bja888 — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 21:41:08 +0000

hey confusedxx,
That is something I have been working on for the past few months. I have a few tricks but I still have not gotten exactly what I want.

I really cannot but my thoughs into words but i'll try.
- You need to show scale. That means you need some form of texture or object in the background.
- Light drop shadow is mandatory. I the lighter the better though.
- You need to add depth to the border of the 3D object

I'm actually looking in to a vector background. Ask me again in a few weeks if it works...

lex — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:28:58 +0000

I believe its about perception. If you go to stangette.com and look at the woman on the left, note the angle of the camera. I guess if I wanted too. I could put a drop shadow. But you have to use it with caution. I seen to many cheesy sites because the shadow looks fake. What I do for drop shadow is Opacity is set to like 40% black. Spread is about 70 and Distance is about 5 but it depends on how much you want to make it jump out. Changing the shadow size smaller will help too.

What i found as very very important to give a site 3D look is the quality of the object your using or font for that matter. Lower quality will make everything look 2D. So make sure your artwork is very very crisp in quality.

My 2 cents.

PS. Balancing the foreground and background with layers is important too.

confusedxx — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:08:06 +0000

Hi timjpriebe

No I am not talking 3d objects but rather a more raised apprearance to the site - a visual effect per say.
The reply page here seems to have it.

Dark grey background, white border and lighter grey content section. Just wondering if that is the rule or if there are other visual rules. Does lighter always appear on top of darker or vice versa? :blush:

timjpriebe — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 13:59:54 +0000

How 3-D are you talking? Are you talking about 3-D objects, or more like layers of 2-D objects?