Using 3D in Photoshop
Painting 3D objects
Creating 3D objects in Illustrator
Adobe products have always focused on 2D graphics. Using special techniques, you could make 2D graphics have a 3D look, but the end result always could be printed. While the Adobe products have continued to introduce new features and more efficient workflows, a host of 3D programs have continued along the same vein.
Today several robust 3D packages are available such as Autodesk's 3ds Max and Maya, and the ability to produce 3D objects is becoming much easier. 3D objects are common in many avenues of graphical design. The ability to work with these assets defines an efficient workflow.
This chapter takes a closer look at working with 3D objects in CS5. Photoshop CS5 Extended includes a host of features for incorporating and working with 3D objects. Illustrator also includes the ability to work with basic 3D objects.
The 3D features available in Photoshop CS5 Extended include the ability to load, move, rotate, and scale 3D models. You also can paint on the surface of the 3D objects.
The first step in working with 3D objects is to load the 3D objects into Photoshop. 3D objects are saved using a 3D file format that keeps track of all the vertices, edges, and faces that make up the object. These formats also keep track of other information including the object's texture, any scene lights, and animations.
A large number of 3D file formats are available and Photoshop supports several of them. The supported file formats include the following:
U3d: This format is produced by Acrobat 3D Version 8.
3ds: This format is created by Autodesk's 3ds Max product.
obj: This format was initially created by Wavefront, but is a common format used by many different 3D packages.
kmz: This format is exported by Google Earth and holds geographical data used for maps and earth features.
Collada: This format is a fairly new non-proprietary format with broad industry support.
3D models saved using one of these formats are loaded into Photoshop using the File
3D models can be loaded into an existing document using the 3D
3D layers also can be exported from Photoshop to the U3d, OBJ, KMZ, and Collada formats using the 3D
Several tools in the Toolbox allow you to move, rotate, and scale loaded 3D objects. Once these tools are selected, you can drag in the scene to transform the 3D object or the view. These tools are available as flyouts under the 3D Object Rotate tool (K) and include:
3D Object Rotate tool: Rotates the 3D object about its center.
3D Object Roll tool: Spins the 3D object about its center point.
3D Object Pan tool: Moves the 3D object to either side.
3D Object Slide tool: Moves the 3D object toward or away from the current view.
3D Object Scale tool: Resizes the 3D object.
The Toolbox includes several tools that change the view of the 3D object. Changing the view keeps the 3D objects in their current orientation but changes the camera view that is used to view the 3D scene. This is most noticeable when several objects are next to one another. The tools under the 3D Rotate Camera tool (N) flyout include:
3D Rotate Camera tool: Rotates the camera view about the object's center.
3D Roll Camera tool: Spins the camera view about the object's center point.
3D Pan Camera tool: Moves the camera view to the left or right.
3D Walk Camera tool: Moves the camera toward or away from the center.
3D Zoom Camera tool: Zooms into and out of the 3D scene.
When the 3D layer is selected and any of the tools in the preceding list are selected, a transformation widget is displayed in the upper-left corner of the document. Using this widget you can move, rotate, or scale the 3D object. As you move the mouse over the top of the transformation widget, different parts of the widget are highlighted yellow, as shown in Figure 13.2. Dragging when the different parts are highlighted yellow transforms the 3D object in different ways:
Conic arrows: Dragging when one of the conic arrows is highlighted yellow moves the 3D object along the highlighted axis.
Arched section: Dragging when one of the arched sections is highlighted yellow rotates the 3D object about the perpendicular axis. A ring appears about the rotation axis when highlighted.
Rectangular block: Dragging when one of the rectangular blocks is highlighted yellow scales the 3D object along a single axis.
Centered square block: Dragging the centered square block from which all axes extend causes the entire 3D object to be uniformly scaled.
Square plane: Positioning the mouse between two axes causes a square plane to appear. Dragging when this square plane is highlighted allows the 3D object to be moved within the defined plane.
After the 3D model is transformed, you can save the view and recall these views using the controls on the Options bar. The drop-down list in the Options bar includes standard views for Default, Left, Right, Top, Bottom, Back, and Front. The Return button takes you to the initial camera position if the camera movement gets lost. Figure 13.3 shows the 3D table object after it has been rotated to its side.
