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Battlefield 3 Text Effect

Compact player layout Large player layout

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About this lesson

The video game is such a classic that of course you need to make text look like it. 

Exercise files

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

Battlefield 3 Text Effect.psd
7.7 MB

Quick reference

Topic: Battlefield 3 Text Style

The video game is such a classic that of course you need to make text look like it.

When to use

Some suggested uses for this text style:

“Breakfast 3”

“Donuts 4”

“Onomatopoeia 2: More words that sound like Quack”

Instructions

Base Text

  1. Mix two fonts if wanted.

Layer Style: Outer Glow: Blend mode: Normal, Opacity: 100%, Style: Linear.

Add a grain to the text

  1. Convert for smart filters.
  2. Menu Filter Gallery/Texture/Texturizer

Setting Canvas - Scaling: 50%, Relief: 2, Light: Top.

Create a base pattern

  1. New Document: 7 Pixels by 8 Pixels
  2. Command (mac)/Control(win) +Space to drag zoom into the new document
    1. Pencil Tool (Color: b4d0df) : Paint the left half of the document
    2. Pencil Tool (Color: Black) : Paint the right half of the document
    3. Menu/Filter/Blur/Blur
    4. Menu/Edit/Define Pattern
    5. Sane pattern and return to Text doc

Add base pattern to doc

  1. Create a new layer.
  2. Hold down Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) and click the text layer thumbnail to turn into a selection.
  3. Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) + Delete to fill with color, change Fill (not Opacity) to 0%.
  4. Layer Style:
    1. Stroke - Blend mode: Normal,
    2. Opacity: 100%,
    3. Size: 4,
    4. Fill Type: Pattern,
    5. Pattern: New Pattern
  5. Convert for Smart Filters
  6. Add layer mask and with black to white gradient draw from middle to bottom of text to fade it out.

