From opening a 3D file to rotating, scaling and moving it, working with meshes, creating textures or even materials, adding lights, and more, this tutorial covers most of the secrets of the useful feature 3D Tools of Photoshop CS4 Extended. If you have it, why don’t you try? I can assure you that you will discover a brand new world of infinite possibilities.

Before Getting Started

We are living on the golden age of 3D technology, we can see art pieces, architectural models, biological simulations, fantasy creatures, futuristic machines, and almost realistic objects everywhere. Most of those graphics have been through Photoshop, from texture editing to final mock-ups; making it a must know tool for anyone interested in 3D design.

Photoshop CS3 Extended allowed users to open their 3D files and edit directly some features like textures and lights, but CS4 takes 3D editing into another level where you can actually work with the 3D file just like most of the commercial 3D editing software. Even though Photoshop can’t edit the model itself, it works absolutely well with textures, materials and lights allowing you to even paint directly over a surface using the Brush Tool. This is a very basic guide but some elemental knowledge of 3D geometry is needed.

Tutorial Details

• Program: Photoshop CS4 Extended
• Difficulty: Basic
• Estimated Completion Time: 2 – 3 Hours

You will need some 3D models to play with, I’m using a boat from telias.free.fr and a free-to-use model of a space shuttle that I’ve downloaded from the NASA website. Feel free to use any model that you want. Let’s get started!

Part I – Creating and Editing 3D Layers

Photoshop handle 3D files through 3D layers, which work just like Smart Objects. Each 3D layer contains a unique 3D scene that can be created five different ways: from a 3D file, from a layer working as a Postcard (Plane), from a layer making it a 3D basic Object, from a grayscale layer and as a Volume combining two or more layers.

This tutorial will cover the first four, since Volume based on layers is a little bit different than the others and we will leave it for another occasion.

New Layer from 3D File

The first way and maybe the most known way to work with a 3D layer in Photoshop is creating a 3D layer from an existing file. For this go to 3D > New Layer from 3D File, then chose a file on your file system and open it. Photoshop allows you to open .3DS, .DAE, .KMZ, .U3D and .OBJ files. A new Layer with the object’s name will appear in the Layers Panel. You can add as many 3D layers as you want.

Working with the Basic 3D Tools

In the Tools Panel click on the active 3D Tool (K) and then on top, in the Options Panel, you will see several different options for you to edit the 3D layer. At any time you can go back to the default values by clicking on the tiny House Icon in the Options Panel.

Rotate

The default tool and the first one in the list is Rotate, Click on the 3D model and Drag up or down to rotate it around its X axis, or side to side to rotate it around its Y axis. A diagonal Drag will rotate the model on both the X and Y axis. You can control the rotation by setting numerical values in the Orientation fields over the Options Panel, by default all of them are set to 0.

Roll

Drag side to side or up and down to Roll the model around its Z axis. You can do the same by using the previous tool, but holding the Option key on a Mac or the Alt key on the PC. You can control the rotation by setting numerical values on the Orientation fields.

Drag

This tool moves the model in the 3D space. Drag side to side to move the model horizontally, or up or down to move it vertically. Hold the Alt key to move it in the X/Z direction. This tool is very different than the standard Move Tool (V) because this works over a 3D environment meanwhile the Move Tool works only in 2D. You can control the position by setting numerical values on the Position fields over the Options Panel all values are set in 0 by default.

Slide

Drag side to side to move the model horizontally, or up or down to move it closer or farther away from your perspective. You can control the position by setting numerical values on the Position fields, which is 0 by default.

Scale

This change the model’s size. Drag up or down to scale the model larger or smaller. By setting the Scale values in a numeric format you can scale the model over any of its 3 axis, stretching it up or enlarging it. By default the numeric values are set to 1.

Continue Learning…