Illustrator Help! Need Advice For Placing Windows 3D Tower

[mooapo]

Hello, how are you doing? I was hoping someone would help me out with I guess one would say ' Perspective ' .

I have created this Tower in Illustrator cs3, not bad, but one problem. How can I go about placing windows on both sides?

Thank you....

Also, I have Photoshop cs5. Would I be better off using that for same result? And if so, how?

 

[xano]

Now I'm really not sure what I'm looking at with that picture you have or what method you're using to make this tower but I'm assuming that you are using a 2D image.

As far as I know there are two ways to go about doing what you want. You can use the 2D shape with a gradient or gradient mesh to give it dimension then add said windows using and envelope. That is not the method I recommend because it would be tricky to fine tune and might make you angry in the long run. It will give it a more "Illustrated" look.

The other method, which may give you an unwanted 3D result is to cut the tower (or I'm assuming 2D shape) in half along the Y axis and then revolve the 2D shape around the Y axis to create a 3D cylinder. After doing that you can create any number of "symbols" (in this case a set of "windows", created however you like) to mask it. You can also create a brick and mortar effect in the same manner. Keep in mind if you want to add other shapes to revolve with the tower be sure to group them at some point if you are going to rotate. If they are not grouped the will all rotate on their own independent axises.

You can also do it all freehand. I'm not sure if CS3 has the perspective grid but if it doesn't I highly recommend you upgrade to CS5.

So all in all you can create the effect of a cylinder using gradients, 3D revolve, or in freehand in some cases. To add the windows you can use an Envelope distort on a gradation (giving the illusion of 3D effect) or you can use the correct symbol to mask a 3D object.

hope that helped.

 

[xano]

and I would not use photoshop for anything like that.

 

[xano]

this is a quick example of the 3D revolve effect along with a map of black rectangles used as windows. There a number of things you can still to to touch this up.