How to create a 3D pixel art style extruded cube design?

Question

How to design the 3D red cube in the 1st poster? (Love the design!)

http://www.coroflot.com/kevinburke/Posters

Of course, they have mentioned that they used Pixel Art, Maya etc, but is it possible just to create the 3d red cube and map background in photoshop?

Would really appreciate some tips! :)

sammydude

Answer 1

If you have Photoshop extended (with 3D) you can do the following steps. I am not trying to make an exact replica here, just showing roughly the steps you can take to create something like this within Photoshop.

Open a new project, here I'm using 800x600 pixels

From the 3D menu, select:

Then rotate your cube in the position you want (or camera which can be easier if you want to add other objects to the scene).

Now, select a surface on the cube. Lets start with what we see as top and replace it with a texture:

This texture is made in a separate file. I filtered with mosaic (12x12) and then filled it with a pattern to make those black lines.

After selecting it as texture we get this result:

We then do the next side, but for this side I am using a different texture based on the image above where I have cut a slice from the bottom without any top lines. This will make the image to be repeated so it appears as long lines:

For the other side you need to create a copy of this last texture and rotate it 90 degrees. The result will be like this:

Now all you need to do is to adjust lighting (set spot-light), add a "floor" with the map and render in RayTrace mode. This will generate shadows and so forth for you.

Hope this helps!

(I accidentally "killed" the file as in I didn't save it - I intended to show a result with a mockup map etc., but I think you get the idea of the process).

Answer 2

It is possible, what you need here is to have a vanishing point. Instead of having a 'horizon' vanishing point though, on this poster it's a (more or less) random point on the canvas.

The image below may help you visualize the idea of vanishing point use.

To make life easier, Photoshop has a tool that helps you with vanishing points (I believe it's also simply called 'vanishing point'). Along the lines that all go to the set vanishing point, you can draw lines which eventually (with the use of many layers, probably) get you a nice looking result like on this poster. My guess is that it'll take many hours though :)

For a proper result, I think decent spatial/geometrical visualization ability would be required.

All I can say is: Just try it, experiment!