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Whether you are showing off a virtual product or just want to demonstrate your
commercial design flair, a 3D box can always add a little something special.
Rather than go through all the trouble of rendering it in a 3D program and
importing it, however, an identical effect can be created using nothing more
than the normal Photoshop tools and a few 2D shots of your product. Here's
how...
Note for Photoshop CS users: The 3D transform filter is not included with the default program installation. To install it, open the Goodies folder on the Adobe Photoshop CS CD. Inside the Goodies folder is a folder called Optional Plug-ins. It should be in there. Just pop it into place, restart CS, and you'll have the filter available again.
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Step 1: Start by acquiring some game box art in
the highest resolution you can find. Its often nigh on impossible to
get detailed pictures of the box sides, but a scanner can help greatly.
In this case, I've borrowed a few of the box shots on offer at the
Sony Online Retail Assets
Page. A picture of the side of the box is available, but already in 3D -
a little alteration and stretching will barely show up in all but the
highest resolutions though. |
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Step 2: Create a new blank document with two
layers - fill both with white, hide the background layer, and select the top one. With the layer
selected, go to the menu bar and select Filter > Render > 3D Transform.
A little window will open. Click on the options button and from there deselect
the 'display background' checkbox and make sure resolution &
anti-aliasing are both set to high. Press the ok button. |
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Step 3: Select the cube tool
and draw a box to whatever size and proportions you desire. Use the
Direct Selection Tool to resize the box further (make it longer, deeper, etc). Using the trackball
tool
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spin around the box until it is something similar to the box on the left.
Its most important to get all 3 sides a differing shade of grey. If this
doesn't happen, spin the trackball some more until this happens. Then
press the ok button. |
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Step 4: Alright, you'll now have a 3D box in its
own layer above a transparent background. Open your cover artwork and
paste it into the document, making it the top & currently selected layer.
Use the Edit > Transform > Scale tool to resize your artwork
slightly bigger than the box, then reduce the layer's opacity to 40%.
Go to Edit > Transform > Distort. Now all you need to do is
click and drag the corners of the cover to the corners of the 3D box. Click
outside the selection to render the effect permanent. |
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Step 5: There, that was pretty painless wasn't it?
Repeat for all sides of the box and raise the opacity of the box artwork
back up to 100%. If you've done it all correctly the box should look
like my example on the right and have no visible black or transparent seams.
If it doesn't, a little tweaking may be in order. Take your time in
this step - rush your work and you'll ruin the effect. |
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Step 6: You could stop here of course, but a few
more tweaks can make your work look even better. Create a new empty layer
between the white background and box. Using the Polygon Lasso Tool (or your
own chosen method), create a black shape in this layer that looks something
like my example to the left. |
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Step 7: Blur this layer using Filter > Blur >
Gaussian Blur and then reduce the layer's opacity to 50% (or whatever
looks good to you). Unhide the white background and voila - your finished
product! From here you can add a funky background and even
reflections, but its all up to you. Adding other objects to the
scene will give a sense of scale. Take a peek in my gallery to see
this effect in action. Enjoy! :) |
- Tutorial written by Man1c M0g
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User: sw908 (#49795)
Date: Thu May 08, 2008. 20:22:54 | Post #9 of 10 |
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Very cool and very easy to understand. I'm fairly new to photoshop, and found it very easy to follow. Thanks! |
Reply to this post |
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Very useful and easy to understand. My first box I tried came out well, and I owe it to the 'easy to follow' directions you provided. Thanks. |
Reply to this post |
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At the end of Step two you wrote "press the OK button"
then at the beginning of Step 3 you wrote: "click the cube tool"
how can I click the cube because when I press OK at the end of Step 2, I close that dialog and there is no Cube too visible anymore. Once I press the OK button, I that dialog closes and I still have a blank, white layer. no box. any ideas? I"m using CS2 |
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