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Create a 3D Pool Ball

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About this lesson

Create and add 3D objects to an existing photograph with this tutorial. Create a new texture, add lights and composite it in an existing photo. 

Exercise files

Download the Photoshop file used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Create a 3D Pool Ball.psd
134.4 MB

Quick reference

Topic: Create a 3D Pool Ball

Add an extra 3D object and match it to a scene.

When to use

Create and add 3D objects to an existing photograph with this tutorial. Create a new texture, add lights and composite it in an existing photo.

Instructions

Create an 8-ball texture

  1. Import background photo.
  2. Set color to black and draw a rectangle over whole document.
  3. Use ‘Eclipse Tool’ to create a circle in middle (hold down shift key to constraint to a perfect circle). Change color to light yellow.
  4. Text tool, add the number 8 in the middle of circle

Convert to a 3D ball

  1. Select all the texture layers.
  2. Go to Menu/3D/New Mesh from Layer/Mesh Preset/Sphere .

Adjust the 3D mesh texture

  1. In 3D panel (lower) select the materials section.
  2. In the diffuse setting, right click and choose ‘Edit UV Properties’.
  3. Set the U setting to 150%.

Adjust the ball position

  1. In 3D panel (lower) select the materials section.
  2. Use the move, rotate and scale controls to position the ball.
  3. Go to Menu/3D/Snap Current Object to Ground Plane.

Mask the ball

  1. Go to the layers panel.
  2. For the 3D layer add a layer mask.
  3. Use ‘Eclipse Tool’ to create a circle over front ball (hold down shift key to constraint to a perfect circle). Change color to black.
  4. Menu/Select/Modify/Feather. Set to 0.5

Match the scene lighting

  1. In 3D panel (lower) select the light section and rotate it to match the existing ball shadows.
  2. Increase intensity to 610%, softness 55%.

Add an Image Based Light

  1. In 3D panel (lower) select the environment section.
  2. Load in a similar image to the background.
  3. Increase the shadow section to 85%.

Match the materials

  1. In 3D panel (lower) select the materials section.
  2. Shine 90%, reflection 10%.
  3. Click on the bump folder to add a scratch texture, set to 3%.

