+ P0001 - How to use vanishing point filter in After Effects CS3? +
Instructor - Pradeep Mamgain
+ Vanishing Point +
In this tutorial we will talk about a great filter in Photoshop, Vanishing Point in detail. We will use a wood box to demonstrate this feature and later we will export this box in 3DS format and import it in blender and render it. You can download the wooden box image from here.
We have lots of things to cover so lets get started. Download the project and open vanishing_point_start.psd. When you use vanishing point filter, it preserves correct perspective in edits of the image. Before you start applying the vanishing point filter make sure that you create a new layer so that you can apply layer styles, blending modes etc to the layer. If you need plane to go beyond the boundaries of the image, increase the canvas size.
If you want to place an image in the vanishing point plane, first copy the image in the clipboard. To confine vanishing point results to specific areas of the image, either make a selection or mask the area. You can even copy the image in perspective and paste in another document. To preserve the perspective, copy the item in vanishing point in one document and then paste it in another document while in vanishing point.
Now choose Filter > Vanishing Point or press Ctrl+Alt+V hotkey. A new window will pop up. On the left side of the window, vanishing filter tools are located.
By default, create plane tool is activated; which can be accessed through C hotkey. Define the four corners of the plane. Try to use a rectangle object in the image to create a plane. We will start by drawing the top portion of the image. Define a plane as shown in image below. PS creates a plane and show a grid lines with blue color. Grid resolution can be changed from Grid Size box located at the top of the window. Hold and press X key to zoom 200% and press Spacebar to activate the hand tool.
Blue color indicates a valid plane. Blue color does not guarantee that your plane is perfect. You have to manually move the nodes to fit it to image properly. Red color indicates an invalid plane. PS cannot create valid aspect ration in this case. Yellow also indicates an invalid plane. In this case all the vanishing point of the plane cannot be resolved.
Open image cgsutra.jpg in Photoshop. Press Ctrl+A to select whole image, switch back to vanishing_point.psd and paste the image in vanishing point. Drag image over top planes, active plane grid boundaries change to dark blue when you drag image over the planes. Press Ctrl+T to enter in transform mode and adjust the image. You can see that image is perfectly following the contours of the box. Likewise add an image for the front of the box.
You can also export Grids and Measurements to a PS layer. Create a new layer, activate vanishing point filter and from the flyout menu Choose Render Grids to Photoshop. If it is hard to see the blue lines of the grid. Select the grid layer and press Shift+Ctrl+Backspace to the lines with the BG color selected in the color swatch.
+ Selection in Vanishing Point +
You can also make selection in the vanishing point and clone, brush scale rotate and fill the selection while honoring the perspective of the image. Select the Marquee tool and try to select the front image, marching ants follows the perspective.
From the tool options area you can select the Father and Opacity values. From Heal Menu you can select the blending mode.
Off – Selection doesn’t blend with the colors.
Luminance – Choose luminance to blend the selection with the lighting of the surrounding pixels.
On – Choose this option to blend the selection with the colors, lighting and shading of surrounding pixels.
Save and close the object and open vanishing_point_two.psd. Make a selection as shown. Click drag in a plane to select an area on the plane. Alt + Drag a selection to copy an area to a new destination. Alt drag the selection downwards, it will create a new box slot. Ctrl + Drag a selection to fill the area with the source image.
To scale and rotate the selection, click on the transform tool in the tools area. To flip the selection horizontally and vertically choose the Flip & Flop options from the tool bar options.
Brush tool can be used to paint with a color in the Vanishing Point. Select a color, set the brush Diameter and hardness from the tool options bar. Set Heal option to On.
To paint continuously, automatically conforming the perspective from one plane to another, select Allow Multi-surface Operation from Vanishing Point flyout menu. To confine painting to the active plane only, select Clip Operations to Surface Edges. Drag in the image to paint.
+ Measurement in Vanishing Point +
This feature is available in Photoshop Extended. Measurement tool in Vanishing Point lets you draw a measurement line over an object in a perspective plane. This tool displays two text boxes, one for the length and another for the angle that the line was drawn relative to the perspective plane. Select the measure tool and drag a line over the object. PS has drawn a line and indicated the angle as 0.4 degrees and length as 6.81 units. It might be different in your case. Now if you know that length of this area is 8 units. Enter 8 in the length text box, located at the tool bar options. Now all the subsequent measurements correctly scale to your initial measurement.
Double click on any plane with measurement tool selected to automatically measure that plane dimensions.
You can move the line anywhere without changing its angle or length by clicking anywhere on the line and dragging. To change the orientation of the line, drag an end point. Press Ctrl Key to change orientation in 15-degree increment. To change the length of the line without changing the orientation, Alt+Drag an end point. To delete the measurement, select and press backspace or delete key. To render measurements to a new layer, create a new layer and from the flyout menu select, Render Measurements to Photoshop.
+ Export 3D information, Measurements and Textures +
You can export 3D information, measurements and textures in Vanishing Point, that later can be used in CAD, Modeling, Animation and Special Effects. Exporting to DXF creates a file with 3D information and measurements while 3DS file contains geometric information and rendered textures. Open vanishing_point_3ds.psd. Activate Vanishing Point filter. From the flyout menu, select export to 3DS. Choose a location, give a name to the file and press Save button. Launch blender or any 3D application that is capable of importing the 3DS file. I am using Blender. Go to File > Import and choose 3D Studio (.3ds). Navigate to the folder you saved the file and import it.
Rotate the geometry so that it appearance matches with the PS document. Turn viewport shading to Textured. As you can see texture maps were perfectly exported from the PS and you also have a 3D geometry.
This wraps up the tutorial, hope it was informative. Do come back for more tutorials.
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