Explore 3D effects

In this tutorial, you’ll use two-dimensional shapes as the foundation for creating three-dimensional objects in Adobe® Illustrator® CS2. Using the 3D effect, you can control the appearance of 3D objects with lighting, shading, rotation, and other properties.
There are three ways to create a 3D object:

• Extrude and Bevel—Uses the Z axis to give a 2D object depth by extruding the object. For example, a circle becomes a cylinder.
  
• Revolve—Uses the Y axis to revolve an object around an axis. For example, an arc becomes a circle.
  
• Rotate—Uses the Z axis to rotate 2D artwork in 3D space and change the artwork’s perspective.
  
  
  Extrude and Bevel, Revolve, and Rotate

Use the 3D Extrude effect

In this lesson, you will create a can to hold a piece of soap you will create later in this tutorial.

1. Choose the Ellipse tool, and click and release on the artboard. In the Ellipse options dialog box, type 285 pt into the Width text field, and click on the word Height. The values are entered equally, then click OK.
   
2. Fill the shape with the color Gray from the Swatches palette. Make sure that the Stroke is None.
   
3. Choose Effect > 3D > Extrude and Bevel, check the Preview checkbox. Click on the title bar of the options window, and drag it to a location that allows you to see your artwork.
   The Extrude and Bevel effect has taken the two-dimensional circle and extruded it using the default settings. You will change several options, including the depth and edges.
   
4. First, click on the Position Cube icon on the left side of the dialog box. Experiment with rotating the object in space by clicking and dragging the cube. When you are finished experimenting, choose Off -Axis Bottom from the Position drop-down menu.
   
   
   The Extrude and Bevel Options dialog box and the result
5. Make the cylinder taller by using the Extrude Depth slider or typing into the Extrude Depth text field. Check off and on the Preview checkbox to refresh the image.
   
   Tip: In the Extrude and Bevel section of the 3D Options window (Extrude and Bevel and Revolve 3D effects) you have a choice to make your object appear solid or hollow. Click the Revolve Cap On button to make the object appear solid, or the Revolve Cap Off button to make the object appear hollow.
6. Using the Bevel drop-down menu, experiment with the choice of different bevels to see different variations of edge effects you can easily create.
   If you select a bevel from the Bevel drop-down menu, you can add beveling properties to carve away from, or add to the object’s surface.
   
   • The Extent Out button adds the bevel to the object’s shape.
     
   • The Extent In button carves the bevel out of the object’s original shape.
     
7. When you are finished experimenting, return to None.
   
   Note: 3D objects may display anti-aliasing artifacts on screen, but these artifacts disappear when the object is rasterized.
8. Click OK.
   
9. File > Save.
   

Create a revolved object

In this next lesson, you will create a bar of soap in the shape of a sphere. To begin with, create an arc that will be revolved to create the sphere.

1. Choose the Rectangle tool and click once on the artboard away from the artwork. When the Rectangle options dialog box appears, type 85 pt for the Width and 100 pt for the Height. Click OK.
   
2. Press D to return the rectangle back to the default colors of black stroke and white fill.
   
3. Press Ctrl+5 (Windows) or Command+5 (Mac OS) or choose View > Guides > Make Guides, to turn the rectangle into a custom guide.
   
4. As a default, guides are locked. To verify that guides are locked, choose View > Guides. If there is a check mark to the left of Lock Guides, they are locked. If there is no check mark, choose Lock Guides to lock them.
   
5. Using the Pen tool, click on the lower right corner of the rectangle guide and drag to the left until the endpoint of the direction line reaches the lower left corner, and release. This creates a directional line.
   
6. Click on the upper right corner and drag to the right until the endpoint of the directional line reaches the upper left corner and release. You have created an arc.
   
   
   Click and drag to create direction lines, and the complete arc.
7. Choose View > Guides > Clear Guides.
   