Within the 3D menu are several menu options for making 2D drawings into 3D objects. These features include the following:
New 3D Postcard from Layer: Any layer can be placed on a 3D plane that can be rotated using the 3D tools. This menu converts any standard layer to a 3D layer as if it were place on a postcard. Figure 13.4 shows a kangaroo image that has been placed on a 3D postcard and rotated.
New Shape from Layer: This menu option includes a number of standard 3D primitive objects that are placed in a 3D layer. The available shapes include Cone, Cube, Cylinder, Donut, Hat, Pyramid, Ring, Soda Can, Sphere, Spherical Panorama, and Wine Bottle. Figure 13.5 shows the Wine Bottle 3D shape added on top of the table object.
New Mesh from Grayscale: Uses the grayscale values in a standard layer to create a 3D depth map. These depth maps can be Planar, Two-Sided Planar, Cylindrical, or Spherical.
New Volume from Layers: This menu requires that you select at least two layers. Each layer defines a different cross-sectional area. Once selected, a dialog box appears where you can specify the depth of the volume for each cross-section. For Figure 13.6, several cross-sections of a tree were created on four different layers. All four layers were then selected and the 3D
Repoussé: This option opens the Repoussé dialog box, shown in Figure 13.7. Using this dialog box, you can define how the selected layer is extruded. The Repoussé dialog box includes options for specifying the extrusion's Depth, Scale, Twist, and Texture. You also can apply a contoured bevel the shape's edge. Repoussé works with text layers, layer masks, paths, and selections. The top of the dialog box has a series of presets that you can select to automatically change the settings. Figure 13.8 shows an example applied to some text.
3D objects are interesting, but sometimes they can be boring. Adding textures to the surface of a 3D objects adds a level of visual quality to the object. Photoshop is often used to create the textures that are applied to 3D objects, but using the 3D texturing and painting features in Photoshop is a much more efficient workflow.
When a 3D object is loaded into Photoshop, its textures are listed in the 3D layer in the Layers palette. These textures can be turned on and off using the Visibility icon. Better yet, if you doubleclick the texture name, you can open the texture in another window for editing.
3D objects can have several different textures. The default texture that holds the surface colors is called the Diffuse texture, but other textures are available. For example, the Bump texture holds the height of each surface point and is used to add bumps and relief to the model. The textures supported by Photoshop CS5 Extended include:
Diffuse: The Diffuse texture holds the surface color information.
Bump: The Bump texture holds the height information at each surface point.
Glossiness: The Glossiness texture defines how bright and sharp the highlights are at each surface point.
Opacity: The Opacity texture defines the places on the object where the surface is transparent or semi-transparent.
Shininess: The Shininess texture shows those places where the highlights are the strongest and where the object reflects its surroundings.
Self-Illumination: The Self-Illumination texture defines areas where the surface tends to glow like a light-bulb.
Reflectivity: The Reflectivity texture defines the areas where the surface is highly reflective.
Typically, the Diffuse texture shows colors, but other textures such as Bump and Opacity use a grayscale map to define how the Opacity is applied. White areas show where the surface is completely opaque and black areas show where the surface is fully transparent. Gray areas are semitransparent. Figure 13.9 shows a 3D hat object with and without textures applied.
After a 3D layer is added to the scene, you can access the 3D settings, adjust lighting, and apply materials using the 3D panel opened with the Window
Figure 13.10. The 3D panel includes all the settings for the 3D scene. Filter by Meshes Filter by Materials
To the left of the 3D panel are several tools for rotating objects, cameras, meshes, and lights. The flyout tools under each of these tools are the same as those found in the Toolbox including tools for rolling, panning, sliding, and scaling. The 3D panel also includes tools for dropping a selected material on the selected part and for selecting materials.
At the bottom of the panel are icons for creating and deleting lights for the scene. As flyouts under the Create New Light icon, you can select the type of light to add to the scene. The options are Point, Spot, Infinite, and Image Based lights. To the left of the Create New Light button is a button that is used to show or hide extra objects such as the 3D Axis, 3D Ground Plane, 3D Light, and the current 3D Selection.
If a material or texture object is selected in the 3D panel, then the panel shows the material settings for each of the material properties, as shown in Figure 13.11. To the right of each of the material properties is an icon that you can click to create a new texture for that property. Some of the material properties also include a value that you can set. For example, the Opacity can be set using a value or you can apply a texture as the Opacity value, which makes all white areas in the applied texture fully opaque and makes all black areas in the texture transparent.