Edit the Image Based Light

  1. In 3D panel (lower) select the environment section again.
  2. Double click the IBL thumbnail to edit the image.
  3. Add some white rectangles (rectangle tool) to create desired light boxes.
  4. Render and Save.
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  • 00:04 In this video, we're gonna be taking this photograph of a pool table and
  • 00:08 we're gonna be adding the missing eight ball.
  • 00:10 The result that you're going to see won't be a 100% perfect, because after all,
  • 00:14 it'll take days to get a near-realistic result.
  • 00:16 But it's pretty close.
  • 00:18 And as always, the point of these videos is for
  • 00:20 you to take away few tips and tricks to apply them to your own projects.
  • 00:24 The first step in this project is to create the texture of the eight ball,
  • 00:28 which is pretty simple.
  • 00:29 In the Tools bar I am gonna o grab my rectangle pool, and draw out a rectangle
  • 00:33 over the whole document, making sure that the color is set to black.
  • 00:37 Once that's in place,
  • 00:38 switch over to the Ellipse tool to create a circle in the middle.
  • 00:42 If you want to make sure that it is constrained to a perfect circle,
  • 00:44 hold down your Shift key while dragging.
  • 00:47 For this shape I'm not gonna use a pure white.
  • 00:49 I'm gonna add a touch of yellow so it plays nicely with the lights.
  • 00:53 And finally, the number.
  • 00:54 The font is completely up to you, but
  • 00:56 make sure it's nice and visible in the middle of your circle.
  • 00:59 Now that the texture is ready to go, in your Layers panel, select all three
  • 01:03 layers and then head up to the 3D menu, down to New Mesh from Layer.
  • 01:07 Mesh Preset and then Sphere.
  • 01:11 This will take the texture that we just created, and wrap it around a 3D sphere.
  • 01:15 However, it won't be perfect.
  • 01:17 If I go ahead and click on the newly created sphere, and rotate it so
  • 01:20 we can see the number, it's slightly stretched out.
  • 01:23 Here's how to deal with that.
  • 01:25 In your 3D panel, find and click on the Spheres Material.
  • 01:28 That just switch over your Properties panel to
  • 01:30 display information about your sphere.
  • 01:32 Right beside diffuse, click on the icon to the right, and choose Edit UV properties.
  • 01:38 Now, in this window we want to squeeze the use scale to deal with the stretching.
  • 01:42 Setting it to around a 150% should work quite well.
  • 01:46 So now that our texture is scaled properly, let's move the ball into place.
  • 01:50 Clicking on the grid will allow you to move and
  • 01:52 rotate the camera to better position the ball on the table.
  • 01:55 One thing I'm gonna do first is position the eight ball over top of
  • 01:58 the purple ball.
  • 01:59 Which will allow me to scale it properly.
  • 02:01 Now clicking on the sphere will bring up its controls.
  • 02:04 The square box in the middle will allow me to scale uniformly.
  • 02:09 That looks a little bit better.
  • 02:11 Now I can use the same controls to move the ball back and over, either left or
  • 02:15 right, until I'm happy with the position.
  • 02:18 I can also rotate right from here as well.
  • 02:20 At this point the ball might be sitting either above or below the ground plane.
  • 02:24 If this is the case under the 3D menu you can tell Photoshop to
  • 02:28 snap the current object to the ground plane.
  • 02:30 That'll ensure that the shadows are displayed properly.
  • 02:34 So now that the ball is in place, there's an obvious problem.
  • 02:37 The purple ball should be in front.
  • 02:39 Luckily, 3D objects in Photoshop CS6 Extended can benefit from masking.
  • 02:45 Hopping back into your Layers panel, I can add a blank layer mask to this layer.
  • 02:49 Once added, I'm gonna zoom in and grab my elliptical marquee tool and
  • 02:53 draw out a perfect circle over top of the purple ball.
  • 02:56 If you went want to move the selection wall creating it hold down your space bar.
  • 03:01 Now, to make sure that the mask isn't too sharp, feathering might be a good idea.
  • 03:05 Under the Select and then modify menu, we can find the feather option.
  • 03:09 We don't want an extreme feather, so around 0.5 should be fine.
  • 03:13 Now that the selection is ready.
  • 03:15 Filling it with black will create a mask over top of the purple ball.
  • 03:18 Perfect. Now we're ready to tweak our scene.
  • 03:21 Selecting the sphere again, let's hop back into the 3D panel and
  • 03:23 go through some of the keys features.
  • 03:26 The first element I want to tweak is the light.
  • 03:28 Selecting our light will display its properties as well as
  • 03:30 the handle on our document.
  • 03:32 To match our scenes light source I'm gonna rotate the handle back and a little bit to
  • 03:36 the left, until the shadow on the ground plane matches the shadow on the photo.
  • 03:41 Now in the Properties panel, because we're dealing with a pretty dark object and
  • 03:44 we're looking for
  • 03:44 a strong light source, I'm gonna increase the intensity of this light to 650%.
  • 03:50 Then, to deal with the harsh shadow,
  • 03:52 increasing the softness to around 55% should help quite a bit.
  • 03:56 That looks pretty good.
  • 03:58 Next, under the Environment section, we're going to add an image for
  • 04:00 the IBL, or Image Based Light.
  • 04:03 This will not only give us a more natural look to our scene, but
  • 04:06 it's also gonna help with the reflections and shines.
  • 04:08 Clicking on the icon to the right will allow us to load in an image.
  • 04:12 I'm not gonna use the exact same image but a similar image of a pool table.
  • 04:16 When it loads into your scene, you may see a strong overlay across your document.
  • 04:20 Once you click off environment that will disappear.
  • 04:23 One more thing before we move on, the shadows on this image are pretty strong.
  • 04:26 Down under the ground plane section we can increase the opacity of
  • 04:29 the shadows on our image.
  • 04:30 Increasing this to around 85% should match quite well.
  • 04:34 Now if you're working with an image that contain a shiny surface, you can
  • 04:37 also add reflections here, but for this project that wouldn't make much sense.
  • 04:41 Good, now moving into our spheres material again,
  • 04:43 we want to boost the shine on the ball.
  • 04:45 We don't want a dull or matte looking sphere.
  • 04:47 Somewhere around 90% should look really nice.
  • 04:51 I'm also gonna add a slight reflection, nothing too heavy, but
  • 04:54 just enough to show the image based light source that we added a moment ago.
  • 04:57 10% should do the trick.
  • 04:59 And you're gonna notice that as I'm tweaking these settings,
  • 05:01 it's updating live on our document.
  • 05:03 It's not a 100% to what you'll see when we render it, but it's pretty close.
  • 05:07 Next I'm gonna add a bump to the ball.
  • 05:09 This is basically a way to give your object texture,
  • 05:12 which can help heighten realism.
  • 05:14 Again, clicking on the icon will let me load a new texture.
  • 05:17 I found a nice scratched texture over at CGtextures.com, which'll look really nice.
  • 05:22 When the texture is loaded,
  • 05:23 the unrendered preview will look much harsher than it actually is.
  • 05:27 But I'm still gonna reduce the percentage to around 3%.
  • 05:29 I'm looking for a very subtle texture.
  • 05:32 So now that we went ahead and
  • 05:33 tweaked the scene, let's check out what the render looks like.
  • 05:36 You have to keep in mind that when rendering a 3D scene,
  • 05:38 the first few passes won't show the final result.
  • 05:41 Photoshop is layering on certain elements before it gets down and
  • 05:44 dirty with the detail.
  • 05:46 When you start to see the render slow down, you know that the detail's coming.
  • 05:50 The lighting and shadows will start to smooth out.
  • 05:52 You will see nice reflections, the bump's texture will start to
  • 05:55 become more visible and the overall scene will start to look a lot more attractive.
  • 05:59 Now that looks okay, but there is something missing, if you look at
  • 06:02 the other balls on the table, there are strong lights that reflect off of them.
  • 06:06 These aren't really easy to create in a 3D scene in Photoshop, so we need to fake it.
  • 06:11 Let me show you a trick.
  • 06:12 Heading back into our Environment properties,
  • 06:15 click on the icon beside your imaged-based light and choose Edit Texture.
  • 06:19 This will allow us to make changes to the image that Photoshop is using for
  • 06:22 a light source.
  • 06:23 With the image open,
  • 06:24 I'm gonna add two white rectangles to act as our light boxes.
  • 06:28 One at the top left of the image, and then another one on the right,
  • 06:32 just above the midway point.
  • 06:35 Once the image has been edited, saving it will update our scene.
  • 06:37 You will notice that when I switch back to the pool table,
  • 06:40 you can now see the newly created, fake light boxes.
  • 06:44 Now, if we render a scene again, it should look a lot more believable.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Image Based Lights
02m:51s
TRON Legacy Text Effect
06m:25s
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