Transform calligraphy into a 3D neon sign
Hussain Almossawi shows us how to turn our 2D typography into an awesome light-emitting 3D design
Turn some simple 2D typography into a cool neon light piece
LIGHTEN UP
A 3D calligraphy art piece that takes traditional calligraphy, and blurs the lines with contemporary modern CGI to create a unique look and feel
In this tutorial, we will explore how to take a simple typography or calligraphy piece from 2D and turn it into a cool neon light 3D piece. We will start by quickly moving from 2D to 3D, and then create the basic geometry of the neon light, setting the different materials, light, details, rendering, and finally compositing in Photoshop. You will find that there are many layers and levels of detail involved, and they are the secret ingredients to any art piece; it is the things you can’t identify or see from the first time that leave a good impression on the viewer, and the more subtle the details are, the closer we can get to achieving a result that is both cool and realistic.
I will share the basic principles and methodology, to make sure designers of all levels can follow along, but I would also encourage you to explore further beyond this tutorial, and see what works best for you. The most important thing is to have fun, so let’s create some cool things together!
01 TRACE YOUR REFERENCES
Find a reference of a calligraphy piece that you like, or create your own, preferably something that is straightforward and is made up of simple connected lines. Start by tracing your reference either in Illustrator or 3ds Max. You only need to create a path that goes through the centre of the letters rather than tracing it all around. Make sure that your paths are nice and smooth – the less points you have, the better the outcome usually.
02 CREATE THE TUBE
Import your path into 3ds Max. Under the Editable Spline settings>rendering, enable Show in Viewport to make the thickness settings visible while working. Give your path a thickness that works best for your project, and make sure you set it to Radial so it can be round and smooth. Set your Interpolation settings to 64, which will make your path’s final outcome extremely smooth.
03 GIVE YOUR TUBE DEPTH
Now that we have the basic tube shape set up, we need to
Hussain Almossawi is a CG artist, director, and product designer based in Brooklyn, New York. A significant part of his work has been working with world-famous companies such as Nike, adidas, EA Sports, Ogilvy & Mather, and other world-renowned brands. www.mossawistudios.com
make sure it looks realistic. Follow your path and see all the points where the cursive letters start to overlap, and start by pushing points closer and further away from the camera; make the tube feel like it loops around itself, rather than that it has intersections. This is also a good time to refine and adjust your path and make sure all the points are smooth and have a nice flow to them.
04 FIX THE TUBE ON A WALL
Once you are happy with how your tube is looking, select the end points of each path; you will probably have multiple start/ end points unless your whole calligraphy is made up of one single line. Select those points, and rotate them 90 degrees so that they are perpendicular to the other points, and extrude them away from your camera view. We are basically giving the tube more depth now, and setting it up to look as if it is coming out of a wall fixture, which we will create in the later steps.
05 CREATE THE SECOND TUBE
Now we will create an additional tube that will run through our main tube. Duplicate your first tube, and under Spline settings, where we set the initial thickness, lower the thickness to roughly 50% of the original size. Under Modifiers, select Shell, and set a very subtle thickness to the tube. This tube will serve as the main tube that will distribute the emitted light throughout the final neon piece.
06 ADD A THIRD TUBE
One final time, take the tube you just created, duplicate it, and lower the thickness down to 5%, so it feels just like a thread running through the tube. This tube will be the main light source. If you want to make it look even more realistic, you can duplicate it another time and slightly move its position so it offsets the third tube. That way it will feel like two light wires are randomly placed inside the tubes and emitting light.
07 CREATE A BACKDROP
Now we will create a backdrop, which will serve as a wall. This is totally optional, but having a
It’s the process not the software Everything explained in this tutorial can be applied to any software of your choice, it’s about the process and the principals, so don’t feel like you need to use the software I suggested, but the knowledge should apply no matter what you use.
Save time with real-time rendering I constantly check my work with real-time rendering; it’s an amazing way to see how my lights, materials, and composition look as I am working, to avoid any surprises on the final render.
wall behind your neon sign makes it look more realistic, and also saves you the trouble of dealing with a floating neon sign. Create a plane and place it behind your tube, with a decent amount of space between the tube and the plane. Make sure it fills the entire camera view to avoid any gaps on the edges of your view.
Have fun with overlays in Photoshop The final render in 3D doesn’t represent the final and finished piece. Photoshop plays a big role in enhancing your work and taking it to the next level. Have fun with compositing and creating different results.
08 CREATING THE HDRI AND FILL LIGHTS
We will light this scene up using an HDRI light. Press 8 on your keyboard to pull up the Environment settings, and under Environment Map, load an HDRI image of your choice. There are many free and paid-for options online. Next we will set up our fill lights, which are very subtle highlights hitting the tubes from the top and bottom. I created a Vray Plane Light with a purple colour, and placed it over the tube, and placed another with a blue colour under the tube. Play with the intensity of the lights to achieve an effect and level of detail that you like.