8. Using the Selection tool, make sure the arc is selected.
   
9. Click on the Fill box in the Control palette. When the Swatches palette appears choose None.
   
10. Click on the Stroke box in the Control palette. When the Swatches palette appears choose yellow.
    
11. Choose Effect > 3D > Revolve. Click on Preview to see your changes.
    The Revolve option appears. The options appear similar to the Extrude options, but have quite a different effect.
    
12. Leave the position at the default position of Off-Axis Front.
    
13. Change the edge from Left Edge to Right Edge. Your arch revolves around the designated edge. The result varies dramatically depending upon the side that you choose. Leave it set to Right Edge. Click OK.
    
    
    The 3D Revolve Options dialog box, the results of the Revolve effect with Left Edge selected, and the results of Revolve with Right Edge selected.
14. Choose File > Save, and keep the file open for the next lesson.
    

Change the lighting

In this next lesson, you will use additional options to change the strength and direction of the light source.

1. With the soap shape selected, double-click on 3D Revolve in the Appearance palette. If the Appearance palette is not visible, choose Window > Appearance.
   
2. Check the Preview checkbox, and press More Options.
   Using More Options gives you the opportunity to create custom lighting effects on your 3D object. You will use the preview window in the lower left to reposition the lighting and change the shade color.
   
3. From the Surface drop-down menu, choose Diffuse Shading.
   
4. In the preview window, click and drag the white square that represents the light source. This changes the direction of the lighting. For this exercise, drag the light source to the top of the object.
   
   
   Move the light source by dragging it and change the Surface
   
   
   5. Click on the Shading Color drop-down menu, and select Custom. Click on the colored Red square to the right of Custom and use the Color Picker to select a green color, or enter values in the color text fields to the right of the picker window (we used C=90%, M=0%, Y=100%, B=0%), then click OK.
      The yellow shape now has green shading applied to it.
      
   6. Change the Ambient Light to 40%, then click OK.
      Ambient light controls the brightness on the surface uniformly.
      
   7. Choose File > Save.
      

   Create your own revolved artwork

   Now you will create your own 3D shape. In this next lesson, you will create a path and adjust the offset to create a vase and see the interesting results you can achieve.
   
1. Choose View Show Rulers, or Ctrl+R (Windows) or Command+R (Mac OS).
   
2. Create a vertical guide by clicking on the vertical ruler and dragging it out to a blank area on your artboard.
   
3. Choose the Pen tool and create a vertical path with several curves, representing the curves that will be replicated in the 3D shape. If it is easier, use the Pencil tool to draw a path. The size of the path is not important at this time, it can be scaled later.
   
   
   Create a path to revolve
4. Using the Fill box in the Control panel, select a color for the fill, and choose None in the Stroke fill box.
   
   
   Example of curves and the resulting 3D shape
5. Choose Effect > 3D > Revolve, and check the Preview checkbox.
   
6. Depending upon the effect you want to achieve, you can change the axis from the Left Edge to the Right Edge.
   
7. To make the 3D object wider, choose an offset. The slider moves rather quickly, so type 50 into the Offset text field. If necessary, uncheck and recheck Preview to see the results.
   
   
   Offset at 0 pt. and the result
   
   
   Offset at 50 pt. and the result
   If the lighting options are not visible, click on the More Options button to add an additional light source to the vase.
   
8. In the lighting preview window, click on the New button to add another light source. Position the lights so that one is on the lower left and the other is in the upper right of the preview object.
   
9. Change the Ambient Light to 25%.
   
10. Click OK.
    
11. Choose File > Save. Leave this file open for the next lesson.
    

Use the 3D Rotate effect

Finally you will create a place mat upon which the can, the soap, and the vase you created earlier will sit. For this example you will create a rectangle, fill it with a pattern and use the Rotate effect to make it look as though it is lying down on a flat surface.

1. Create a rectangle that encompasses the entire artwork.
   
2. Making sure that the Fill swatch is forward in the toolbox, select the pattern Stripes from the Swatches palette.
   
   
3. Give the rectangle a stroke of None.
   
4. With the rectangle still selected choose Effect > 3D > Rotate, and check Preview.
   
5. Using the text fields, enter 70% for the rotation around the X axis. For the rotation around the Y axis, specify 0%. Specify 0% for the rotation around the Z axis.
   