Within the 3D panel is also a selection list of materials. Choosing a new material, you can use the Material Drop tool to place the selected material onto any of the scene mesh objects. Within the selection list is a library of various material presets including brick, wood, orange peel, leather, moss, granite, and marble. You can also use the library pop-up menu to define new materials, save and load material sets, and change the icon size.
If a light object is selected in the 3D panel, then the properties for the selected light are displayed including options for setting the light type, its intensity, and its color. If an image-based light type is selected, you can load in a bitmap to use for lighting the scene. The 3D panel also includes a number of lighting presets for simulating dawn, fire, night lights, blue lights, and so on. If a spot light is selected, you can set the Hotspot, which is the area where the light intensity is at a maximum and a falloff, which is the area where the light gradually fades in intensity.
For all light types, you can select that the light casts shadows. You can also set the softness of the shadows. If you select a mesh object, you have the option to make the object catch or cast shadows. Beneath all objects is a ground plane. This plane virtually represents the floor and you can have any shadows that are cast in the scene automatically appear on the ground plane using the 3D
Once the 3D models are placed, you can define the visual style of the rendered objects using the 3D
For the Face rendering option, several face styles are available including Solid, Ray Traced, Unit Texture, Flat, Constant, Bounding Box, Normals, Depth Map, and Paint Mask. You also can specify a color to be used if no diffuse texture is present. You also can enable reflections, refractions, and shadows.
At the top of the Render Settings dialog box is a list of available presets. You also can define and save your own presets. All the defined render presets are also available in the 3D panel. As changes are made to the 3D scene, Photoshop does its best to redraw the scene, but the scene may look pixelated as you work with the scene. After the settings are configured, you can have Photoshop render the final result with all shadows and lighting effects using the Quality setting in the 3D panel when the Scene is selected in the top panel. The Quality settings include three settings. The Interactive mode has the quickest refresh rate, but the results are not as accurate. Interactive mode also doesn't show any shadows, reflections, or lighting effects. The other modes are Ray Traced Draft and Ray Traced Final. Draft is quicker than final and final has the best quality image. Figure 13.14 shows the resulting render of a 3D ring with the Ray Traced render option.
When a Ray Traced quality setting is selected, a small set of square boxes scan across the screen, starting at the top and progressing down to the bottom. These boxes are the areas that the ray tracing engine is currently working on. When the boxes go away, the final rendering is finished. If you're finished with the 3D scene, you can flatten the 3D layer into the background with the 3D
Photoshop CS5 Extended not only loads video and animation files; it also edits and paints on the frames of these files. Video and animation files that are loaded into Photoshop appear in the Layers palette as a special video layer, which is marked with a filmstrip-like icon in the lower-right corner of the thumbnail. The layer gives you access to the video's frames using the Animation palette.
The video formats supported by Photoshop CS5 Extended include MPEG, MOV, AVI, and image sequence formats including BMP, DICOM, JPEG, OpenEXR, PNG, PSD, Targa, and TIFF.
The Animation palette can display the video sequence in Timeline mode or in Frame mode. Timeline mode, shown in Figure 13.15, shows the duration of the sequence and all the animation properties. Frame mode displays a thumbnail of the animation at each frame.
Using the Animation palette menu, you can navigate and manipulate the timeline frames, copy and paste keyframes, and set the keyframe interpolation. Additional options let you change the frame rate and the sequence duration.
The 3D category of effects lets you convert simple 2D paths into simple 3D objects. The 3D menu includes three different effects—Extrude & Bevel, Revolve, and Rotate. For example, a simple square path can be made into a cube with the Extrude effect, and a half circle path may be revolved to create a sphere. 3D objects in Illustrator created with these effects include shading using controllable lights.
Extruding a 3D path is simply the process of adding depth to the path. This is accomplished using the 3D Extrude & Bevel Options dialog box, shown in Figure 13.16.
The Position field at the top of the dialog box lets you select one of the default preset positions. Selecting a position preset automatically updates the X-axis, Y-axis, Z-axis, and Perspective values. If any of these values are changed, then the Custom Rotation preset is used. The default position presets include positions such as Front, Left, Top, Off-Axis Front, Off-Axis Top, Isometric Left, and so on. Isometric views are views where the Perspective value equals 0 and all parallel lines remain parallel.
