Tutorial: Converting 2D images to 3D in Blender!
BlendMaster writes:
Hey Everybody! In this tutorial, I will be explaining how to take any 2D image and convert it into a 3D object in Blender. It’s not that hard to do. We will begin by importing the image as a background image, and then we will be tracing it with a curve object. Also, if you stick around to the end, I will show you how to make a cool wallpaper to display your new 3D logo/image.
I hope you guys enjoy this tutorial and learn something new. Thanks for watching!
I wouldn’t say *any* 2d image, but rather, any flat logo or simple illustration image. This technique cannot be used to say convert a photo.
You are correct. What I intended by using the word *any* was that this method would work with all kinds of file formats compatible with Blender. There are already many tutorials out there which require you to have a vector file such as an svg to import into Blender to achieve this effect. My goal was to show how you could do the same thing if you didn’t have an svg file of your image. I hope this clears up any confusion. ;)
Makes sense. Sorry about that.
No problem, you were correct, my wording choice was not the best.
There is another way. You could get the 2d image convert to svg in inkscape and use the blender svg importer which automatically draws all the curves for you. That can handle much more complex images and is much faster.
Yes, you are correct. However my goal was to demonstrate how you could do this completely inside of Blender, while having a tutorial that also serves as an introduction to the use of curves in Blender.
The output from inkscape is hardly usable in Blender anyway. I find the resulting vectors are over-complex.
Gabriel suggests a perfectly valid and usable workflow.
Bitmap tracing is much faster for complex shapes or when there are a lot of them. Since Inkscape is a vector graphics program, it also has more tools available for manually tracing an image. Inkscape exports the paths as they were prepared.
I agree, but the output from the image tracer in Inkscape is noisy and useless. Manually tracing has a better output because you’re doing it yourself.
Great tutorial. My recommendation would be that you rename it to “An Introduction to Curves in Blender.” When I saw the title, I figured I already knew how to get a logo from Illustrator into Blender, and I was about to skip over it. But I played through it and was very happy to see that it’s an overview of curves, and in that, very helpful! Keep up the good work!
Thank you very much. I’m glad you found it helpful and I also adjusted the title. ;)
@Blendmaster – thanks for this great little tutorial. I tried replicating your process – everything works EXCEPT my object does not automatically fill when I click the “2D” button like yours does. I cannot seem to get it to fill no matter what I try.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Forrest
I have the same problem…
Very cool, but wish this would have been done in 2.8!
Thanks – I am totally new to Blender and this is a big help for a project I want to do.
so how do we do this on blender 3.0 some of the keys and menu’s have changed so don’t do what you say in this vid anymore.