Suggestions for fastest/easiest method to extrude a vector as 3D?

[Aeonjoey]

I'm presently without a Rhino license, I have Sketchup Pro and Adobe CS, but I'm hoping to find some suggestions for the easiest way to take an Illustrator vector (ai/eps/svg etc.) and extrude for using logos/text in Keyshot?

I know how to do this in photoshop (slow) and Sketchup (sloppy/low-poly), anyone know a faster/better way? Heck I'd even pay for a simple app that just did this.

[designgestalt]

hello Aeonjoey,
isn`t it possible, to use your artwork as a displacement map in Keyshot?


cheers
designgestalt

[Aeonjoey]

Interesting... hmmmm

The workflow would require I'm assuming, running through this mentally:
adding a plane,
displacing,
exporting to bake the geometry,
reimporting,
separating surfaces,
deleting the remnant flat part of the plane
using the 'front' of the displacement as the extrusion and face.

I'm forseeing a couple of issues: We've found that displacement maps generate very complex geometry since it's using raster imagery as opposed to vector, the resultant product is never quite 'good' for key art, only for engravings and small items that we've been able to see the value - but it's really worth a shot.

I'll have to do a head to head contest haha, to see which is better/faster: this, or just the old workaround of dropping a vector into photoshop 3D to extrude, and exporting an OBJ - maybe i should make an action/droplet to do this for me in photoshop hmmm.

Thanks so much designgestalt!!!

[Aeonjoey]

*SIGH* no, this doesn't work.
Just to get this far it took almost 15 minutes of processing on a brand new 2020 i9 w/ 32gb RAM,
the resulting extrusion is so complex, I can't even spin it in the geometry view, and looks horrible.

Not a viable solution for anything but low-poly angular art, and even then, any angles will be stair-stepped and never straight/smooth.

UPDATE: it crashed before I was ever even able to click a surface to split.

[Aeonjoey]

Holly monkey! i didn't know it would've been this easy lol,
I'd only heard that PS could do this -

okay just in case anyone else ever comes looking for this:
1. drop your vector as a smart object, or live text, or whatever, in photoshop
2. click Window>3D
3. Select from the dropdown 'current layer' or selection, etc.
4. Select 'Extrusion'
5. Click Create
6. the 3D workspace launches, select the object in the layer panel
7. right click on the object, and click 'Export Mesh'
8. Select Collada .DAE
BAM

It arrives in Keyshot as separates front, back, and extrusion objects, ready for materials in SECONDS.

sorry this was a new thing for me so I'm very excited HA! 

[designgestalt]

that is good to know!
thanks for sharing ...!!
do you know, if that works for warped surface too?

cheers
designgestalt

[Aeonjoey]

I'm not sure what you mean by warped surface, but any geometry you can affect in the 3D workspace can be exported from within PS. If you mean adding a warp effect - then yes, you can use live or destructive filters/transforms on the 2D source art to be extruded, wether vector or raster, and it will extrude (of course vector/path is better)
PS's 3D workspace is like the print-shop-deluxe of 3D rendering, while it can accept some material types, there is very little that can be done with the actual geometry besides basic extrude, revolve, and transform. There's infinitessimal tutorials on youtube for it, here's one that goes through the basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOWMkYZPDiU