That sort of thing is done with bona fide 3D rendering software, like Maya for example.

Check out the cool stuff this friend of mine -and fellow Typophile- does:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whinger/sets/72157630637179352/

hhp

That is definitely done in a 3D program and they used a fair amount of ambient occlusion. You can create passable 3D text in Photoshop and Illustrator these days, but it will not have the slightly rounded edges you showed in your examples.

Xara 3D does a pretty credible job, and it's relatively inexpensive.

thanks hrant! his work is awesome! do you know what he used for this?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whinger/7603629918/in/set-72157630637179352/

Yea IsleofGough I hear ya, I'm pretty well versed in Illustrator and Photoshop, but I really want to get into
doing more experimental 3D rendered type. Seems like all these programs are quite pricey though (and I'm still in college) I'll have check out this Xara program for sure!

About 30 seconds in Cinema 4D:

BTW, Maya, Softimage, and 3Ds max are free for educational use. Blender is free even if you are not in school. I have used them all, but prefer C4D as I do most of my work on a Mac, and it is the most stable on OSX.

I used to use Lightwave before it was called Lightwave. But that was a lightyear ago. :-)

hhp

You are showing your age. FWIW, pretty much all the 3D programs will create equivalent output for this sort of thing (Autodesk programs, Modo, Lightwave, Houdini, Xara, and so on). If you learn the techniques in one, the ability to learn another is not that hard. It is only on higher end issues where programming is needed or one is dealing with animating millions of objects that there are substantial differences in what one can do. After one learns the theory, it is mostly just figuring out where the commands or menus are to do what one wants.

...do you know what he used for this?

C4D (step effector)

n.

IsleofGough is right, that can be done in any 3d program really.

For my example, I used C4D and render using Vray. As both IsleofGough and 5star said, it's a step effector applied to a cloner — the step effector allows me to change the size of the A, along with rotating it a little with each clone.

Nice work and good rendering. That takes some skill and experience. The designs are good and knowing the mechanics of a 3d program does not substitute for that. (Especially good is the "C") Trying to do this thing outside of a real 3d program is an exercise in frustration. The only exception is zaxwerks in after effects. The cheats in proanimator are easy and look pretty good.

Btw, for those wanting good enough without learning any 3d, http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CvtluKm6P-0 is not bad. It will not give final gathering, bump, displacements, advanced materials, advanced control of bevels, area lighting, etc, but it is good for a commonly owned program.