3d logo design - Logo Design behind the Scenes

Youtube tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1RT81kW2x8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8eLQIwVHKs

Tutorial overview:
A successful logo design needs to be both professional and functional. It might be the first piece of branding someone sees relating to a company, so it should make a positive impression. So I’ll share my techniques and experience in Logo Design behind the Scenes. I walks through the fundamental decisions, such as what information to include, what size and orientation the logo should have, and whether to use in corporate identity, TV production, Web publishing. I demonstrate how to set up a template and work with type alignment and color. Also discusses animation techniques and preparing the file for printing, TV production, Web Publishing. How to integrate and fill the gap between 6 software is my goal in this tutorial. I'll use Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe after Effects, Adobe Flash and Adobe Dreamweaver.

Topics covered:

Quick Sketching
Logo Exploration
Logo Modeling
Producing Logo to several illustrators formats
Animation approach
Animation Composition
Web Animation and production

Chapters:

Part 1
01: Intro Goals
02: 1st stage Sketching ideas
03: Modeling, Texturing, Lighting, Rendering and Detail Design.
04: Put the logo into Layout
05: Illustration stage
06: 2nd stage animation

Part 2
07: animation composition and finalize exporting HD
08: 3rd stage Web Production
09: Final Design, animation inside HTML page.

Details:
01: Intro Goals
Before we exactly what we started in the first step to know that if we look at the goal. We print, TV production, our logo and Web preparing to be ready for publication. Design as something usual, apprenticed to a specific logo and ask yourself is the best way to design something. If so, can you apply various methods to do the same logo may use different methods depending on the quality of output has been disclosed.


02: 1st stage Sketching ideas
Then the process of swirling out your ideas begins. It doesn't matter if the sketch looks like monotone; you are just throwing ideas down onto a white blank page at the moment. I used tablet here. Just try to find ideas and concepts using balance. What I mean with balance is our logo should be physically balanced inside our design. Just imagine if you create that logo in real life with clay or wood and try to put it on a flat surface it should be stable balanced. Once I had placed some ideas down on paper you can scan them in and dive into your image editor of choice if you would like. I'm using Adobe Photoshop for this one. The method I use to create logo could be wildly different from someone else so go with whatever method feels comfortable. The end result will be a series of scaled resources that the OS will use in different views.

03: Modeling, Texturing, Lighting, Rendering and Detail Design.

Modeling
For a non-organic bending object such as the subject of this tutorial it is wise to use polygonal modeling unless you care about the quality. Polygon modeling has always fascinated me especially with the accuracy it provides for making industrial models and its flexibility. The good thing about Autodesk Maya is that it provides both a strong NURBS system and a multi-optional NURBS to polygon conversion dialog, where by we can convert our detailed NURBS model to a polygonal object with the desired number of faces.

The aim of this tutorial is to provide a practical guide for the novice Polygon modeler, whereby he/she can practice the basic methods through designing a somewhat complex object. Of course, this tutorial does not cover all Polygon commands but rather most of them.

Now observe and contemplate the above sketching image for a moment; try to visualize it from front, the front view: that's the key point in making the logo.

First we will begin with a set of primitives for different logo parts. I make a sphere (polygon sphere) then 4 twisted cubes. To make twisted cubes in Maya it's just easy. Make a cube then go to deformers panel and use the twisting toll. After made a 1 twisted cube, duplicate it 3 times with 90 degrees. Then put them together to fitting in the sphere.

That's exactly my idea represented. I have a point in this logo which I can say the sphere represent the red word and the 4 twisted cubes represent how mush it's secured.

The next step is to create mental ray subdivision from approximation editor panel. I like to make the N subdivision as a 2.000 points for sure that's give me a good smoothed mesh and also at any time I can go back and make any changes in low poly mode.

Texturing
The texturing stage is the most important part. Everyone who's worked before with 3D texturing knows that every texture have an advantage and disadvantage. We can see that the Lambert shading absorb lights. Also we knows about the phonge shade it's reflect lights with angels and have a different characterizes instead of blinn shade.

