Locked lesson.
About this lesson
The video game is such a classic that of course you need to make text look like it.
Exercise files
Download the Photoshop file used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Battlefield 3 Text Effect.psd7.7 MB
Quick reference
Topic: Battlefield 3 Text Style
The video game is such a classic that of course you need to make text look like it.
When to use
Some suggested uses for this text style:
“Breakfast 3”
“Donuts 4”
“Onomatopoeia 2: More words that sound like Quack”
Instructions
Base Text
- Mix two fonts if wanted.
Layer Style: Outer Glow: Blend mode: Normal, Opacity: 100%, Style: Linear.
Add a grain to the text
- Convert for smart filters.
- Menu Filter Gallery/Texture/Texturizer
Setting Canvas - Scaling: 50%, Relief: 2, Light: Top.
Create a base pattern
- New Document: 7 Pixels by 8 Pixels
- Command (mac)/Control(win) +Space to drag zoom into the new document
- Pencil Tool (Color: b4d0df) : Paint the left half of the document
- Pencil Tool (Color: Black) : Paint the right half of the document
- Menu/Filter/Blur/Blur
- Menu/Edit/Define Pattern
- Sane pattern and return to Text doc
Add base pattern to doc
- Create a new layer.
- Hold down Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) and click the text layer thumbnail to turn into a selection.
- Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) + Delete to fill with color, change Fill (not Opacity) to 0%.
- Layer Style:
- Stroke - Blend mode: Normal,
- Opacity: 100%,
- Size: 4,
- Fill Type: Pattern,
- Pattern: New Pattern
- Convert for Smart Filters
- Add layer mask and with black to white gradient draw from middle to bottom of text to fade it out.
To Create Reflection
- Select both layers and add them to a group.
- Duplicate group and convert to a Smart Object.
- Menu/Edit/Transform/Flip Vertical, and move down.
- Add layer mask and with black to white gradient draw from middle to bottom of text to fade it out.
- 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.