3D Text in a Scene

[TravisHD]

This is some 3D text created with Cinema 4D and then brought into Photoshop for color corrections and some other alterations.

If enough people ask, I will be making a video tutorial on how to achieve something similar to this by using Cinema 4D and Photoshop!

http://travishd.com/portfolio/3d-text-in-a-scene/

 

[Paul]

Is it me or does the font/logo/type look stuck on the road scene?

 

[TravisHD]

What do you mean by stuck?

 

[Paul]

Not one and the same, placed/added/stuck on.

 

[TravisHD]

Yeah, I see what you mean. How do you think I could make it look more like it was in the scene?

 

[Paul]

Wrong guy to ask mate i don't mess with the meth that is 3D :mrgreen:
H as lots of experience in that area as do others here.

 

[TravisHD]

OK great. Maybe they will see this and be able to give me some pointers. I basically just used Cinema4D for the text and used the GSG light kit pro with a sunlight light source and angled the sun with the rest of the shadows in the scene. I only used Photoshop for a few color corrections and some noise.

 

[IamSam]

Hey Travis, 3D text in scenes are one of my favorite effects! I practice them routinely. There are a few things I see that you could change that would help your effect. If you observe any of the surrounding cars lining the street, what can you tell about the shadows they are casting? To me, it seems that the sun may be more or less straight overhead. Your text is casting two shadows, one to the left beside the Y, and one to the right beside the C. The shadows on the text would be cast almost straight down or slightly straight back.

Which brings me to the lighting. While you have a nice texture to the text, the gradation is not quite strong enough and you have no highlights in the text. The text looks "stuck" mainly due to it's soft diffuse lighting which causes it not to blend in well. Try moving your 3D light source so that it's coming straight down which will also change the gradation of the front face/material. Mind you, I'm talking subtlety here. Nothing too strong.

 

[TravisHD]

Thanks, Sam. I will definitely give that a shot.

 

[Hoogle]

use camera projection and project the image onto objects or plains in cinema 4d that way you can match the lighting and add a tiny amount of fresnel reflection to it so it will ever so slightly reflect the scene on the text but not enough to be shiny as that would ruin your effect. But you can do it enough just so it mirrors the lighting.

I think Andrew Kramer or Nick does a tutorial on it if you are using Gsg products I imagine you follow his tutorials in fact he did 1 quite recently same effect but with spheres so maybe that would get you going in the right direction as it does cover more of camera projection.

I am assuming you just used your image on 2 plaines then added the text on the floor plain.