This lesson will teach you how to create a bright, textured, glossy text effect in Photoshop CS6. For the relief we will use the texture, materials, change their settings. We will also use and adjust the lighting of the image and its environment.
Lesson summary
Materials for the lesson:
Font HVD Comic Serif Pro
Texture created with Filter Forge’s filter – True Carbon Filter
Chrome water texture
Create a new document 1200 x 1000 pixels and fill the background with color # c7b29a. Then write the text in capital letters HVD Comic Serif Pro, white color, font size 393 pt. (Do not fill the scene with a word with a large number of letters – five letters or less will give the best result).
Go to the menu 3D – New 3D-extrusion from the selected layer (3D – New 3D Extrusion from Selected Layer). After that, the text is converted to a 3D grid.
To access the settings and properties of the 3D grid, you need to open two panels. They are in the menu Window (Window). Panel 3D and panel Properties (Properties).
The 3D panel has all the components. 3d scenes (3D scene), and when you click on the name of any of them, you can access its settings in the panel Properties (Properties). Therefore, always check that the item you want to change is selected in the 3D panel before changing its settings in the panel. Properties (Properties).
Now you can see that the text layer has been transformed into a 3D layer.
Click on the grid name (your text) in the 3D panel. Then in the panel Properties (Properties) change Texture mapping (Texture Mapping) on Mosaic (Tile) and set the value Extrusion Depths (Depth) to 70.
Activate the icon Capital (Cap) in the panel Properties (Properties). In the option settings Chamfer (Bevel) put Width (Width) with a value of 10%, Angle (Angle) 45 ° and select Circuit (Сontour) Semicircle (Half Round). For settings Bloat (Inflate) – Angle (Angle) 90 °, Intensity (Strength) with a value of 10. This will add volume (swell) to the front of the grid.
Activate the tool Move (Move Tool). In the top toolbar of the toolbar, on the right, you will notice how the 3D control icons appeared. This is a set 3D modes (3D Modes). When you select one of them, dragging, you can make changes to the selected 3D element.
Thus, you can move to any empty area of the 3D scene to change the camera view, but do not rotate the 3D grid yet.
Highlight in 3D panel Front bulge material (Front Inflation Material). Then in the properties panel, change to Scattering (Diffuse) color on # 792500, Highlight color (Specular) at # bbb08c, Glow (Illumination) on # 080808 and Lighting (Ambient) to # 000000. Also, change Shine (Shine) up to 80% to create a slight flare and change the value Reflections (Reflection) up to 25% to create a reflective surface.
Click on the option folder icon Relief (Bump) and select Load texture (Load Texture).
Download the texture image, which is given in the materials for the lesson. This will allow you to apply the texture of the material of the anterior bulge as a relief map. In this way, lighter areas of the texture will create bumps, and darker areas will create flat surfaces.
As you can see, the texture looks large. We need to edit it. To do this, click on the option folder icon Relief (Bump) and select Edit UV properties (Edit UV Properties).
In the settings dialog box, change the value U-scales (U Scale) at 600%, which will repeat the pattern vertically, change the value V-scales (V Scale) at 100% and values U-offsets (U Offset) and V-offsets (V Offset) at 0%.
The texture looks much better, but you can try different settings if you like a different result.
If it seems to you that the effect of the texture of the Relief is very strong, you can always reduce it, in our case it’s worth 5%.
Highlight in 3D panel Front Bevel Material (Front Bevel Material). Then in the properties panel, change to Scattering (Diffuse) color to # 000000, Color highlight (Specular) on # c1c1c1, Glow (Illumination) on # 080808 and Lighting (Ambient) to # 000000. Also change Shine (Shine) up to 95%, value Reflections (Reflection) up to 16% and Coefficient refractions (Refraction) on 1.5.
To save the material and reapply it, instead of setting it up each time, click the arrow to display the material preview window, then in the pop-up menu, click the settings icon on the right and select the item Create material (New Material).
Enter a name for the new material and click OK.
Press and hold the Ctrl key and select two items – Extrusion material (Extrusion Material) and Rear bevel material (Back Bevel Material). Now open the materials window and select the previously saved material by simply clicking on its thumbnail.
Apply the same settings to the Back Inflation Material as Front bulge material (Front Inflation Material).
Here is the text at the moment. Next we are going to customize the lighting.
Click on the item Infinite light 1 (Infinite Light 1) in the 3D panel, and then in the property bar, change it Intensity (Intensity) up to 90% and Shadow Smoothing (Shadow Softness) up to 60%.
Click on the icon Coordinates (Coordinates) at the top of the properties panel. Now change the rotation values as shown below: (X = 10 °, Y = -17 °, Z = 20 °).
At the bottom of the 3D panel, click on the icon Add a new light to the scene (Add new Light to Scene) and select New endless light (New Infinite Light).
AT Infinite Light 2 (Infinite Light 2) change Intensity (Intensity) up to 40% and uncheck the option Shadow (Shadow).
Click on the icon Coordinates (Coordinates) at the top of the properties panel and change the values as shown below: (X = 142.5 °, Y = 59 °, Z = -137.3 °).
Highlight an item in the 3D panel Environment (Environment). In the properties panel for Of shadows (Shadows) change Opacity (Opacity) up to 60%, and for Reflections (Reflections) change Opacity (Opacity) up to 20%. Smoothness (Roughness) change to 10%.
Click on the option folder icon Isbi (IBL) and select Load texture (Load Texture). Find and open the chrome water texture.
Reduce value Intensity (Intensity) up to 34%.
The blue color in the texture adds a blue light to the scene. We will fix it. Click on the option folder icon Isbi (IBL) and select Edit texture (Edit Texture) to open a texture file and edit it.
In the texture file at the bottom of the layers palette, click the icon Create a new adjustment layer (Create new fill or adjustment layer) and select correction Color tone \ Saturation (Hue / Saturation).
Set the value Color tone (Hue) at -145.
Save the file when it is closed and return to the original document of the 3D scene. If you still don’t like the result, you can go back to editing the texture file and try some other values. Color tone (Hue). Now make sure you don’t want to change anything else in the 3D grid or scene so that we can continue.
Click in the 3D panel on the 3D grid group (your text) and go to the menu 3D – Split Extrusion (3D – Split Extrusion).
In the appeared window there will be a warning about the loss of animation for the current extrusion object – click OK.
As a result, we got the division of a common grid into a separate one for each letter.
Use the tool Move (Move Tool) to move, place and rotate the letters in the scene.
You can simply click on the grids (letters) in the 3D scene (or select the name of the letter in the 3D panel) to use the 3D axes and make changes.
The arrows on the tips of the axes are used to move the grid, the lower part to rotate, and the cube to scale along the axis. The large cube in the center is used to scale the entire object evenly. All you need is to use these elements to edit the position and size of the text.
You can also click on the option in the 3D panel. Current view (Current View) and change the camera view to check how the scene looks from different sides and make sure that the letters do not overlap.
Finish positioning the grids (letters) and select the final camera view (angle). Now check that the meshes are not lower and not above the ground plane. Select all objects (letters) and go to the menu 3D – Snap an object to the base plane (3D Snap Object to Ground Plane).
Finally go to the menu 3D Rendering (3D – Render) to visualize the final result. This may take some time, but you can stop rendering at any time by clicking anywhere on the document.
This is the final result. Color and lighting show texture while the smooth sides give elegance and grace, and the floor with a reflective surface completes the integrity of the 3D scene.
The author hopes that you liked his lesson and will be useful.