6. Enter 75% for the amount of perspective. Click OK.
   The rectangle now looks like a place mat sitting on a table. Notice how the pattern also has the perspective applied to it.
   
   
   The Rotate Options window, and the result
7. With the rectangle still selected, choose Object > Arrange > Send to Back. Using the Selection tool, position in place.
   
   
   The completed illustration
   Once you have applied the 3D effect to an object, it remains a live effect. In other words, you can change the scale of the object or change the color, and the 3D effect remains.
   
   Note: Do not rotate objects with the 3D effects applied to them; you will get unexpected results. To rotate a 3D object, double-click on the Appearance palette 3D effect, and rotate the item in space using the Position preview window.
8. Once you have rearranged objects as you like, you have completed the lesson. Choose File > Save, then choose File > Close.
   

4. 
   

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Precision Composite Lattices In Bryce Using Greyscale: Bleachers

Introduction This tutorial creates bleachers from two carefully designed and grouped lattices with custom terrain canvases. While the example is simple, understanding the 10x10x10 grid and applicable greyscale values provides the freedom to create a variety of custom objects. First, the profile of the bleachers is designed, creating solid benches and walkways. Then a front view is designed to cut out under the benches and add decorative text. Finally, these terrain canvases are applied to lattices in Bryce, with the lattices rotated and grouped to create the 3D bleachers. You should already know how to use your graphics program to precisely color and paint and how to save files and find where you saved them.

Step 1 - The Temporary Guide Grid

Create a 10x10 temporary guide grid, with guidelines as shown. The black square needs to be 512x512 pixels. This temporary guide grid will not be part of the terrain canvas, but is used to measure the height of the side view as well as the depth of the cutout. The numbers are not necessary - just the lines, so it's ok to use a 512x512 pixel new document. Tip: Use Layers or your graphic program's built-in guides to keep the guide grid separate from the terrain canvases.

Step 2 - The Solid Part

This graphic is a side view of the bleachers where white is the solid part (benches, walkways) and black is the air. Exactly match the measurements. These same measurements will be used for the cutout. Use only 100% black and 100% white for this image.

Step 3 - NO ANTI-ALIAS

Zoom in at 600% and make sure there is no fuzziness. It should be only black and white. Any other greys, used to soften and smooth transitions between edges will ruin the terrain canvas. Correct as necessary.

Step 4 - Save the Solid Terrain Canvas

Save the 512x512 black and white terrain canvas as a GIF, Palette Exact, Colors 2, Forced Black and White, No Transparency, No Matte, No Dither, named as bleachers_solid_side.gif.

Step 5 - The Cutout

This next graphic is a front view of the bleachers and will be used as the terrain canvas on a negative lattice to remove under the benches and to create text. Black will remain part of the bleachers, while anything else is removed. The lighter the shade of grey, the farther toward the back it will cut, with 100% white going all the way through the object. The bottom rectangle, for example, is 30% Brightness in HSB (which may be translated by the software to 29%, but it's close enough). That rectangle will cut 30% of the way from the front to the back and make a hole under the first bench. The second rectangle has a 50% Brightness in HSB, and cuts back 50% off the way into the solid bleachers, and thus under the second bench, and so on (70%, 90%). Use 92% for the text to engrave it in the bleachers' back panel. The text is backward because when the cutout is folded onto the front of the bleachers (the right edge of cutout comes to the left side of the bleachers), the text will reverse. The width of the black on the sides and bottom is arbitrary and forms the bench legs.

Step 6 - NO ANTI-ALIAS

Zoom in at 600% and make sure there is no fuzziness. It should be only black and white, and the exact grey percents of Brightness. Any other greys, used to soften and smooth transitions between edges will ruin the terrain canvas. Correct as necessary. This includes around the text.

Step 7 - Save the Cutout Terrain Canvas

Save the 512x512 black and white terrain canvas as a GIF, Palette Exact, Colors 7, Forced Black and White, No Transparency, No Matte, No Dither, named as bleachers_cutout_front.gif.