To Create Reflection

  1. Select both layers and add them to a group.
  2. Duplicate group and convert to a Smart Object.
  3. Menu/Edit/Transform/Flip Vertical, and move down.
  4. Add layer mask and with black to white gradient draw from middle to bottom of text to fade it out.
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  • 00:04 Today I'm gonna be showing you how to create this Battlefield 3 text effect
  • 00:09 in Photoshop.
  • 00:10 Now, there are few variations of the Battlefield text, but this one,
  • 00:14 which was taken from the official website,
  • 00:15 will give you a great starting point if you wanna further customize the effect.
  • 00:20 Of course, the first step after you've created your document is the base text.
  • 00:24 We're gonna be using two different fonts for the text.
  • 00:27 One for the word battlefield and one for the number three.
  • 00:30 The size of the font is up to you.
  • 00:31 But I'm gonna be starting large somewhere around 200 points.
  • 00:34 Now for the battlefield text agency FB Bold was
  • 00:39 the most accurate font that I found.
  • 00:41 And then for the number three, chica mono works quite well.
  • 00:46 Now that our text is ready to go, let's add a very subtle gradient overlay.
  • 00:50 The top color which is on the right of the gradient bar will be a very light grey and
  • 00:55 then the bottom color will be slightly darker than the top.
  • 00:59 Perfect. At this point,
  • 01:00 we need to add a canvas type texture to the text, which can be done in a few ways,
  • 01:04 including a pattern overlay, but when combined with the gradient,
  • 01:07 it's a little bit tricky, so we're going to resort to a filter.
  • 01:10 Now before you aimlessly add a filter to your text, make sure you convert it for
  • 01:14 smart filters first.
  • 01:16 This will not only ensure that you could edit the filter settings later on, but
  • 01:19 you'll also be able to go back and change the text if needed.
  • 01:22 The filter we're going to be applying is texturalized,
  • 01:25 which on Photoshop CS 5 was under the tester sub-menu, but in Photoshop CS 6,
  • 01:29 it's now accessible in the filter gallery.
  • 01:32 When the texturized filter is selected, select canvas for
  • 01:35 the texture, decrease the scaling to 50%.
  • 01:39 And set the relief at 2.
  • 01:40 Of course, if you want a stronger texture, or a completely different texture,
  • 01:44 experiment with the different filters that are available.
  • 01:47 The next step in the effect is the blue and
  • 01:49 black outline that you see at the bottom half of the text.
  • 01:52 For this, we're gonna create our own pattern,
  • 01:54 which will give us a lot more flexibility on how the final result looks.
  • 01:58 Start by creating a new document with the dimensions eight pixels by eight pixels.
  • 02:03 And then when the document is ready, zoom in as far as you can go.
  • 02:06 You can do this by holding down the Cmd and space bar on the Mac or Ctrl,
  • 02:11 space bar in Windows and then dragging your mouse to the right.
  • 02:14 Now we need to create the pattern.
  • 02:15 We're going to start with the blue,
  • 02:17 which is gonna be a nice light blue, the value for this one is gonna be b4d0df.
  • 02:21 Now with that color set, use your pencil tool,
  • 02:26 which can be found in the fly out menu with the brush tool, and
  • 02:29 then paint the left half of the document with that blue you just set.
  • 02:33 And finally, switching over to a black brush,
  • 02:35 paint the right half of the document completely black.
  • 02:38 Perfect. Now before we save it,
  • 02:39 one optional step you might wanna take is to blur the pattern.
  • 02:43 This'll give a slightly softer feel to the outline.
  • 02:46 Now that our pattern is complete it's time to save it.
  • 02:49 Under the Edit menu at the top, choose the define pattern option and give it a name.
  • 02:53 Battlefield 3 sounds appropriate.
  • 02:56 Good. Now let's hop back over to our
  • 02:57 original document.
  • 02:59 Because we're gonna be using a pattern, we're able to apply it as a stroke, but,
  • 03:03 if we apply it directly to our original text layer,
  • 03:06 we won't be able to fade it out using a layer mask,
  • 03:08 so we're going to need to create a separate layer to do that.
  • 03:11 In your Layers panel, hold down your shift key and
  • 03:13 click on the new layer icon to quickly create a new layer.
  • 03:17 Now, turn your text into a selection by holding down Cmd or
  • 03:20 Ctrl, and then clicking on the text layer's thumbnail.
  • 03:23 Once a selection has been made, fill the color with any color that you like.
  • 03:26 Cmd + Delete or
  • 03:27 Ctrl + back space will fill the selection with your background color.
  • 03:30 Now as we don't actually want the color to be showing, turn the fill, not opacity,
  • 03:34 but fill, down to 0%.
  • 03:35 Decreasing the fill will hide the original layer but
  • 03:39 allow us to see our layer styles, which we're about to add.
  • 03:42 Now we're ready to apply the pattern, double-click on your new layer to bring up
  • 03:45 the Layer styles and then hop into the stroke section.
  • 03:49 Towards the bottom, change the Fill Type to Pattern, and
  • 03:51 then in the Pattern Picker, find and select the pattern that you just created.
  • 03:55 It should be at the very bottom of the list.
  • 03:57 Now depending on how thick you want the stroke,
  • 03:59 you can change the size at the top.
  • 04:02 Three or four should work quite well.
  • 04:04 Another neat trick is that you're able to move the pattern if you're not happy with
  • 04:07 the positioning.
  • 04:08 By simply clicking and dragging your mouse over top of the text,
  • 04:11 you can position the pattern exactly where you want it.
  • 04:14 That looks good right there.
  • 04:15 All right, we are almost there, the last step is to fade out the stroke.
  • 04:19 Your first instinct would be to add a layer mask,
  • 04:21 select a black to white gradient, and drag it from the top of the text to the bottom.
  • 04:25 However as you can see, when applying the layer mask to a layer with layer styles.
  • 04:30 The result isn't always pretty.
  • 04:32 So to work around that, just like we did with the text layer, go ahead and
  • 04:35 convert it for smart filters first.
  • 04:38 Now we can apply a layer mask.
  • 04:39 And with the black to white gradient selected,
  • 04:41 drag out a gradient from around the middle of the text right to the bottom.
  • 04:45 And that just about does it.
  • 04:46 Now, if you want, you can also duplicate the design to add a reflection underneath.
  • 04:50 Simply select both Layers in your Layers panel, pop them into a group by
  • 04:54 holding down Shift and clicking on the new group icon at the bottom.
  • 04:58 Go ahead and duplicate the group, convert it to a smart object, flip it,
  • 05:04 move it into place, add a layer mask.
  • 05:07 And with a white to black gradient fade it out just like we did with the stroke.
  • 05:11 Now looking at the original and
  • 05:13 the design that we just created, it looks like we almost nailed it.
  • 05:16 Of course you can use the same technique to type any word that you like and
  • 05:19 incorporate it into your gaming related designs

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

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