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[Russell Preston Brown in...]
The Russell Brown Show, Power Tips]
Recently, one of my viewers posed a very interesting
question to me.
They said, "How can I place text, live text,
that I can edit directly on to
the surface of a 3D object
and have it distort to the contours of that 3D shape?"
Well, the answer is yes, but, of course,
I'm going to take it one step farther, because
this is The Russell Brown Show, and I want to show you,
in this project, how to take the word water, in this case,
and have it distort over the shape of this water drop.
Of course, we're going to do all of this inside of Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended.
Let's get started.
Now in this particular case, of course, this 2D
image is an RGB image.
If we look over here to the channels tabbed panel,
you can see the grayscale images that make up
these RGB values, the red, green, and blue.
Now I happen to know that in CS4 Extended
under the 3D menu, you can take a
grayscale image and turn it into
a 3-D mesh.
So we're going to create a 3D object from a grayscale image.
It just so happens that in this particular project,
that the red channel has the contrast
that I need for this 3D shape.
So as you look at this image, the areas that are dark will
go away from you and down into the valleys.
The areas that are light will come toward you.
It's going to create a mountain range, a 3D mountain range,
based upon the grayscale values.
We're going to use the red channel to create
this 3D surface.
So step number one, I'm going to do a
select-all command A on the Macintosh
or control A on the PC.
Notice that I'm targeting the red channel.
That was my best choice for this project.
I'm then going to copy it, command C on the Macintosh
or control C on the PC.
I click here at the top on my RGB image.
I go back to my layers tab panel and I
only have one layer, but if I do a paste
right into this, command V
or control V, I've pasted
a new layer, a copy of the red channel.
So I have my original down below and my copy.
It's this grayscale channel that we're going to turn into
a 3D shape, and it's
this 3D shape that the text will distort over.
Here we go.
The next step is very important.
I happen to know that when you turn a grayscale image
into a 3D shape, it tends to distort the image
and you need more canvas area
in order to not have this
distortion change the size of the image.
Watch this.
I'm going up here to the image menu and down to canvas size.
I want to expand the canvas size,
in this case, to 14 inches x 14 inches.
Of course, that will be different on your image.
I'm just adding about 1-2 inches all the way around.
Also notice, it is a layered image,
and it's not a background.
So when I click okay, I have transparency around the image. 24
Okay, are you with me so far?
Did I say this was complex? Yes, it is.
So what do we got?
We've got grayscale on top and the color on the bottom.
We've expanded the canvas so that there's no
distortion that happens when I convert.
I target layer number one.
I go to my 3D menu and down to new mesh from
grayscale and create a plane.
It's now going to convert these grayscale values
into depth, and this depth
we can use to distort our text.
There it is.
Notice that if I change the opacity down, you can see that
it directly matches the image below
because I added that extra canvas around the edge.
Now I'm going to go over here and select this tool right here,
the 3D rotate tool.
I'm going to rotate this slightly so that you can
see the height that's actually taking place
within this mountain range.
I'm going to leave it right there so we can see this because I'm going to show you a
tip and technique that is really, really great.
Because when you're working on a 3D
project like this, you want to be able to adjust the
depth of this distortion.
The grayscale values initially set the depth,
but you want to be able take these mountain ranges and move
them down or up based upon
some values we can set.
And, of course, over here in my layers tab panel,
the depth map is being controlled by this image
right here, layer one depth.
The image where we're going to place our text
is layer one, right here.
But we're going to get to that in a minute.
Let's talk about this great, super-user tip and technique
for adjusting the contours of this 3D shape.
I'm going to go over here once again to my tool panel,
click and hold on these 3D tools, and
go down to the 3D scale tool, very important.
Select the 3D scale tool.
Then up here in the options bar you have an X, Y, and Z.
Here it is today.
The secret to success is the Y
value, right here.
I'm clicking and holding on the letter Y.
I can then move to the left, let go,
and, in this case, I've dropped the
value down.
And wait for a moment.
So this .33 value has put in less distortion.
Can I go the other way?
Take this up to 1.82.
It's calculating now, and then it will reset this,
and we'll now have a much higher distortion.
Check that out.
So we're distorting these ranges so you have the
control with this setting to adjust how much
distortion takes place when you place
the text onto this 3D shape.
Okay, let's go back in time, here.
And go back to where the images are aligned right here.
Let's now apply the text.
To do that, I'm going to go over to this layer
right here, layer number one.
This is the diffuse layer.
The diffuse layer is where you want to put your graphics.
I'm going to double-click on layer number one right here.
It opens up a new layer,
as you see here.
This is the image that is being applied to my 3D shape.
Of course, it's a copy of the grayscale image.
We don't really want that anymore, but we're going to use
it temporarily to position our text.
I'm going to select my text tool.
I'm going to center my text right in here,
make a click, and type in Water.
I've set this in, hit my enter key, and I've placed my text down.
Of course, I can use my move tool and adjust the position
over the water, and that's why I left
this original water image here just
temporarily while I positioned this.
Then I can turn off layer number one.
So now, like a smart object, I'm going
to close this here, right at the top.
Close this document, but save it.
I'm going to save this document into this 3D shape.
Wait for it. There it is.
Wow!
But there's more.
Because this is the Russell Brown show, we need to make this look more realistic.
Let's start by using our layer
styles to adjust how the text
is fading within this image.
So with this layer number one targeted, I go up
here into this blank, blue space
and I double-click.
This is one of my favorite tips and techniques.
When working with images and combining them together,
it's to use the blend-if modes.
In this case, the underline layer is what I want to work on.
I'm clicking on the highlights.
I want the highlights from the ripple
to show through the text.
If I move the highlight slider to the left,
you can see that it starts to open up here
and let the light through
and it eliminates the text.
But we want to see the text, so you hold down the
option or alt key and split this
triangle into two pieces.
The farther I move this second piece away,
the softer the transition.
So I then balance the two sliders
until the text starts to
bend over the highlights in this image.
Check it out right here.
You see that I have a faded region of the text
as it comes into the highlight, and it gets darker in the shadows.
Cool.
Now on destructive, we click okay.
We know we can go back and adjust that later.
Now, for our grand finale.
What did we learn earlier?
We can adjust how much distortion there is
by adjusting the 3D depth.
How did we do that?
We went over to our tools, and we selected this scale tool.
We, of course, target our 3D layer number one.
With the scale tool selected, you can
adjust the Y value
for this particular layer.
And in this case, the distortion is a little bit too extreme.
I'm going to go down a bit.
Let's try .68, right here.
Let's wait for it. And there it is.
Okay, just to finish this off, because I don't like this
additional canvas around the edge, under the image menu,
I'm going down to trim and I'm going to trim
all the way around and click okay.
And, of course, if I were to double-click
on layer number one, once again, I can open
up the text, change it, then of course
save it, and it will then apply directly
onto the same 3D image.
So there it is, the super-advanced way to
place live text onto a 3D shape.
Give it a try.
[tv.adobe.com]