Step 8 - Create a New Lattice in Bryce

Open Bryce. Create a new symmetrical lattice. With the lattice selected, click on E for Edit. Click New, then Picture. Open bleachers_solid_side.gif.

Step 9 - Remove black area and make solid

Drag the bottom of the clipping bracket upward just until the black part of the terrain canvas changes color. In the example, it has turned maroon. This causes the black to be excluded from the lattice. Click on the triangle at the upper right of the terrain canvas and check Solid. Click the check mark to accept the changes.

Step 10 - Solid Attributes

With the lattice selected, click on the A for Attributes. Change the Object Attributes as shown, and click check to accept it.

Step 11 - Duplicate Lattice and Modify

With the lattice selected, press Ctrl+D to duplicate the lattice. Then repeat the steps to change the terrain canvas and edit attributes on the new lattice, using bleachers_cutout_front.gif and these attributes. This rotates the two lattices correctly, in relation to each other. Because lattices are mirrored, we are only using half the cutout lattice, so it needs to be twice as deep. The cutout lattice's position is offset to center the cutout middle over the solid lattice's front edge.

Step 12 - Group and Render

Select both lattices and group them. Change the material and/or resize the group. Render. The bleachers can now be converted to a boolean and then added as an object to the library. Some Additional Exercises: Make stairs for the bleachers by altering the Cutout terrain canvas. Create raised arms for chairs on the benches. Create text that is raised on the back board, not cut through. Experiment with anti-aliased (softened) text. Make bleachers connected at an angle. Try making bookshelves and other 3D objects that would normally be made using primitive shapes.

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Creating Realistic Landscape Terrains in Bryce

Step 1 - Choosing a Fractal for Your Terrain

To begin, open Bryce, create a new project, and create a terrain. Enter the Terrain Editor by clicking the letter E. Click the drop down arrow next to the button labeled "Fractal". Choose a fractal category from the right and click the Fractal button a few times until you get something interesting. Try "Slickrock", "Mordor", or "Rolling Hills" fractal categories for a start. Any other ones would work well. It depends on the kind of mountain that you're looking to create.

Step 2 - Giving the Terrain a Higher Resolution

In order to bring up the detail level on your terrain, we need to increase the resolution. This is done by clicking the small grid and selecting 1024 x 768. However, this in itself won't really increase the resolution. You have to regenerate the terrain. But if you click the Fractal button again, your terrain will be lost. In order to keep the terrain, click the drop down arrow next to the Fractal button and DEselect Random Extent, Random Position, and Random Character. Now click the Fractal button. Your terrain should stay the same, but it will be more detailed.

Step 3 - Bringing the Edges Down

If you were to exit the terrain editor right now, you would notice that the edges of the terrain don't touch the ground. We have to bring them down in the terrain editor. First raise the terrain using the Raise/Lower button until the top of the terrain almost flattens out. Then click and drag on the Gaussian Edges button until the edges are lowered to black. Don't drag too far or your terrain will be lost. Now use the Raise/Lower button again to raise the terrain until the tops flatten out.

Step 4 - Adding Realism to the Terrain

Now you have a pretty good looking terrain, but it's still not realistic yet. Right below the Fractal button is the Eroded button. NOT the Erode button, but the ErodED button. If you click the Erode button, you will end up with completely different results. Drag to the right until veins are slightly visible on the preview. Make sure you don't drag all the way to the right, or your terrain will lose its realism. Remember, you can always press CTRL+Z if you make a mistake. Press the Slope Noise and Height Noise buttons 1 or 2 times to finish off your terrain. Go ahead and exit the terrain editor and add an interesting texture, (I used a modified version of the "Classic Bryce Snow" preset.) and your realistic terrain is finished!

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Your Conworld in 3D: Tunnel System Maps

Introduction What's a quest without underground misadventures, or disused sewers full of unsavory beasts? I will show you how you can add these caverns or tunnels to your growing archive of maps. This tutorial follows my City Map tutorial, and follows my progress as I begin to create a tunnel system map to add to my last project, the Liath Barad city map.

