Fake 3D in Photoshop
Nik Ainley talks us through creating fashionable 3D artwork without touching any rendering tools whatsoever
Nik Ainley talks us through creating fashionable 3D artwork without touching any rendering tools whatsoever! Good Eh?
This is one of those tutorials where we will use Photoshop not because it is the ideal tool, but as a demonstration of Photoshop’s power and versatility.
This tutorial was inspired by a request to know how to replicate a certain imagery style using only Photoshop. These referenced images were produced using 3D software, such as 3ds Max, which are built for producing such scenes. Trying to reproduce this effect using just Photoshop (not even with the help of Illustrator and its useful line-drawing and 3D effects tools) is a wonderful way to get to grips with many of Photoshop’s functions. This kind of layered concept looks very cool when combined with natural textures and glossy Web 2.0 stylings, plus Web Designer adopted it for the cover of issue 145. What’s more, faking three-dimensional objects in Photoshop has a lot of uses in design other than being a demonstration of its abilities. Apart from the fact that it negates the need to either purchase or learn 3D software, it can often allow results to be produced far more quickly.
We will have a good look at Photoshop’s Transform function in creating the illusion of perspective, as well as clipping groups and airbrushing to create shading.
This image was created at about 3,000 x 3,500 pixels in size, so any measurements in this tutorial should be adjusted to whatever size you work at. Happy faking!
This tutorial was written by Nik Ainley and first appeared in Web Designer issue 152
Download all the files for this tutorial here http://www.webdesignermag.co.uk/tutorial-files/issue-152-tutorial-files/
01 Line ‘em up
The most important aspect of getting a good 3D feel is creating realistic perspective. To achieve this, we are going to create a guide grid. There are two ways to do this. The first involves drawing out a grid such as this using the Line tool or Pen tool, and then transforming it with Distort selected to give it some perspective. This method is preferable, but the next one is almost certainly quicker.
02 A bit of perspective
The second way is to use the Vanishing Point filter, which is rather useful for perspective-based trickery. On a new layer, enter the filter and draw out a plane with a nice perspective. Then click on the little arrow at the top and choose Render Grids to Photoshop, then exit the filter and you have yourself a nice grid to use. The filter can get oddly grumpy about producing differently orientated planes, though, so watch out. The Plane Drawing tool will change colour to let you know this is happening. We explain why we don’t use the filter for the whole process in the boxout on page 60.
03 Background work
Now place and keep this grid at the top of your image. We will be turning it on and off throughout in order to match various objects’ perspectives to it. Add a gradient to the background, trying to match the angle of your grid. This in turn adds a quick bit of depth.
04 Shape time
Now to add our first object. You can use anything you want here really; simple geometric shapes work very well. Using either the Pen tool or the Shape tool, draw out a simple shape. Make it quite big so that distorting it later doesn’t introduce fuzziness.
05 Details
To make our shape a bit more interesting, we are going to add some colour and details. First of all, we made sure the shape was white, and then got a selection based on its outline (Ctrl-click on the layer’s thumbnail). We then contracted the selection by about 20 pixels (Select>Modify>Contract) and filled this with a dark pink on a new layer
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Pretty, I like it
At 08 there is a wrong screenshot.
Sorry for the doublepost, but I also found that step 20 is talking about Illustrator, so it probably comes from another tutorial.
it strongly reminds me of Heiko Klug’s work…
just view some of his (amazing) older works in his portfolio @ http://www.jesar-one.com/
great tut…
Some more informations and bigger screenshots would help a lot.
I’m currently stuck at the “Object>Path>Outline Stroke” part. Where can I find “Object>Path>Outline Stroke”?
I have absolutely no idea, really.
This makes me think that I should start using Maya.
great tutorial ….added to my blog
thanks for ur sharing
A really impressive result! Thanks for sharing this.
waaahhhhh
that so hard……
Hi there,
im stuck on step 20!
where is the “object>path>outline stroke”?
and could you explain that step in more detail, it is a little vague for me a novice
peace, Christina
Very nice effect – but it should be done in illustrator
nice work!!
i like it
very nice tutorial ,,excellent !
great tutorial
!
as with the others, got stuck on step 20 but i’m guessing it’s a step from some other illustrator tutorial maybe?
anyhow i still wanted to finish the tutorial & for those interested, here’s what i did to get the cast shadow effect:
1- select the depth layer of our Disc object (the white merged layers)
2- ctrl + click on one of the layer thumb to select the filled area of the layer
3- now what i did was transform the selection by Select > Transform Selection. I slightly enlarged the selection to the area we want filled as the casted shadow
4- select the empty layer from which we need the shadow to be casted, & use the gradient tool (black to transparent, linear) to create the shadow within our selection. I also used 80% opacity & Soft Light blending mode to get the effect I wanted. you can use whatever gives you the effect you find best
this turned out looking fine but not quite as realistic as i’d hoped! any suggestions for alternatives?
to Сhristina and John:
object>path>outline – I think it’s from Illustrator… Don’t know why they mentioned it in ps tutorial
but, very nice! like it
Hi, the link is not setup right for http://www.webdesignermag.co.uk/tutorial-files/issue-152-tutorial-files/
The link only reads: ttp://www.webdesignermag.co.uk/tutorial-files/issue-152-tutorial-files/
And so since the h is missing, causes the link to be bad.
This looks like torture… lol.. I am a 3D modeler and use 3ds max, why not just learn 3ds max instead of putting yourself through all of this? It would take a lot longer to do it this way then in max.
That is amazing, thank you for sharing. Im not sure if my first few trys at 3D images will be decent but Im motivated! I really like how you present things in a practical way, where I leave feeling like Ive really learned something I can do.
Hey, i’m a graphic design student.. A bit more accustomed to Illustrator for this kind of work, but I’m definetely going to give this a whirl tomorrow in my hour class, see what results I can get. Looks promising!
great work, I like it.
really cool tutorial, I am going to share it through my own blog and twitter
I love it. Would be great if there was an option to look at a printable version with everything on one page …
I wish I was half as talented as the least talented person at Adobe. Seems like I have to hire a graphic designer for everything despite having Photoshop.
Love it! Fantastic in depth tutorial covering some major elements in 3d design… more articles like this would be great! Thanks
great work, I like it.
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