Battlefield 3 Text Effect

Quick reference

• 00:04 Today I'm gonna be showing you how to create this Battlefield 3 text effect
• 00:09 in Photoshop.
• 00:10 Now, there are few variations of the Battlefield text, but this one,
• 00:14 which was taken from the official website,
• 00:15 will give you a great starting point if you wanna further customize the effect.
• 00:20 Of course, the first step after you've created your document is the base text.
• 00:24 We're gonna be using two different fonts for the text.
• 00:27 One for the word battlefield and one for the number three.
• 00:30 The size of the font is up to you.
• 00:31 But I'm gonna be starting large somewhere around 200 points.
• 00:34 Now for the battlefield text agency FB Bold was
• 00:39 the most accurate font that I found.
• 00:41 And then for the number three, chica mono works quite well.
• 00:46 Now that our text is ready to go, let's add a very subtle gradient overlay.
• 00:50 The top color which is on the right of the gradient bar will be a very light grey and
• 00:55 then the bottom color will be slightly darker than the top.
• 00:59 Perfect. At this point,
• 01:00 we need to add a canvas type texture to the text, which can be done in a few ways,
• 01:04 including a pattern overlay, but when combined with the gradient,
• 01:07 it's a little bit tricky, so we're going to resort to a filter.
• 01:10 Now before you aimlessly add a filter to your text, make sure you convert it for
• 01:14 smart filters first.
• 01:16 This will not only ensure that you could edit the filter settings later on, but
• 01:19 you'll also be able to go back and change the text if needed.
• 01:22 The filter we're going to be applying is texturalized,
• 01:25 which on Photoshop CS 5 was under the tester sub-menu, but in Photoshop CS 6,
• 01:29 it's now accessible in the filter gallery.
• 01:32 When the texturized filter is selected, select canvas for
• 01:35 the texture, decrease the scaling to 50%.
• 01:39 And set the relief at 2.
• 01:40 Of course, if you want a stronger texture, or a completely different texture,
• 01:44 experiment with the different filters that are available.
• 01:47 The next step in the effect is the blue and
• 01:49 black outline that you see at the bottom half of the text.
• 01:52 For this, we're gonna create our own pattern,
• 01:54 which will give us a lot more flexibility on how the final result looks.
• 01:58 Start by creating a new document with the dimensions eight pixels by eight pixels.
• 02:03 And then when the document is ready, zoom in as far as you can go.
• 02:06 You can do this by holding down the Cmd and space bar on the Mac or Ctrl,
• 02:11 space bar in Windows and then dragging your mouse to the right.
• 02:14 Now we need to create the pattern.
• 02:15 We're going to start with the blue,
• 02:17 which is gonna be a nice light blue, the value for this one is gonna be b4d0df.
• 02:21 Now with that color set, use your pencil tool,
• 02:26 which can be found in the fly out menu with the brush tool, and
• 02:29 then paint the left half of the document with that blue you just set.
• 02:33 And finally, switching over to a black brush,
• 02:35 paint the right half of the document completely black.
• 02:38 Perfect. Now before we save it,
• 02:39 one optional step you might wanna take is to blur the pattern.
• 02:43 This'll give a slightly softer feel to the outline.
• 02:46 Now that our pattern is complete it's time to save it.
• 02:49 Under the Edit menu at the top, choose the define pattern option and give it a name.
• 02:53 Battlefield 3 sounds appropriate.
• 02:56 Good. Now let's hop back over to our
• 02:57 original document.
• 02:59 Because we're gonna be using a pattern, we're able to apply it as a stroke, but,
• 03:03 if we apply it directly to our original text layer,
• 03:06 we won't be able to fade it out using a layer mask,
• 03:08 so we're going to need to create a separate layer to do that.
• 03:11 In your Layers panel, hold down your shift key and
• 03:13 click on the new layer icon to quickly create a new layer.
• 03:17 Now, turn your text into a selection by holding down Cmd or
• 03:20 Ctrl, and then clicking on the text layer's thumbnail.
• 03:23 Once a selection has been made, fill the color with any color that you like.
• 03:26 Cmd + Delete or
• 03:27 Ctrl + back space will fill the selection with your background color.
• 03:30 Now as we don't actually want the color to be showing, turn the fill, not opacity,
• 03:34 but fill, down to 0%.
• 03:35 Decreasing the fill will hide the original layer but
• 03:39 allow us to see our layer styles, which we're about to add.
• 03:42 Now we're ready to apply the pattern, double-click on your new layer to bring up
• 03:45 the Layer styles and then hop into the stroke section.
• 03:49 Towards the bottom, change the Fill Type to Pattern, and
• 03:51 then in the Pattern Picker, find and select the pattern that you just created.
• 03:55 It should be at the very bottom of the list.
• 03:57 Now depending on how thick you want the stroke,
• 03:59 you can change the size at the top.
• 04:02 Three or four should work quite well.
• 04:04 Another neat trick is that you're able to move the pattern if you're not happy with
• 04:07 the positioning.
• 04:08 By simply clicking and dragging your mouse over top of the text,
• 04:11 you can position the pattern exactly where you want it.
• 04:14 That looks good right there.
• 04:15 All right, we are almost there, the last step is to fade out the stroke.
• 04:19 Your first instinct would be to add a layer mask,
• 04:21 select a black to white gradient, and drag it from the top of the text to the bottom.
• 04:25 However as you can see, when applying the layer mask to a layer with layer styles.
• 04:30 The result isn't always pretty.
• 04:32 So to work around that, just like we did with the text layer, go ahead and
• 04:35 convert it for smart filters first.
• 04:38 Now we can apply a layer mask.
• 04:39 And with the black to white gradient selected,
• 04:41 drag out a gradient from around the middle of the text right to the bottom.
• 04:45 And that just about does it.
• 04:46 Now, if you want, you can also duplicate the design to add a reflection underneath.
• 04:50 Simply select both Layers in your Layers panel, pop them into a group by
• 04:54 holding down Shift and clicking on the new group icon at the bottom.
• 04:58 Go ahead and duplicate the group, convert it to a smart object, flip it,
• 05:04 move it into place, add a layer mask.
• 05:07 And with a white to black gradient fade it out just like we did with the stroke.
• 05:11 Now looking at the original and
• 05:13 the design that we just created, it looks like we almost nailed it.
• 05:16 Of course you can use the same technique to type any word that you like and
• 05:19 incorporate it into your gaming related designs

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.