3D Rendered Helmet Tutorial

[Davidson]

howdy gang,

well, ive been playing about with the renders for the 3d helmets ive been making and i have created a quick tutorial so that you can build your 3d helmet in photoshop.

i could just upload the file (and i will if i can remember my deviant art logo in as i think deviant art takes psd files?) but i thought i would post all the files and give you a step by step so you can build your own. hopefully this will be a little educational and give some of the less experienced guys a quick run through of some of the ps mask and layer functionality. there is also an added bonus that should people want different angles, i can just burn out a quick render of the 4 layers needed, and you can slap together your own custom template in about 5 minutes.

thats right, who loves you? right, down to business.

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3D FOOTBALL HELMET TUTORIAL

1. open the following files in photoshop.

2. layer them up in photoshop as shown here (dont worry if you dont recognise the mask layer, i will get to that).

some of the edges will look a bit funky at the moment, this is called 'straight' matting as opposed to 'premultiplied' matting and will be sorted out with the masking.

3. each layer requires a different transfer mode (the way in which each layer interacts with the others. the transfer layer is the little scroll menu at the top of the 'layer' console (above).

the settings are as follows:

ColourDesign - normal

Lowlights - multiply

Highlights - screen

once you have done this. create a folder and place all these files inside it.

[Davidson]

4. once you have done that you should start to see the semblance of a 3d helmet. however we need to create an alpha channel to separate the helmet from the background and get rid of the scraggy edges. the next bit is slightly tricky. it goes as follows.

a. open the 'mask' layer in a new window.

b. copy the mask.

c. select the folder in the helmet file you have just created and click the 'add layer mask' button at the bottom of the 'layer console' (it is shown as a white circle in a dark square)

d. now hit the channel tab to open the channel console, inside the channel console you will see 5 layers. RGB, Red, Green, Blue and lastly a layer called 'mask'.

e. click the little eye icon to make this layer visible and paste the mask layer into it.

f. now click the eye off to get rid of the red visible mask.

your channel console should now look like this:

5. your helmet should now look like this:

6. finally by playing around with the ColourDesign layer you can add logos, stripes, change the colours and totally customise your own helmet.

below are my customised design layer and the finished helmet.

i hope this is helpful. please post your own creations here for others to see.

if you would like other angles of the helmet, you can request them here and i will upload the respective layers.

cheers

fraser

[Davidson]

its a bit tricky to get the angle of the logo quite right on the above template, so here is a side on view for you guys, with a test render.

[-(dp)-]

Great stuff, thanks Davidson. Today is going to go by so slow; I have this helmet template to play with and my new copy of Design Premium CS4 for my mac waiting back in Lansing. (Now CS5 will come out this week, since I finally got CS4. That is okay though, because all I have on my Mac is Illustrator 10, and my old PC only has CS2.)

[9erssteve]

Once again Davidson you have out done yourself on both the skill and the generosity fronts! Many thanks.

If you would be kind enough to post something similar to this one which you used to display your Monarchs logo earlier in the week that would be awesome!

I loved that angle and it was so close to a small crappy photo that i'd found and was trying to create a template from that it inspired me to have a go at making a decent template! So I've been trying to recreate it in Illustrator and while the shell is looking ok just now, I think trying to reproduce the face mask and the subsequent reflections they produce may well cause my head exploded in a similar manner to the poor victims in the movie Scanners!

Here's what I have so far,

I think for the sake of learning I'll try to continue with this templet but I think for the sake of better results your way will be much, much better.

Thanks

9erssteve

[Davidson]

Once again Davidson you have out done yourself on both the skill and the generosity fronts! Many thanks.

If you would be kind enough to post something similar to this one which you used to display your Monarchs logo earlier in the week that would be awesome!

I loved that angle and it was so close to a small crappy photo that i'd found and was trying to create a template from that it inspired me to have a go at making a decent template! So I've been trying to recreate it in Illustrator and while the shell is looking ok just now, I think trying to reproduce the face mask and the subsequent reflections they produce may well cause my head exploded in a similar manner to the poor victims in the movie Scanners!

Here's what I have so far,

I think for the sake of learning I'll try to continue with this templet but I think for the sake of better results your way will be much, much better.

Thanks

9erssteve

im on it.its the same angle, but the whole helmet, should be about the size of the one you are working with. should be up in 20 minutes.

[9erssteve]

Thanks man! Much appreciated.

9erssteve

[Davidson]

here you go.

[Davidson]

and finally for the time being, here is the front view:

[CDixonDesign]

One again, just mind blowing work that always catches us by your talent Davidson, can't wait to try this one out!

[Davidson]

well, its just technology really. im just the monkey mashing the keyboard.

please post what you come up with and ill render out any angles people need.

fd

[GFB]

Hey Fraser... I think you have one too many vertical bars in your template's face mask. You have 4 bars while it is actually 3....

Now you may have based it off of another facemask design... (I'm guessing here) ...but because of some of the views you have used it hid it just enough so it wasn't noticeable.

[Davidson]

i didnt model the helmet mate.

i dont think it is taken from any particular helmet.

will do a special 3-bar render just for you.

[ColeJ]

now all we need is a tutorial on how to make our helmet stripes and logos realistically curved.

awesome awesome work as always, davidson.

[Davidson]

[Davidson]

now all we need is a tutorial on how to make our helmet stripes and logos realistically curved.

simple but requires illustrator:

1. take your logo.

2. draw a square around it and place your logo in the respective corner, depending upon how you want it to curve.

in this case, i would like it to curve up and to the left away from the camera so it goes top left. group the objects

3. apply warp>fisheye until satisfied. by moving the square about behind the logo you can achieve the correct perspective

by adjusting in real time.

4. expand the whole group, delete the square, et voila.

and thats how you warp your logo.

youll have to hand draw your stripes, but its really not that difficult. use the pen tool and adjust to fit.

fd

[9erssteve]

Or if you're feeling brave you could always uses the envelope distort with mesh function, but it's trickier and will probably take you longer... much longer. There is also a distort with mesh function in Photoshop as well under the Edit menu > Transform > Warp for those who only have photoshop.

And thanks for the renders I asked for Davidson, they are awesome!

9erssteve

[GFB]

i didnt model the helmet mate.

i dont think it is taken from any particular helmet.

will do a special 3-bar render just for you.

Oh, I don't care... please don't waste your valuable time. I was just hoping to point out something that you may/may not have meant to do.

[Jimmy!]

Thank you so much for posting this, Davidson. I tried it with my fantasy team, and it turned out perfectly!

I hope a mod pins this. It's invaluable info.

[Davidson]

i didnt model the helmet mate.

i dont think it is taken from any particular helmet.

will do a special 3-bar render just for you.

Oh, I don't care... please don't waste your valuable time. I was just hoping to point out something that you may/may not have meant to do.

last render i did was a three bar mate.

did you get all the render layers i emailed yesterday?