FMC Tutorial: Vector Illustrations into 3D

I was cleaning out some of my files the other day and came across a folder full of stuff I grabbed at SIGGRAPH this year. I came across this great looking postcard from the gang at GoMedia . Their “Arsenal” royalty free vector art is amazing. I got inspired and thought “let’s make some cool 3D works with it!” So here we go.

The following tutorial has 19 steps but they go fast once you understand what to do. I did this in Illustrator CS3, Photoshop CS3, and Maxon Cinema 4D. You can visit www.adobe.com and www.maxon.net for demos to follow along if you like. I used one of GoMedia’s Arsenal freebie downloads for the vector art.

Step 1
Open the vector sample from GoMedia in Illustrator.

Step 2
Pick a graphic you like. I chose one of the “banners”.

Step 3
Select graphic then copy and paste it into a new document. You can leave all the defaults.

Step 4
Feel free to scale the graphic or not. Since its vector you can enlarge it later without any consequences.

Step 5
Save new document with a new name. Then close Illustrator.

Step 6
Open Photoshop.

Step 7
Go to File > Open > your_new_file.ai

Step 8
Command + click (Mac) in Layers tab the file to create a selection.

Step 9
Go to Paths > Make Work Path. Use a tolerance of 1.

Step 10
Go to File > Export > Paths to Illustrator. Then close Photoshop.

Step 11
Open Cinema 4D and go to File > Open > your_paths_to_illustrator_file.ai

Step 12
In the Objects Panel click on the + to expand the imported file.

Step 13
Select all the paths then right click and choose Connect.

Step 16
Click on Nurbs > Extrude Nurb to add an extrude nurb to the Object panel.

Step 17
Make your paths file a child of the extrude nurb by dragging onto extrude nurbs.

Step 18
Logo is now a 3D object! Click on render view to see.

Step 19
This file can be animated, you can add materials, lights, background, floors etc. Creativity has no bounds.

Here is a video tutorial on the process!