The page loads—a three-dimensional blob hits me—squishing around like a dismembered Pillsbury doughboy. 3D is in and I have no idea how to get started...
It's Thursday, 1pm. Another shit-ass wintry day in NYC. I've just had a green smoothie (like an asshole) and design twitter is raging. A new, early access product has launched. I click.
Fuck...that's cool.
The page is littered with 3D designs and animations.
Have you ever been here? Blankly staring at some design—desperately wishing you made it. I imagine that fucked up Mucinex-Booger whispering: "Brendan, you're a shit designer. You're too old? busy? stupid? 3D design is for cooler, hotter, less insecure designers."
The self-pity continues. I go up-and-down the site, looking at each carefully crafted detail. I want it.
It's now 1:30pm and I'm murdering Mr. Mucinex. Today, we're taking a 2D shape and making it 3-fucking-D.
Time to get inspired.
Inspiration (for me) is finding work that makes me feel terrible (cause everything is about me right?). In return, I am driven to be less terrible.
I'm working on a new brand and wanted to see how designers are starting to use 3D on websites. I found 3 that got me feeling some type 👏of 👏 way.
The aforementioned site that started this journey. A gateway drug: www.pitch.com
I've reloaded this page ~10 times: https://useplink.com/en/
Why does Ueno only make shit that rocks—ugh: https://interview.ueno.co/
Feeling inspired? Grande.
Before this 3D pilgrimage, I had been working on a new logo. This felt like the best place to start. The question is: how do we take a 2D vector and make it 3D? T-gourd for Youtube.
To take a shape that was previously in 2D, and convert it into 3D, you'll need:
One of the most powerful 3D tools, which also allows you to animate, is called Cinema 4D (c4d if you know whats up I guess?).
Sidenote: I've heard Adobe Dimension is another easy-to-use 3D tool. Let a boy know if you'd like to do another "deep-dive" there.
It is now Thursday, 3pm.
Tools downloaded, GPUs firing, and a bead of sweat has formed on our communal brows.
It's time to pop this shit into another dimension...
I made the logo in Figma. Is that lame?
The default 3D texture/color is butt-hurt so let's make it not suck.
At this point, you could export this 3D shape as a static png. However, if you want to impress your ex, then it's time to animate. Quick heads up, C4D uses keyframes so if you've used other animation tools in the past—you're in luck!
Holy shit—look what we've done. Are we 3D pros? Should M. Night Shyamalan hire us to do VFX for "Avatar the Last Airbender 2: When Ang Sees Dead People????" Probs.
Now, all we do to do now is export. What I learned is the more frames you have, the longer it will take to render your final video. If you want to just do a quick test—follow along.
The sun has set. The rain has stopped. I can hear tires slide through the slicked cement outside.
It's Thursday night and today, we took a 2D shape and made it 3-fucking-D.
A new webpage loads—a three-dimensional blob hits us—squishing around the page like a dismembered Pillsbury doughboy. 3D is in and we know how to get started...