So I render the logo 3 times 1 with blinn shade, 2 with mia_material and phong shades. By this way we mention that we have the logo in 3 different characteristic so we can use this 3 together in later steps.

Lighting and Rendering
Let's talk about lights. I use in this scene 9 lights. Our goal in lights is how to use a minimal number of area and point lights to recreate all direct and indirect light sources for a logo. They are 8 area lights and 1 point light. The 8 area lights have a very small intensity. Also I used the white light color. In This technique we use Global Illumination and Final Gather.

Final step in lighting and rendering is to render the logo in 3 different images every image with a different shade.

04: Put the logo into Layout
lets go to Adobe Photoshop and open the 3 images we exported from Maya. Actually I like to export images as a .TIF images. Taking the 3 images and put it together in Adobe Photoshop blind them together. I used overlay blinding mode. Then finish by company name and the caption.

Also I simulate a deep shadow behind the logo. Its give me a nice look.

In this stage if u would like to represent that logo to the client u have or to your boss. That's will fair enough.

05: Illustration stage
For the first time I present this tutorial someone ask me... hay the logo u created now is fine but do u think is it ready for print in big scale like billboards?..

In fact, this is a good question, because we need a positive sign is from print to television production, web publishing everything is ready, we statge1 agree. So I start now to give my method ü how to export our position as a vector logo (can be extended) shape. We will come back to Maya and use the logo model and exported to different types of illustrations. Here I use the Maya Vector rendering, I like to use some options
Curve tolerance and detail level to end up with different logo versions. 1 with dark colors, bright colors, and wire frame, etc… everything is vector we can export it as an AI file and import it to adobe illustrator. Easily u will find that our logo is now ready to use it in printing elements safely if we need to print it in higher printing elements or huge billboard.
We finished now the stage 1 which is creating a 3d logo ready for print production.

06: 2nd stage animation
Okay ... We animate. We go back to Maya and begin to animate our logo. I begin with the preparation of my timeline with 72 frames. That gives me 3 seconds (24X3 = 72). Animate the ball to shrink to shrink, until the stop to. Then reversed over the 4 twisted cubes I animate it in 360 digress. Thus, it is to me a very nice effect. So what we have now is shrinking globe and 4 cube rotated. I think it looks good for me now. Of course I go into the timeline and play the pictures fast, slow, reverse, etc. .. Check to see if something looks funny or out of the scene.

So we have now 72 frames let's render it in .PNG sequence of images. And have a look for the animation when it's finish render.

07: animation composition and finalize exporting HD
So we end now with 72 PNG sequences of images. If u thinks about composition for sure we will think about Adobe after Effects. You can import the 72 images directly to Adobe after Effects but in this tutorial I convert this sequence to 1 MOV file using quick time. So I open quick time then open the sequence of image and save as a MOV file.
Now, Adobe After Effects compositions to start MOV files can be imported. I use the first effect is the effect of auto-level. It can be seen that the logo looks fine and deeper than anything. Also, I bounce and I just undulating, 3D rippling to see some other effects such as animation ends. To give the appearance of my background, then animate the logo when the radial gradient. So, I am now satisfied that what is seen

Let's render our MOV file from Adobe after Effects and finally the logo now composite fine and ready for TV production.

09: 3rd stage Web Production
After we have our composite MOV file let we think about web animation. Actually Adobe Flash is the solution. First I prepare my stage in Adobe Flash 640X480 as we rendered our files and also prepare my timeline and frame rate 24 FPS. Now we are ready to import our animation file. But the MOV file has a huge size and we shouldn't use it for web. That does will take a lot of time in loading. So I think about converting this file to FLV file using Adobe Flash CS3 Video Encoder. Start encoding and we have now a small FLV file. So import the FLV file and check it in Adobe Flash. After everything is looks fine and small size the only one problem is the frames looping. So I add one Action Script behavior to stop the animation when it's finished (played for 1 time). So our file now ready for publishing from Adobe Flash we will end up with HTML file contained the flash SWF file.

10: Final Design, animation inside HTML page.
The last step in our entire tutorial is to open the HTML into Adobe Dreamweaver and center the flash object (SWF file) and we can easily type welcome to red secure website and it's now ready for Web Production.