Importing Xara 3D 4 Images with Transparency

Luciano Capello did not stop at showing us how to turn a dot into a sphere. He also suggested the following technique for bringing a Xara 3D 4 exported bitmap image into Xara 2 and making the background transparent. 

I created this spacey looking image in Xara 3D 4 using a font called Glazer SteD (Glazer Stencil—designed by and named after Milton Glaser). We'll use it for this demonstration. Here are the settings I used to achieve this high tech look. The font size is 48 points. The Extrusion Depth is 130. The Extrusion Outline option is selected with the Depth set to 25. The Bevel type is 60% Bevel, the Miter option is checked, and the Bevel Depth is set to 800. Cool, huh?

I Exported the image as a PNG file, using the 24-bit Color setting and with Transparency unchecked.

Then I opened the Show/Hide Lights dialog, selected each light and set the color to black. Next I selected the Shadow and changed the Transparency to 0 and the Blur to 20. I selected the background and made the color white. I exported this as a Gif file, 256 Colors, and no transparency.

I imported both bitmaps into Xara 2 . I placed the PNG image over a colored background (one of Joel Schilling's Cool Textures #2 collection actually.

As you can see, the background for the image is anything but transparent.

With the color bitmap selected and in position over the background, I opened the Bitmap Gallery, selected the black and white Gif image, and pressed the Transp button to apply the transparency.

And here is the masked image. Notice how cleanly is fits over the background.

A tip of the hat to Luciano Capello for the excellent tip.