09 GLASS MATERIALS
We will now create the glass materials for our tubes. There are two different glass materials, the first will be for ‘Tube 1’, and that will be a clear and reflective material. Create a Vray Material, set both the Reflection and Refraction settings to White for 100% reflectivity, and the Glossiness to .98. Apply this material to ‘Tube 1’. Create another Vray Material – this will be frosted glass. Set the Reflection to White with .98 Glossiness, and the Refraction to White with .7 Glossiness, and apply this to ‘Tube 2’. Because it is frosted, it will disperse light it catches and it will feel like an intense glow.
10 NEON LIGHT MATERIAL
Create a Vraylight Material and choose the colour you like most; from my experience it always looks best when you use vibrant neon colours. In this instance, I used both orange and pink. Set the Intensity of the light to 3, and make sure you enable Compensate Camera Exposure so that the lights render properly. Assign this material to ‘Tube 3’. Always run quick renders to see how your work is progressing, and use these values
as a guideline – see what works best for you as you experiment
11 ALIGN RINGS TO TUBE
A big part of every artistic piece is the layer of detail, so in the following steps we will focus on adding more layers. Select ‘Tube 1’, duplicate it, right-click>convert To>convert to Editable Poly. Now select random edges from your tube, but make sure you select the edges that wrap around the tube; the idea is that we want to create rings that will wrap around the tube. Once you have selected the edges, under Editable Poly settings, go to Edge, and Create Shape From Selection. Now you have your rings created as Splines, the final step is to go under the Editable Spline settings and set a thickness for your newly created rings.
12 LIGHT PLUGS
Another important level of detail is to add light plugs all over the neon tube. Using the line tool, draw a profile of what you imagine the light plug to look like, then go to the Modifier List and set a Lathe Modifier, this will turn the line around itself and create the final geometry for you. Select your plug and place it randomly on different parts of the tube – use your artistic judgement as to how big it should be, how many of them to have, and where to place them.
13 HANGING WIRES
The light plugs also need wires hanging out of them, so they look more realistic. So using your line tool, start drawing lines that stem out of your light plugs. Click and drag to make the lines smooth, and to make them feel as if they are coming out of the plugs and hanging down, just as in real life. Again, use your judgement as to which direction the cables end up going. To add more realism, you can make some wires hang in front of the tube and some behind it.
14 CREATE THE TANGLED WIRES
There are many ways to do this, but in this tutorial, we will use the line tool to create tangled wires around the tube. Choose the line tool, and start randomly tracing around your line tube; think of yourself as a two year old trying to draw a simple object, the more messy you get the better it will actually look. Create two to three sets of lines over the entire tube, offsetting the tube position, and set a very thin thickness to these lines. Assign the glass material we created earlier to it, and this should serve as a very subtle detail in the background.
15 OTHER MATERIALS
Create a Vray Material, and call it ‘Matte Black’. Set the colour to Black, Reflection colour to Grey, and the Glossiness to .7. Assign this material to the Rings and the Hanging Wires. Create another Vray Material and call it ‘Backdrop’, in my case, I used a dark purple colour, with my Reflectivity off, by just setting the colour to Black. Adding some reflection will also add
It’s all about experimenting Play around and experiment with the values and settings, every piece and project has different settings, there is no one size fits all. Explore and find what works best for your piece and your taste.
a nice effect to your scene in some cases. Assign this new material to the backdrop/wall we created earlier. Finally, assign the ‘Frosted Glass’ material to the light plugs.
16 RENDERING ELEMENTS & ALPHAS
When rendering, make sure you enable your Render Elements in your render settings, and assign the Vray Denoiser. This will ensure we have a very clean final render. Also, assign the Vraywirecolor, this will make it easy for you to select each object on its own as a mask when you take it to Photoshop. Render the final scene, and take all your rendered passes into Photoshop and stack them up as separate layers in one document.
17 MAKE THE NEON POP IN PHOTOSHOP
In Photoshop, start off with your main render with all the colours and materials. It might look a bit dull but we will enhance it. First, I went over my colourful neon lights from the inside tubes, and added more contrast so that the colours pop, you can do that using masks, or rendering just those tubes as alpha channels in 3D so you can easily select them, and start with just playing with the Curves or Contrast settings. Create another layer, and using a soft brush, with the same colour of your neon light, just brush over your light, and set that layer to ‘Linear Dodge’, this will further enhance the light and its glow.
18 PHOTOSHOP LAYERS & COMPOSITIONS
Next, find a picture of a light flare online, and place it on top of your composition, and set it to Soft Light at 70% Opacity. Next, find a picture of ‘Dust Particles’, this usually gives your final composition a nice layer of depth and detail, and set it over your composition with the blending mode set to ‘Soft Light’. Use your judgement as to what blending modes to use and the opacity level, every colour and composition will be different. Finally, create a ‘Curves’ adjustment layer and place it over all your layers, and start to adjust the curves a bit until you are satisfied with the contrast and overall look of the final image. •