Illustrator 3D: Bust Down the 2D Barrier
I’m not sure if this is a widely used Illustrator feature or not. I’ve been using Illustrator almost every day for years, but I never took advantage of this feature until a few months ago. If this isn’t new to you, spare me the “I already knew that crap.” It’s new to me, and I think it’s something every Illustrator should know about, so I’m posting it. You can easily create realistic 3D objects in Illustrator in seconds using the Effect menu. You don’t need anything more than a flat shape to get started, and it can be changed after it’s applied, using the appearance palette. It’s so simple, I hate myself for not using it a long time ago. . .
To begin, create a simple shape on the artboard that you would like to make 3d. I used a square and I put my logo on top of the square so you can see the perspective effects of any artwork or designs you might incorporate into this effect. This is NOT an image it is 2 vector shapes in Illustrator. Important: You must group the shapes (artwork) BEFORE you apply this effect. Here is what my shape looks like:
Now that you have your shape, make sure it is grouped, and select it.
With your shape selected, go to the “Effect” menu and select “3D > Extrude and Bevel.”
You will see this options menu: (immediately click “preview” so you can see your shape change in real-time)
Now your 2D Design is rendered by Illustrator in 3D, complete with lighting and shading!
Now all you have to do is explore the options that Illustrator provides you, and see what suits you best. Here are the settings I used in the example. I added a light, changed the perspective angle, and the depth of the extrusion.
Take it a step further:
The Adobe team has been kind enough to offer us the option to map out artwork for each face of our extrusion. Explore the “Map Artwork” settings to “Skin” your Illustrator 3D objects!
Download the File I used for this tutorial
My only complaint with this feature is that if you get too complex, your system basically just stops while you can go and watch a SpongeBob marathon. If you try to cancel it, it takes just as long to undo.
True, Keep it simple, it can And Will overwhelm your system if you get too intricate. But I bet it would make quick work of a software box! :)
nice tutorial man i knew the tool but i never knew what was the use value of the tool.
thanks man
Regards
Amitav Roy
Once again, nice work!!!
Thanks for all your efforts. Keep it up!
Cheers
My big complaint with the filter is the same that Dimensions had way back in the day… no realistic idea of foreshortening. The points of the 3-d art in the back are way too “close” to be realistic. But I will admit: mapping art to a face is one sweet way to jazz things up.
There was a tutorial a long time ago about mapping art to an object with no fill and stroke. You could have a ribbon going around a glass with text applied to the face. Paint the ribbon with no fill/stroke and it is just text wrapped 3-d style around the glass. Cool stuff though.
Cheers,
Ian
Hi very cool! I made a ‘thing’ using that method and i like to show it to you. It’s golden and it became very complex eventually. you can find it on http://www.fatpatricia.com or i can mail it to you perhaps?
This truly is one hidden Gem. Its fun to use with text.
Nice tutorial, illustrating steps easy to follow…
Very informative tutorial but can this be done in Fireworks? I recently completed the course on Fireworks but I cannot replicate these steps in it.
Cool tutorial, cool tool, great site…!!! thanks a lot…
Hi BittBox your site is great!
About this thread I’m actually trying to apply 3d to bitmap images imported but they always look crispy and low-definition.
Have you any secret to get a final result such as the one you got with vector lines?
Thanks
great tutorial
Tanks