knife 🔪, cuts plastic wrap

Also Clint: Fck this plastic on the CD case, /fingernail 🔪

[skydwellingmusic]

I used to mess around with Wordart in Word when I was a kid and always thought it was a cool way to bring some life into boring school assignments

[DexSS]

I'm sure you're aware, but even with WordArt, if you click the yellow directional buttons... then drag them to your preferred area, you can change how the 3D effect is perceived. Also, not sure what version... I want to say probably word 97, as I recall clippy.... but WordArt definitely allowed for textures, perspective shifts/changes, lighting direction, shadows, etc... That was all there.