Step 1 - The Map

As always, the first step is to create and prepare your map. If your tunnel system, as most do, lay beneath another structure, such as a city or mountain range, which it must follow and match, then you will want to open the maps that you did for that structure first. Thus, you lay (or paint) your tunnel map over this map on a new layer, and match each landmark in the tunnels to its corresponding landmark above. Once the basic layout for the tunnels is complete, you will need to refine the map. First things first: The tunnels will need to be painted in black, at least preliminarily. You can also have varying levels or heights of tunnels, by making some tunnels (the higher ones) lighter than the others. Tunnels come in two sorts: natural or roughly hewn, and man-made, well-crafted tunnels. They may also include pesky things called stairs and inclines connecting them or leading out of them. Each of these features (as well as a few more), for the sake of ease-of-use, will be divided into separate steps.

Step 2 - Man-made Tunnels

These are the easiest to make, Simply draw a crisply cut line where the tunnel appears. That should do it. Of course you could always add little extra details like alcoves and so on, by adding indentations of black.

Step 3 - Rough Tunnels

If your tunnels are rough hewn, or natural, I suggest making the tunnels less well-shaped, and the floor less distinguished. This is best taught by example, so, shall we skip the wordy explaination and get straight to the demonstrative image?

Step 4 - Stairs

Stairs are fairly simple. The hardest part is getting the shades (heights) right, but that is something that is best decided by trial and error, or mathematics (see further down the paragraph for aproximations). You make stairs with rectangles. Copy a rectangle from your map, and make it white, size it to your preference. Copy and paste the same rectangle and move it down until its top edge touches the previous rectangle's bottom edge, repeat the process until your staircase has enough steps, this will vary depending on factors such as: how high is the ceiling of the tunnel? how steep is the staircase? and so on. When you are done, it will look like you have nothing more than a white line on your terrain map. Great. Now you have to change their brightness to create a gradient that will make your staircase rise in the heightmap. How? A good way to do it is mathematically. This is a formula that works for me: 100 � number of stairs. My paint program's brightness scale is based on 100 to -100, with 0 as current. So, if I have 5 stairs, I would have my stairs get progressively darker as they go down by -20 (ex 0, -20, -40, -60, -80). But don't worry if they aren't exactly even, as long as they look good applied to the terrain, they'll serve their purpose.

Step 5 - Inclines

Inclines are simple. It is just a gradiant going from your darkest color to your lightest color (black and white). Gradiants are easy to achieve with most paint programs including all of the free ones I have used (excluding, of course, MS Paint). If you don't want your incline to go all the way to the top, say, instead of exiting the tunnel system you want to go from one lower tunnel to a slightly higher tunnel, just take the color of the higher tunnel's floor, and have that fade to black (or whatever color the lower tunnel's floor happens to be) instead of white.

Step 6 - Hidden Doorways

If you're like me, you have what we call hidden passages around your tunnel system. We can't just leave them open for all to confuse for regular passages. So, you build up an obstruction in the path where one of these hidden areas appear on the map. You can really do this any way you want. I chose to make the obstruction slightly darker than the white of the ceiling to depress it and make it distinguishable from the surrounding ceiling. I also left a tiny crack between the obstruction and the wall to denote its relative instability. You may also want to place these where there are doors in your tunnels, minus the space between it and the walls. Further instruction in step 7.

Step 7 - Into Bryce

This is the moment of truth. Create a new terrain and apply your map in the terrain editor. Play with the dials, I always like to add a little bit of extra noise and erosion to it, to help give it that rocky, sinister feel. Once you're happy with the result, exit the terrain editor and do a trial render. If you're not happy with it, first, try texturing it and then rendering it, a nice material really can do the trick. Be careful your material isn't too dark, you can lose all your terrain's detail in dark textures. However, this is the time to make any tweaks you need to, whether it is in the terrain editor, or in the paint program.

