How To Create 3d Images In Coreldraw

Create a transparent 3D Box with mesh/fountain fill

Skill/Target Audience: Beginners/Amateurs

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the steps on how to create a transparent 3D box with a mesh/fountain fill in CorelDRAW X7. After following the step-by-step guide in this tutorial, you should be able to achieve a final result as shown in the picture below.

The tools & Commands used in this tutorial: Rectangle Tool, Ellipse Tool, Drop Shadow Tool, Mesh Fill Tool, Mirror, Duplicate, Skew, Scale, Rotate.

Launch CorelDRAW X7. Click on New Document in the Welcome Screen or go to File > New…. Setup the document as shown in "Create a New Document" dialog. Make sure Snap to Objects is enabled under View > Snap To > Objects.

Creating the faces of the cube

Select the Rectangle Tool (F6) from the Toolbox and create a rectangle. Change the width of rectangle to 50mm and the height to 60mm. See Pic. 2 below. Let's call this object "Object-1". Open the Transformations docker and switch to Skew (Or navigate to Object > Transformations > Skew from the Menu bar). Now, enter -25 in the Y: input box and click Apply. The resulting object should look as in Pic. 3.

Now, holding down the Ctrl-key, click and drag the object by the middle-left handle, over to the right, to create a mirror object and then click the right mouse button once to create a duplicate. We will call this "Object-2". See Pic. 4.

Coloring the faces

Object-1

Select Object-1 and fill the object with a Red color (C0 M100 Y100 K0). Remove the outline by right-clicking on the no color swatch . Now, press F11 to open the Fountain Fill dialog box. Click on the end color node (Position 100%) and change it to a deeper Red color (C0 M100 Y100 K80), by clicking on the small black triangle (next to the Node Color swatch), and entering the color values. Click OK.

Now select the Mesh fill tool from the Toolbox and marquee select the center node. Click on the Orange color (C0 M60 Y100 K0), from the color palette. Next, with Mesh fill tool still active, marquee select all nodes and change the transparency to 30% on the Property bar. See Pic. 5 below.

Object-2

Select Object-2 and fill the object with a Yellow color (C0 M20 Y100 K0), remove the outline by right clicking on the no color swatch . Now, press F11 to open the Fountain Fill dialog box. Click on the end color node (Position 100%), and change it to deeper yellow color (C0 M20 Y60 K80), and click OK.

Now select the Mesh fill tool from the Toolbox and marquee select the center node. Click on the Yellow color (C0 M0 Y100 K0), from the color palette. Next, with Mesh fill tool still active, marquee select all nodes and change the transparency to 30% on the Property bar. See Pic. 6 below.

Creating the remaining two faces

Next, start by dragging Object-2 from bottom-left corner and snapping it to the bottom left corner of Object-1 that we created. Right click once before releasing the left mouse button to make duplicate object.

Press Shift + PgDn to move the object to the back. In the Transformations docker, switch to Rotate and enter 180° in the Rotate input box. Click Apply. This will be " Object-3 ". You should get a result as shown in Pic. 7. Next, Start dragging Object-1 from top-left corner and snap it to top-right corner of Object-3 that we created. Right click once before releasing the left mouse button to make duplicate object.

Press Shift + PgDn to move the object to the back. In Transformations docker, click Apply without changing any settings. This will be " Object-4 ". The result should be as shown in Pic. 8.

Creating a sphere

Select the Ellipse Tool (F7) and create a perfect circle by holding down the Ctrl-key. Change the width and height of the circle to 50mm. Fill the ellipse with Magenta color from the color palette (C0 M100 Y0 K0), and remove the outline by right clicking on the no color swatch .

Press F11 to open the Fountain Fill dialog box. Change the blend transition type to Elliptical. Select the end node color (Position 100%) and change the color to Pink (C0 M40 Y20 K0). Smooth the fountain fill by clicking on the Smooth icon under Flow:. Under Transformations: enter an X: value of -22% in the Horizontal offset input box. And enter a Vertical offset of 30% in the Y: input box. See image below for the correct Fountain Fill settings.

The ellipse should now look as shown in Pic. 9.

Next, select the Drop shadow tool from the Toolbox and holding down the Ctrl-key, start dragging slightly upwards from bottom-center of the ellipse. In the Drop shadow settings on the Property bar, change the Opacity & Feathering to 25 as shown in Pic. 10.

Finally, place the ellipse with drop shadow as shown in Pic. 11 below. Select Object-1 and Object-2 and press Shift + PgUp to achieve final result as shown in Pic. 12.