3D and Materials in Illustrator: The Full Tour
3D and Materials arrived in Illustrator in late 2021 and replaced the old 3D dialog (which still exists as 3D (Classic)). This is not a bitmap pasted on a shape; the materials are real, editable surfaces with their own settings and lighting. This video walks through every part of the panel on a simple circle so you know what each option does. It was sponsored by Domestika.
Opening the panel
Draw a shape, give it a fill, and go to Effect > 3D and Materials. Any of the entries opens the same panel with three tabs: Object, Materials and Lighting.
Object tab
- Plane: a flat object you can rotate on the X, Y and Z axes or with presets. With no depth, the top and bottom presets show nothing.
- Extrude: adds depth like the classic effect. Turn on Bevel to pick a bevel preset or design your own, repeat the bevel, or invert it to cut inwards. Rotate the object to check the result.
- Revolve: spins the shape around an axis. 360 degrees gives a full ring; smaller angles give a partial revolve. Caps can be open or closed for a hollow look.
- Inflate: puffs the shape up. Depth controls the thickness; Volume goes from a flat surface to a bullet shape. Presets set the viewing angle.
Materials tab
Illustrator ships with a set of materials. Each has its own controls, so a gold material lets you change the metal colour and the amount of detail, while a wood material has a base colour, colour variation, grain cut type and varnish colour. Texture resolution goes up to 2048 px, which mainly matters when you render. You can add more materials from Adobe’s Substance library (around 500 at the time): download the .sbsar file and add it with the plus button in the panel. Downloaded materials have their own parameters too, for example tiling scale, hole shape and coating on a perforated metal.
Lighting tab
Choose a preset (Standard, Diffuse, Top Left, Right) or adjust the light manually: intensity, rotation, height and softness, plus ambient light. Changing the light colour tints the whole scene. Shadows can be placed behind or below the object, with distance and bounds controls. The real-time preview may clip large shadows; rendering fixes that.
Rendering
The artboard shows a preview. Use the Render menu to choose ray tracing quality for a raster result, or render as vector. Click Render to finalise, and change materials later to unlock the preview again. You can also export from the real-time preview without rendering.
Conclusion
The panel is simple once you see it as three questions: what shape (Object), what surface (Materials) and what light (Lighting). Start with a circle and Inflate or Revolve, try a few materials, then move the light around. The tutorials on this site for 3D text effects build directly on these settings.
Links from the video
- Join the members-only content: https://bit.ly/3fEEvD4
- Sign up for Domestika (video sponsor, code DIGITAL_ART_CREATION-10 for 10 percent off): https://bit.ly/2Y0haW6
- Premium tutorials on Udemy: http://bit.ly/2Cqmcgo
