While not being a 3D application Illustrator has got some neat 3D
capabilities. If used properly they can give you pretty spectacular
results.
Step 1
We’ll start with defining a texture for our object.
Create a few colorful, evenly spaced rectangles, like me.
We need to create a symbol from them, so select them all and drag them to the Symbols Panel.
Draw a circle and delete one of the anchor points, so you’re left with only half circle. Make it black.
Select the object you just created and go to Effect>3D>Revolve to create a black sphere.
In the Revolve options click Map Art and from the drop down menu select the symbol we’ve just created.
Adjust the width, height and rotation of the symbol. It is essential to check the “Shade Artwork” option, otherwise the light that we will be setting up in the next step won’t affect the stripes and everything will look awkward.
We need to play a little bit with the lighting options. Turn on Plastic Shading, because it gives the best quality renders. Add some more lights, I added only one, but if you need to you can add more. Also important is the “Blend Steps” parameter – the higher the value, the higher the quality. If your image will be small leave it at the default 25, but if you need a bigger graphic I recommend increasing it to the maximum.
Step 2
Now that you know the basics you can experiment with different textures
and lighting setups.
Sphere with rotated rectangles pattern and 3 lights.
You can make that kind of pattern by placing a few rows of squares like
in the picture below. Use Object>Transform Each to rotate every
square individually.
Step 3
This object was created with diagonal lines pattern which I bent using
Effect>Wrap>Arc. To make the sphere partially transparent I used “Invisible Geometry” option in Effect>3D>Revolve>Map Art.
Step 4
In this step I mapped a simple linear gradient on my sphere. I also
changed shading color in my lighting options to give the sphere a nice
red shade.
You can experiment with shading color and light setup to come up with
pretty interesting effects.
Step 5
Unfortunately, Illustrators rendering engine can’t create shadows or
reflections, so we need to add them manually.
Draw two ellipses on the artboard like in the picture below. Make the
small one black, the bigger one white. Set the bigger one to 0% opacity.
Use the blend tool to connect the two ellipses and set the blend
spacing to “Smooth Color” (you can do this by double clicking on the
Blend Tool).
Step 6
To create a reflection copy the sphere and paste it in front (ctrl/cmd+F). Select the copy and go to Object>Expand Appearance. Then flip it vertically and position it below the original sphere.
Create a rectangle over the flipped sphere and fill it with a white to
black gradient.
Select the reflected sphere and the rectangle. Go to Transparency
panel, from the panel menu select Make Opacity Mask.
You can click on the mask thumbnail and play with the gradient to
adjust your reflection.
I presented all my ideas on spheres just because Illustrator renders
them the best, but you can apply these techniques to any shape you want.
Generally, rounded 3D objects will give you best results.
As you can see, with a little bit of creativity and knowledge you can
produce interesting 3D objects in Illustrator.
No need to buy expensive 3D software. You can thank me in the comments 
grate tutorial! thnks!
Nice tutorial, will have to try this out!
Awesome tutorial. ???????!
I love it! Step 3 is really sexy
Estupendo! Very useful to practice 3d effect.
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its cool
this tutorial is amazinggg… althoug it took a lotta time for illustrator to ”RENDER ARTWORK” i loved the results.. bring it in buddy.
This is the best use of the 3D engine in illustrator I’ve seen. Great tut! Thanks for sharing!
great as usual. =D
Great, great, great!!!
Great tutorial!!I love the final effect!
Thanks i learned a lot..
Brilliant tutorial. I learned a lot from this. Thanks for taking the time to post it.
Thanks…..
awesome technique
how yours are smooth? The renders are rather have jaggy edges in mine especially for stripes.
Hey there,
This post is excellent. I have been looking for something similar for the past two days and have seen a ton of other tutorials. In all honesty, this is the most straightforward and comprehensive example I have found. (Blows Adobe’s tut out of the water.)
Haven’t looked around your site too much, yet, but I will.
One thing I did notice about it was that you don’t use Tags or Categories. If you hadn’t thought about using them, I suggest you do! It helps for “lateral” site navigation.
Thanks again for the tutorial!
You should try to increase you raster effect resolution in “Effect>Document Raster Settings”
Im really glad that you like my tutorial. Thanks for the tip about the tags.
They are so Excellent and fantastics, thanks
This is Great Tutorials
Excellent. Excellent.