TYPE: Text tutorial
LEVEL: Advanced
COMPATIBILITY: Requires Photoshop CS5 Extended
LEVEL: Advanced
COMPATIBILITY: Requires Photoshop CS5 Extended
CREATING TRANSPARENCY IN 3D MESHES, in Photoshop CS5 extended
By Pit Hermann
This tutorial describes a way to create transparency in a 3D mesh. It can be used to create transparency in a 3D object as well, by applying this technique to more than one meshes. If you follow these steps you will get the result as shown on PanosFX.com
In this example I will warp a text layer around a sphere. Then I'll make the sphere pixels transparent (but the text).
1. Open a new document with a ratio of 2:1.
In this example I used: 1000px (width) by 500px (height).
2. Type in the desired text.
(In this example I entered: "HAVE A LOT OF FUN -" using Times New Roman 90pt)
3. Press CONTROL+A (PC) / COMMAND+A (Mac) to select all.
4. Select the MOVE tool (key: "V") and click on the buttons "Align Horizontal Centers" and "Align Vertical Centers" in the tool's options bar.
5. Press CONTROL+D (PC) / COMMAND+D (Mac) to deselect.
6. Click on the "fx" button in the layers panel and select "Bevel & Emboss".
7. Click on the "Technique" drop down list and select "Chisel Hard". Set: Depth=100%, Size=60px.
8. Click on "Gradient Overlay", select GRADIENT:Spectrum and hit "OK"
9. Merge layers by pressing SHIFT+CONTROL+E (PC) / SHIFT+COMMAND+E (Mac).
10. Duplicate the image (Image > Duplicate) and name the new image as "transparency"
11. Convert the new image to GRAYSCALE (Image > Mode > Grayscale)
12. Press CONTROL+L (Mac: COMMAND+L) to bring up the Levels window.
Enter 0,01 in the midtones field (marked with red in the image below):
13. Press CONTROL+I (Mac: COMMAND+I) to invert the image.
Save the image to your hard disk (I prefer saving it as png, but you can save it as jpg or tiff).
Close this image.
14. Now we will create a sphere from the image that remained open in Photoshop (the one with the colored text).
Please select: 3D > New Shape from Layer > Sphere, from the main menu.
The image should now look like this (which is not actually anything new to you I think, but that we will change it NOW!):
15. We will use the 3D panel: Please select Window > 3D from the main menu.
It will show up like the image below. Then click on "Sphere_Material". If this line is not visible simply click on the small triangle to the left of "Sphere" and it will show up.
Now the panel should look like this:
16. Now click on the small folder icon to the right of the Opacity field (I marked it in red on the image below):
Select "Load Texture" and open the "transparency" image file you saved before.
Now your image looks like this:
We are ready. Now you can animate the image using the animation panel.
© Pit Hermann, http://pit-hermann.artistwebsites.com , http://www.pit-hermann.de
