Design Your Mind

After exploring the internet for hours last night searching for answers to all my 3D logo questions I found some good and not so good information on how to create them. There are plenty of tutorials out there that show you how to spice up a logo if you already have it as a 3D Object. But, for me, I didn't have the object made so I had to start from scratch. Not to many tutorials show you how to do this from scratch. I decided to fill in all the blanks with this tutorial, starting from square one. This is not meant to show you how to make a specific project but only aid in helping you with your 3D project.

Enjoy,
Aaron James Trigg



Creating 3D Text Tutorial: From Start To Finish




First off you must start with three programs: Adobe Illustrator, Blender 3D and Adobe Photoshop Extended. I'm certain this is not the only way to do this but it workes for me. Luckily Blender is free.

Start in Illustrator

1. Open Illustrator and create an new document whatever size you need for your design. The setting will not matter much, we'll be saving only the path information.



2. Use the text tool to create your desired graphic. Note: You can also make a complete logo if you want but this will create more work for you in blender. Refer to this link for instruction on multiple layers within Blender:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1iqbsiXe48&feature=related
For simplicity sake we will be only working with text this time around.

3. Right click the text after your done editing and click create outlines. This will make the text into paths that can be used by Blender. Note: If there are any overlapping paths you may consider merging the paths using pathfinder. This can help from creating headaches for noobies in Blender but is not a must if you are creating a complex logo.



4. When finished designing your text (or what ever you have been designing) save it out as an .SVG. Choose .SVG from the pull-down menu. This format stores all the path information and is easily read by Blender. You can use the default .SVG setting for this.



Time for Blender

5. Open up Blender and delete the default cube (press X and click).

6. Import the .SVG file you created in Illustrator. File--->Import--->Paths. Choose Inkscape (.svg) from the second menu to import your file.



7. Press tab to enter your object and 0 on your Number Pad to set the camera up in a useful position. Note: if you have any negative space paths in your original Illustrator file it may result in funky portion of you design either missing or transparent (this happened to me and drove me nuts for a few hours). You can fix it by selecting the negative space nodes (while hovering over press L key) and deleting (DEL key).

8. With your object selected increase the Extrude amount in the Curves and Surfaces pallet to a depth that is pleasing to you. I used a value of .40. You can also add Bevel Depth and Resolution if you require it. This will round your edges. To check the look of your design press 0 on the Num Pad the 5 to bring into perspective. Toggle back and forth to get the desired results.



9. After you have made your tweaks you must export the object. Choose File--->Export--->Waterfront(.obj). This format works seamlessly with Photoshop Extended. You can use all the default settings for this export.



Finally Photoshop!

10 .Open Photoshop and create a new document. Important:Be sure to make the document 32bit! This will allow for best results when importing your 3D layer (this was another one of my big hang-ups when I first learned to do 3D layers).




11 .To import your 3D object choose Layer--->3D Layers--->New Layers From 3D File. Choose All Formats in the Files Of Type drop-down menu to view your all files. Find your file and click OK. The object should appear on its back in the composition.

12 .Double-click the 3D object's little icon in the layers pallet. This will allow you to position the object using the tools at the top of the page.



13 .Once you have the object positioned it is time to change the bit depth so you can have more options for editing. Before changing it make sure to rasterize the 3D object layer by right-clicking the layer and choosing Rasterize Layer. Choose Image--->Mode--->16Bits/Channel. Now all common editing options should be enabled and ready for use.

14 .This is where you can take control of you design, whatever it may be. I will not go into depth as to how I got to my end result but I'm sure you can find all that info on the net especially Youtube.com. Remember to have fun.


This images is only an example of 3D text. By no means is this all that can be done.