Effects / 3D

3D

Watch it being adjusted

Screen recording of the 3D sliders in Illustrator (placeholder)

How it works

Every glyph is offset along the Direction by the Depth and the walls between face and back are built as flat vector facets. Walls are sorted into an exact global depth order so nothing paints out of turn, mostly-hidden interior walls are culled, and the extrusion stroke draws only the wall edges that survive hidden-line removal. Extra layers stack like a ziggurat, each with its own width and colours. Tilt, Boom and Focal length add keystone and perspective. Everything is vector and spot-colour safe.

What you can adjust

  • ModeOverall outside / Individual strokes / Fill alone
  • Depth0–400 pt
  • Top, side and slope wall coloursAuto, five greys, None (knockout), or a document spot
  • Extra extrusion layersup to 10, each with its own width 0–400 pt and three colours
  • Direction0–360°, default 30°
  • Tilt−10 to 10
  • Boom−50 to 50
  • Focal length0–1000, perspective
  • Extrusion stroke0–20 pt, colour, Apply to face as well, Taper 0–20 (default 5), Stroke only
  • Slope styleColor / Gradient / Comic / Split
  • Preserve spot colorson/off

Still live text

3D is applied as an Illustrator live effect, so the text stays editable. Change the word, the font, or any slider afterwards, and save the result as a Graphic Style to reuse it.

Prefer to do it by hand?

How to make 3D text in Illustrator → walks through the manual Illustrator steps, then shows the one-click version.