Figure 13.16. The 3D Extrude & Bevel Options dialog box lets you specify the direction and distance to extrude the selected path.
Tip
You can drag in the Preview pane, and the X-Axis, Y-Axis, and Z-Axis values are automatically updated. Dragging a cube face spins the object about all three axes, but clicking an edge spins the object about only a single axis.
The Extrude Depth value determines how far the path is moved to create depth. The Cap On and Cap Off buttons determine whether the extruded object is hollow or capped on either end.
The Bevel pop-up menu lets you choose the type of bevel to apply to the object. Each bevel type shows a profile curve. This curve matches the extruded portion of the object, and the Height value sets the maximum distance from the edge of the path. The bevel profile curve may be applied outward or inward using the Bevel Extent In and Bevel Extent Out buttons.
The Surface options define how the extruded object is shaded. The options include Wireframe, No Shading, Diffuse Shading, and Plastic Shading. If you click the More Options button, several lighting controls appear. Figure 13.17 shows several extrude, bevel, and shading options applied to an object.
The Wireframe option only draws the lines used to make up the 3D object. The No Shading option colors each face of the object using the selected fill and stroke colors. Neither the Wireframe nor the No Shading options have any lighting settings.
The Diffuse Shading option colors each face a different shade depending on how the light is cast upon the object. For this option, you can specify the Light Intensity, the Ambient Light percentage, the number of Blend Steps to use, and the Shading Color.
The Plastic Shading option colors the object as if the light were shining on an object with the surface made of plastic. Plastic objects are highly reflective and include specular highlights. For this option, you also have settings for the Highlight Intensity and Size.
When either the Diffuse or Plastic Shading options are selected, you can position the precise location of the lights used to illuminate the object by dragging in the Lighting Preview pane. Using the buttons underneath the pane, you can move the selected light to the back of the object so it shines from behind, create new lights, or delete a selected light. Lights are represented by the small white dots, and a single object can have many lights.
The Light Intensity value determines the strength of the light, which is at 100 percent at the center of its highlight. The Ambient Light value determines how much background light is used to light the object. The Blend Steps value defines the number of different colors that are used to blend colors from the highlight to the shadows. The Shading Color is the color reflected off the object away from the highlight.
Within the Extrude & Bevel dialog box, the Map Art button opens another dialog box, shown in Figure 13.18, where you can select a Symbol to map onto the various surfaces of the extruded object.
The Symbol pop-up menu lets you choose a Symbol from the active Symbol palette to apply to the selected surface. The Surface control includes arrows, which let you cycle through all the various surfaces that make up the extruded object. When a surface is selected, it is highlighted red in the art board.
Figure 13.18. The Map Art dialog box lets you add symbols to the surfaces of the selected extruded object.
Note
Symbols and the Symbol palette are covered in Chapter 9.
The Scale to Fit button causes the selected symbol to be scaled to fit within the selected surface. The Clear button removes the mapped symbol from the selected surface, and the Clear All button removes all mapped symbols from the entire object. The Shade Artwork option includes the mapped artwork as part of the shading calculations and the Invisible Geometry option may be selected to hide the geometry and show only the mapped artwork. Using the Invisible Geometry option is helpful to warp artwork along a 3D surface.
The Effect
Figure 13.19. The 3D Revolve Options dialog box is similar to the dialog box for the Extrude & Bevel effect.
Using the Revolve effect, you can revolve a path about an axis to create a 3D object like the glass shown in Figure 13.20. The 3D Revolve Options dialog box lets you specify how much of an Angle to revolve about and whether the open ends are capped or not.
The Offset lets you specify the location of the center axis about which the selected path is revolved. The Surface options are the same as those for the Extrude & Bevel effect.
Photoshop allows several 3D formats to be loaded, including U3d, 3ds, obj, kmz, and the Collada format.
Using the 3D Rotate tool, you can transform 3D objects within Photoshop. The transform widget in the upper-left corner of the interface also allows transformations of 3D objects.
Photoshop creates 3D objects in several different ways, including 3D postcards, primitive objects, extruding with Repoussé, and using a Grayscale mesh or a new volume from layers.
Using texture maps, you can paint directly on the mapped 3D object within Photoshop. Maps can include diffuse, bump, glossiness, opacity, shininess, self,-illumination and reflectivity.
Illustrator can extrude, revolve, and rotate objects to create 3D objects using the 3D category in the Effects menu.