Seamlessly Blend 3d Typography with a Photo using Cinema 4D and Photoshop

Seamlessly Blend 3d Typography with a Photo using Cinema 4D and Photoshop

on Mar 21st 2010 with 27 comments
Tutorial Details

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

Seamlessly blending 3d elements with photographs or video footage is a technique that is often used in television, film, and commercial applications. In this tutorial you will to learn how to composite 3d typography with photo reference using Cinema 4D and Photoshop. We will begin by using Photoshop to adjust some parameters such as contrast, brightness, levels, curves, and sharpness, and then finally import the file into Cinema 4D to add the 3d type.

Additional Files/ Plugins:

Video 1

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Tags: Photoshop
 
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Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I am a 22 years old graphic designer from Argentina. I have learned 3D by hobby, and i enjoy playing with it very much. Lately, is has become very useful with my work. I love to design, both 3d and 2d. You can visit my portfolio (2008) here: http://www.visualactivity.com.ar.  

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  • http://www.dreamingat24fps.com mr. sifuentes

    Pretty sexy composition and tut. Can’t wait to experiment with it. Thank you for the awesome resource!

  • maxpowers39@hotmail.com

    Does that say ‘Aloha’?

  • wrong

    Man .. nice tutorial, but you like green too much :)

  • D

    THanks

  • D

    The project file won’t open with winrar.

    It’s 231kb

    Winrar says its unkown format or damaged.

  • D

    Yes it works now,.

    thanks heaps good tutorial.

  • http://vivarty.ru/blog/ Mishin Petr

    Thanks, very useful tutorial!

  • JohnM.

    YES! Thanks a lot I’ve been looking for a tut on this :D

  • http://www.jakedillard.com Jake

    In my opinion, this tutorial is all over the web. GSG did a tutorial on how to composite the letters into a scene like this, and so did Maxon on youtube. The instructions arent very clear at all either. I would say this teaches you a bad way of doing this, because the HDRI should light the letters, instead of adding other lights and shadows to the scene.

    You should use ambient occlusion in the render settings to get your shadows darker, as was said in the GreyScaleGorilla tutorial on this.

    There could be better c4d tutorials.

  • http://www.remmac.nl remmac

    please stop posting ripp off GSG tuts…

  • madmonk
    • http://kaleb-3d.com Kaleb Aylsworth

      After reviewing both tutorials, I believe that, although the final result has a similar coloration, the techniques being taught are different enough from the GSG tut that it can not be considered a direct copy.

      For instance, the GSG tut teaches DOF, animation with Mograph, and projection mapping, and finally how to composite using After Effects, whereas Ezekiel’s tutorial simply teaches how to match the camera angle of your 3d text with that of your 2d image, render it with GI and AO, and finally run some post work in Photoshop.

      If anything, the GSG tut is more in depth than this one, and there should be no conflict at all.

  • http://www.visualactivity.com.ar Ezekiel
    Author

    i dont know whats wrong with u guys, i didnt ripp anything, i just show my way to mix photo with 3d, i didnt learned that from gsg.

    • Mak

      this is a quite different approach than GSG, thanks!

  • hydroid

    nice work! good to see different methods. inspiring.

  • http://www.joeycamacho.com Joey

    Great tutorial. Some of it was a bit fast – but nonetheless straightforward. I’m curious to know how to do this if all the letters aren’t on the same plane angle – like if they were sitting in a bowl or on an uneven surface? I’m getting weird shadows from the planes and have tried playing around with the compositing tags (cast/receive shadows)…

    Also, how would render this out for print? When I change the render settings my background images becomes distorted.

    Keep up the great work. And yes…this is different from the GSG tutorial. Thank you!

    Cheers,
    J.

  • lolman

    Where are you from man? KAZAKISTAN?

    • Adam

      What is your problem? Very good tutorial, which helped me a lot. I’m kinda new to 3d.

      I have one question. What should I check/do to render only letters with reflections from plates and other stuff? Composition Tags yes? You showed us only one composition tag. I’ve applied it also for all plates and I dont know if did that properly. Rendering time is really slow on my comp and it would be great if you could post here if i’m not losing any reflections etc. Kinda confused post but thanks anyway.

  • klimax

    well thats prty sick…
    i searched for this tutorial so long :D

    but i think its Part Three not Part Tree :-D
    or has it leavs? :P

  • http://www.cna-trainingclass.com/ cna training

    Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!

  • help

    hey guys i just cannot seem to be able to move the floor its just stays at its default place

  • http://nashvillewaste.com/ Dumpster Rental Nashville

    I have been searching for this info forever. Thank you much!

  • Chris

    Hello guys i realy need your help
    I don’t how to move the Background in cinema 4d i tried are ways and i still can’t any help?

  • Mardi

    Awesome, I really struggle with 3D and you explained the photo matching better than anyone!

  • Fersian

    U rock!!!