Step 8 - Bells and Whistles

After the model has been textured, you should add any extra models or props you need to give your map just the right touch of detail. I've added a few ladders, some spiral staircases, and furniture to the rooms therin that required it. I also scattered a few useless, but aethetically pleasing or amusing touches, like the rusty, scattered armor; the bones; and the abandonned sword (several of which could even be made useful by a future Game Master). You may need to export your tunnel terrain as a wavefront object for importing into DAZ|Studio for some of your props, as I did.

Step 9 - Finite

The time has come for your final render. It may still need some work, but regardless, you'll be well on your way to having a tunnel map perfect for your uses, whatever they may be.

Step 10 - Tips and Alternatives

When I did my city map, I liked the way it came out better in DAZ|Studio, and since my tunnel system map was complementary to my city map, I exported my tunnel terrain as an *.obj and imported it to the same scene file as my city, lined up my new terrain with the old, and, deleting all the models of the previous scene, rendered my tunnel map to the same specifications as I had my city map, so that they would match perfectly. If you need a lot of detail in your terrains, and your tunnel system is too big to keep detail in your terrain map, try doing it in peices. It isn't easy to get them all locked in the right places, but it will look better in the end than it would have with just the one 1600X1600 px terrain map.

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Path through trees

Introduction this tutorial shows how to make a dirt path through trees using only bryce 6

Step 1 - creating the grass

If when you open bryce 6 you do not have a ground plane add one. The first thing to do is change the material of the ground plane to look like grass. On the right side of the ground plane the should be five buttons the bottom one should be an "M". click on the M to get you to the materials lab. In the materials lab go to the materials library. In the materials library change the catagory in the bottom left to vegatation. in the catagories of vegatation pick leaves then pick a leaf. I picked leaf 4. then click the checkmark in the bottom right of the materials lab and the materials library.

Step 2 - creating grass around the path

Create a terrain. Now for the terrain there should be six bottons to the right. click the "E". there should be six bottons to the left of the terrain canvas. the second from the bottom should be a triangle. click and drag up the red dot in the middle of the triangle. when you move the cursor over the terrain canvas you should see a circle click and drag all over the terrain canvas making in completely white. click and drag to the right, the raise/lower button until the 3d preview looks like the second image. Now open up a paint program ,that can invert colors,without closing bryce 6. i used MS Paint.

Step 3 - making the triangle

In your paint program make a black triangle. Then invert the colors. in MS Paint this can be done by first clicking edit>select all Then, Image>Invert colors. Then save your image. it should look like this.

Step 4 - cutting the path in the grass

in Bryce edit terrain. click the top of the buttons to the left of the terrain canvas. the category on the bottom left should say installed, change that to user. of the options to the right of user click on import. and import your triangle. when you click inport you may need to change the files of type to all files. after you have it imported select it and click the checkmark. next the second button down, of the buttons to the left of the terrain canvas should be a circle. click and drag that to the left so that the circle is small. now in the middle of the terrain canvas at the top click and drag to the bottom until it is completely black. now on the third button from the bottom click and drag to the left so that there are only two dots. and click and drag to the bottom of the terrain canvas. but this time do it to the left and the right of where you just did and also on the far left and right sides. now click the checkmark and move the camera so that it looks close to the image in step 5.

Step 5 - changing the material and size of the terrain

now make the terrain a little wider and have it reach the horizon [the green line in the middle of the screen]. now change the terrains material to the same one as the ground plane.

Step 6 - making the path

create a terrain. flatten it and lower it again but this time don't cut anything away from it. now put it in the middle of the other terrain and below the top of the other terrain like the picture. then strech it to the horizon to. then change the material. in the materials library change the category to terrains and the other category to rocky. then select Rocky Road. then click the checkmarks.

Step 7 - Add trees

Add a tree to the right side of the road. Edit the tree how you like. then click on the tree and holding Ctrl press "C" then "V". the from the tabs at the top click edit. and using the reposition tool move the tree right behind the other. the do this many more times until the trees reach the horizon then again on the left side of the road until the trees reach the horizon.

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