Best 3D Box Shot Maker?

[littlegiant]

Greetings,

I just spent most of the day looking for a decent 3D box shot maker, i.e., image software that can easily produce a software product box image that is typically used on sales pages.

I've tried close to a dozen programs and, in my humble opinion, not a single one of them is completely up to snuff. Common problems include no anti-aliasing around the image, poor documentation, not enough features and/or options or just plain cheesy. The best I can come up with is TrueBoxShot although the help file is not complete in the Photoshop version and there doesn't seem to be a way to save the file as a .jpg (or .png) which necessitates having to take a screenshot of the image produced by the program and then copy-and-pasting it and using Photoshop to save it (which is kind of dumb.. I mean the program itself should be handling this.. no?) Anywho, I've sent off a support request to TrueBoxShot.com about this.

In the meantime, can anyone recommend a really good well-made 3D box shot program?

I'd really appreciate any input on this.

Much thanks,

Rob

[Dubbya]

I do mine using CorelDraw and Photoshop. Oldshool perhaps, but effective.

You need a layout depicting the top, side and front of the box then just export them as .eps files for Photoshop.

You can scale, add perspective and distort them to fit together, add some shading, highlights and you're good to go.

Here's a pretty comprehensive tutorial that'll show you how easy it is.
Spoono - Photoshop Tutorials - Box Art

Don't forget to add some hightlights to the corner seams. (It makes the box look more realistic.)

.02

[littlegiant]

Okay either I'm a total dumbass or that tutorial is missing some important details between step 2 and 3 (or it's written for Photoshop aficionados of which I am definitely not). I can draw the box well enough, adjust the perspective, depth, rotation but when it comes to getting the box to actually display in 3 distinct shades of gray as the author describes, I'm drawing a complete blank (literally) on this one. After drawing the box in the 3D transform dialog, whenever I click on the OK button, I get nothing whatsoever appearing on the layer I created. No box, no 3 distinct shades of gray, not even an outline of the box, nada, bumpkiss. So I don't know... Incidentally, this is exactly what I was trying to avoid by purchasing a box shot maker and that is spending hours (or more likely, days) fiddling around with Photoshop trying to work up a procedure to make my own box shot from scratch. Thanks anyway. I've bookmarked the tutorial but I'm still looking for an easy ready-made solution (box shot maker software).

[Dubbya]

My apologies for passing along the assumption that it would be easy.

Maybe this will do the trick:
Arial Software.com - Product Box Art

Good Luck!

[imvain2]

I'm not sure if you are interested, but I have 13 blank software boxes and cds in jpg format.

Which to me the box itself is the hard part.

[mobipocketgrrl]

Finally, something I can help out with. I use eCover Studio (About eCover Studio) to generate boxes/books and it works great. It totally automates the process of taking flat images and wrapping them around 3D boxes. Take a look and see what you think.

Marisa

[jonisolis]

Here are a couple to check out: (I just found them with a search. I haven't tried them.)

Ebook e Covers, ecover software 3d text cover, Box Images

and

eBook 3D Wizard
eBook 3D Wizard - Intro Page
eBook 3D Wizard - Intro Page
Box Image samples: eBook 3D Wizard - Box Cover examples

Let us know what you end up using and if it works good and how hard it was to learn. Thanks!

[littlegiant]

I should clarify something in my launch post. True BoxShot technical support responded to me (and quite promptly too) and there is indeed a means of saving the finished boxshot image to either .jpg, .bmp, .png or .gif. This applies to both the standalone version and the Photoshop plugin.

And thanks for the suggestions. I'll check them out...

[Serj]

if you can afford it, 3D Studio MAX is awesome, and not just for 3d boxes