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• • November 4, 2010 at 6:56 pm #57581
    kc00799

    Member

    Hello Everyone!

    Just wanted to know if it's possible to make a 3D or 2D ebook cover in Indesign. I know you can make a cover page, I can do that, however I need to be able to make a 3d cover to promote a free ebook giveaway. Can I do this in Indesign or do I need to purchase more software???

    Thanks

  • November 4, 2010 at 9:04 pm #57582
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    It's a fun idea, but I'm not sure how you'd do it. Usually people do those “fake 3d books” in Photoshop (often with a plug-in or action). But I bet someone (Mike Rankin, are you listening?!) could come up with a clever solution.

  • November 4, 2010 at 9:16 pm #57583
    Mike Rankin

    Keymaster

    Where there's a will there's often a way. I've experimented with creating a basic 3D effect (the like the kind you wear the special glasses to view) and stereograms (the things were you relax your eyes and a hidden 3D image appears inside a graphic) inside InDesign. But I'm not sure that's really the place to do it. If I were trying to do a 3D effect like that, I'd probably start in Photoshop. Can you describe in more detail what you'd like to have for the ebook cover?

  • November 5, 2010 at 5:34 pm #57601
    kc00799

    Member

    Hello,

    I wil be producing a variety of free ebooks and ebooks for sale. I've produced a cover for a kindle book in indesign, but I need to be able to produce 3d ebook covers for a squeeze page for my opt in list. A flat picture just won't do. I don't own photoshop and do not know if the lower price of Photoshop Elements will do the job. All I have heard refers to Photoshop. Just wanted to know if that's the only way or the best way??

    Thanks for responding

  • November 5, 2010 at 6:29 pm #57602
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    I'm still in the dark what you mean with a 3d ebook cover. A 3d cover for an ebook? A 3d picture of an ebook cover? (Which would be, I think, a contradictio in terminus.) Or, what Mike suggests, a 3d image to display on the 'cover' of an ebook?

    The main reason Photoshop was suggested above, would be that it's a real drawing package, where InDesign is (emphatically) not. Even with Illustrator you could do better.

    But Photoshop is far from 'the only way'. If you need a free high quality bitmap editor, you could try GIMP; Inkscape is a free vector imaging application.

    Here is the best I could do using only InDesign. I made a guess at the thickness ;) — but, of course, your ebook wouldn't have a “thickness”.

    

  • November 10, 2010 at 5:14 am #57648
    Gfx-Dzine

    Member

    I do these 3D Mock-ups all the time for books, brochures, Corporate ID, etc. we do over here.

    If you want I can help you out. Drop me a mail okay?

    One simple example:

    

  • November 10, 2010 at 5:34 am #57650
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Creating a 3d book is easy enough.

    In Illustrator, draw a flat image of the cover, or import a scan or file of the original cover into illustrator.

    Do a 3d extrude.

    

    Bring it into photoshop. Select the spine, and colour it similarly.

    Colour the spine a bit darker, to make it look more realistic.

    

    Now you just have to do the pages. And you do that using fibers.

    Start a new document, or layer, it won't matter.

    I'm going to do it on a layer.

    Fill your new layer with white

    Set your pallete to default by pressing d, so you have black and white, white as your background, black as foreground.

    Filter>Render>Fibers

    Do something that looks good. I'm using a variance of 4 and strength of 64.0

    Using Free Transform on your new layer, reduce the size of the Fibers to suit. Using CTRL on the PC or CMD on the MAC, you can drag the handles into place over the top of the image, to give the look for the pages.

    

    Then you just have to add in little details, like where the spine is glued, there's always a line about 5 – 7 mm from the spine on the front cover.

    You'll need to put details on the book first though of course. Mine is just blank.

    I've used this technique before, when I scanned the front cover of an image. I then stacked three 3d images beside each other and applied a small drop shadow, and it looked like they were on a shelf.

    It worked a treat.

  • November 10, 2010 at 5:42 am #57651
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    You could do it all in illustrator too – but my machine craps out when I get into too much detail with 3d objects in indesign.

    In illustrator you can APPLY artwork to the 3D surfaces – but they need to be symbols

    So get a flat version of the front cover, the spine and something that resembles pages (like the Render Fibres from earlier)

    Place each of these into Illustrator

    Open the Symbols pallete in InDesign (Window>Symbols) and drage each item separately into the Symbol pallete.

    Then remove the artwork from the page.

    Draw a rectangle the size of the book (actual size)

    Effect>3d>extrude and bevel

    Rotate to the angle you like

    In the extrude depth – insert the width of the spine in “mm”, “pts”, “inches” whatever you're comfortable with – it could be say 30mm (illustrator will convert the mm to points)

    Then choose MAP ART from the top right – and you can then select the Symols you created to insert on each face of the 3d rendering.

    And that's pretty much it.

  • November 10, 2010 at 8:14 am #57658
    Mike Rankin

    Keymaster

    There's also a chapter in my Graphic effects ebook on making 3D shapes and extrusions in InDesign.

    https://creativepro.com/in-…..rets-store

  • November 22, 2010 at 4:14 pm #57863
    kc00799

    Member

    Thanks to everyone who responded! I have been away for awhile.

  • November 23, 2010 at 2:43 am #57865
    Gfx-Dzine

    Member

    Welcome back then :)

    My offer hasn't expired – if you'd like me to do it for you drop me a mail. I'll provide you with renders from any perspective and in any resolution you want.

    Mike.

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