Hi all,
I'm working on a family that includes a 3D shadow. Fontlab helpfully includes an extrude filter that almost does the trick. However, even with the border width set to 0, it still includes an outline of the character. I then have to manually erase this outline. This is insanely time consuming, and makes later changes next to impossible. Is there a better way to do this, especially with multiple masters?
What I get:

What I want:
Comments
3D extrude -50, -50, 0
remove overlap
cleanup E,4 (adjust to taste)
remove overlap
remove overlap
remove overlap
remove overlap
You can see the result here but I had to trim a couple of strays on the circle cusps. I usually put the original font on the mask layer and visually check for anomalies.
1. Apply 3D Extrude effect with Thickness= 0
2. Select the resulting outline and apply Create Parallel Contour (offset 1)
3. Remove Overlap
Since the extrusion result is a curve that's exactly 1 unit larger than the original shape, creating a parallel contour that is 1 unit smaller all around results in the shadow being congruent with the original shape. Once the overlap is removed, I end up with an acceptable result that only needs very minor tweaking.
So far I've only tried this on one glyph, so this may or may not work out.
The answer is :"Extrude will be improved in the next build".
So, let's be patient! They keep their promises.
The method that I outlined above does work, though for curved characters, cleaning up the random debris is more time consuming than the precise outline removal from the first method, so for now I'm stuck with that.
I also got an Illustrator subscription to see if I can do it there, but apparently that's not an option, or at least I haven't found a tutorial on the 3D Extrude effect that produces the results I want.
The magenta line is the original glyph shape. The shadow being offset will cause a registration error when both layers are used together.
Thanks to the staff at Fontlab!