Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. I'm going to show you how to make a powerful,
cinematic, 3D image of a logo, word or design.
I provided a PSD file for you to download,
so you can follow along. Its link is located in the video description or project files.
It includes two files: a stone wall and bare metal.
Before we start, you should check your 3D preference settings.
To do this, go to Edit, Preferences and 3D.
The Ray Tracer Threshold determines
the quality of the rendering. The higher the Threshold is, the less noise you'll have in
your final image, but the longer it'll take to render it. I generally keep it either 4
or 5. For slower computers, you may want to use an even lower setting. VRAM is the video
card's memory. The amount I'm allowing Photoshop to use is not necessary what you should use
because your computer may have its own requirements. Open your Horizontal Type Tool and choose
a heavy font. I'm using Arial Black. I'll start with a size of 105 points, Sharp and
Center Alignment. It can be any color. Click on your document and type out your text.
For this example, I’ll create a logo from a simple type design. I'll increase
the size of the "X" by highlighting it and dragging the "T" icon to the right.
To lower the "X", I'll go to Window and Character. The Character panel will open. Sliding the
"Baseline Shift" icon to the right or left slides the character up or down. I'd like
to move the word "films" closer to the "X", so I'll click between them and hold down Alt
or Option as I press the Left arrow key.
I'll repeat these steps to bring "Media" closer
to the "X". To reposition your line of text, open your Move Tool and move it.
We can close the Character panel now.
Open your Regular Marquee Tool and drag a rectangular selection over your text.
Go to the large "T" icon and hold down Ctrl + Alt on Windows
or Cmd + Option on a Mac as you click on it. This adds a selection of the shape of your
text to the rectangular selection that we just made. We can trash the text now, since
we don't need it anymore.
Click the new layer icon to make a new layer. We'll fill the selection
with white, since its easiest to see. If your foreground and background colors aren't black
and white, press "D" on your keyboard. Since white is the background color, press Ctrl
or Cmd + Delete. To deselect it, press Ctrl or Cmd + D.
Drag a rectangular selection over
the top. The bottom of the selection should be slightly overlapping the top of the large
character. Hold down your "Shift" key as you drag another rectangle over the side. The
left side of this selection should be slightly overlapping the last character.
Continue to hold down Shift as you drag another
selection over the bottom that slightly overlaps the bottom of your large character and repeat
this on the left side, as well. Continue to hold down "Shift" as you carefully add a selection
that slightly overlaps the top of your smaller text and the left side of the large character.
Repeat this on the bottom-left, bottom-right and top-right. When you're done, press the
"Delete" key to delete the areas outside your logo. To deselect it, press Ctrl or Cmd + D.
We’re ready to Enter the 3D mode. If you find that you're unable to access the
3D feature, it may be due to one or more of the reasons I listed in the video description.
Make the "Stone Wall" layer active and Shift-click on the "Bare Metal" layer to make it active,
as well. Go to 3D, "New Mesh from Layer" and "Postcard". If you see this warning, click Yes.
We're now in the 3D workspace. I won't be going over all the details here about 3D,
since I already did an in-depth tutorial. If you'd like to watch that video first, I
provided its link in this video's description.
Open the Layers panel. Notice both textures
have a cube icon at their corners to let us know that they're in the 3D mode. We're going
make the "Bare Metal" texture into a new 3D material and then wrap our logo with it. To
do this, click its thumbnail to make the layer active and open the 3D panel. Click
the "Whole Scenes" icon and click "Bare Metal".
In the "Properties" panel, under "Materials",
click the icon next to the ball, click the gear icon and click "New Material". When you
see this window, click OK to save it.
Scroll down to see that
"Bare Metal" is now a new material preset. Before we can wrap our logo with this material,
we need to make the logo go into the 3D mode.
Open the Layers panel and make Layer 1 active.
This our logo layer. Go to 3D and "New 3D Extrusion from Selected Layer".
Click the "Front Inflation Material" to make it active and Shift-click on the "Back Inflation Material"
to highlight all the layers between it and the top active layer.
Open the Material presets
and double-click the "Bare Metal" icon. This will wrap this texture around our entire logo.
Double-click the Extrusion and I'll make the Reflection: 35. You can always change it later.
Click the "Meshes" filter and reduce the depth of the extrusion to 2 inches. Again, you can
change it later if you like. Click the "Coordinates" icon and in the "X" axis of the Rotation field,
type in 90 degrees and then press Enter or Return.
Go to the Secondary view window and before you
click the icon at the top, right corner to swap the Main view with the Secondary View,
make sure the "Top" view is checked. Then, click the Swap icon.
Go to 3D and "Move Object to Ground Plane".
Now, the logo is sitting directly on the background and its shadow moved
closer to it. Open the Layers panel and Shift-click on the “Stone Wall” thumbnail.
Now, both layers are active.
Go to 3D and "Merge 3D Layers".
This connects the logo and the
stone wall in 3D space.
Open the 3D panel and click the "Whole Scene" filter icon, again.
Click "Environment" and uncheck "IBL", which are "Image-based Lights".goes
If your image goes black,
it means you have no other lights chosen yet. Click the lightbulb icon, which is the
"Lights" filter. Click the small lightbulb icon at the bottom of the panel, which will
open a choice of 3 types of lights you can use to illuminate your image: Point, Spot
or Infinite. You can add as many lights as you like from these 3 choices. For this example,
I'll choose "Infinite Light".
The Light widget has a handle that you can rotate to adjust
the angle of the light source. To soften the shadow, increase the Softness to an amount
you like. You can always change it later. I'll make mine, 30%.
I'll also increase the Intensity to 150%.
Click the "Whole Scene" icon and click "Current View".
Click the "Rotate" icon,
and rotate your image to an angle you like.
Click the "Drag" icon and drag your
image, so your logo is more to the center.
Click the "Slide" icon and drag it down to
slide it forward in space. Continue until you're happy with its angle, size and position.
Keep in mind, the more its angled, the more of the background will be cut off, however,
we'll fill in those empty areas in a minute. I'd like to adjust the angle of the shadow,
so I'll click on the "Lights" filter icon and rotate the widget's handle.
To get a preview of the final image, click the "Render" icon and Photoshop will start rendering the 3D image.
If you decide you want to stop the render, so you can go back to adjust your
3D image, just press the "Esc" key on your keyboard. Remember, the amount of time Photoshop
takes to render it depends on many factors, such as the computer's video card, the amount
of ram it has and the processing speed. It could take anywhere from a few minutes to
many hours. Once you have your finished 3D image fully rendered, you may have an empty
area that you want to fill. We first need to make a composite snapshot of
your fully rendered image. Open your Layers panel and press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E on
Windows or Cmd + Shift + Option + E on a Mac. a
Open your Polygonal Lasso Tool
and draw a shape around the area you want to fill in.
When you see a small circle, it means your
work path is closed and you can release your computer mouse or pen.
Go to Edit and Fill.
Choose "Content Aware" and click OK.
Then, deselect it.
If you want to retouch a spot,
open your Patch Tool, draw over the spot,
move your tool over a clean area and release.
Then, deselect it.
To brighten your image, press Shift + Ctrl + L or Shift + Cmd + L to invoke
"Auto Tone".
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!