Lesson video

Hi.

I am Rebecca.

Your competing teacher for this blender unit.

Now, you should have already installed blender from blender.

org with your parent or carer's permission.

You might also want to have a pen and paper handy to make any notes that you might need to.

You should also try to remove as many distractions as possible so that you can really focus in this lesson.

Once you've got all of that ready, we can begin.

In this lesson, you will use editor mode and extrude you'll use loop cuts and face addition, and you'll apply different colours to different parts of the same model.

So, what are 3D models actually made from, there are three important key terms that you need to know about.

The first one is the face and the face is a service made up of three or more sites.

You've then got the Vertex, which is a point where one or more edges meet.

And then you've got an edge which is a line connecting two vertices.

And it's important to note that faces are often referred to as polygons.

Why are the number of faces or vertices important? Well, early computer game consoles used to boast the polygon faces.

They could display per second, But nowadays clever techniques are detailed to models without adding more faces.

Polygons posts per seconds is not good at describing graphical power.

So if you look at some of the older consoles that were out there from 1994, they used to say 90,000 and the N64 was 160,000 and the PlayStation to look at that big jump.

In those four years between the technology that we had, 38 million, that's quite a lot, isn't it.

So looking at design and power then, choosing the level of detail needed to represent something is a form of abstraction.

The more faces the slower your computer might go.

The number of faces or vertices used is at the bottom right of blender.

So we can take a look at that when we start looking and we call that bird, there a 'low-poly' bird.

Now we're going to be editing models and extruding in this lesson.

So we're going to use the edit mode to move scale and rotate the faces, vertices, and edges of our models.

So let's take a look at that in blender.

So let's start using some of those key terms that we actually just learned there in our actual blender programme.

And we're going to be drawing this rocket.

So I don't want to start with a cube.

So I'm going to get rid of that.

So click on it and press the X and then enter to delete.

And now I want to make sure that I set it to the render view over here.

Here we go And now I'm going to add a cylinder, cause a cylinder is the start shape for the rocket.

So I get to add mesh and then go across to cylinder.

And then the standard cylinder appears there.

And if you take a look at it, you can actually start seeing these vertices.

So if you look there, you can see they're sort of shaded as they're moving around the corner.

There's quite a lot of them there.

Now what we can do for our rocket, cause we want it to have sort of quite structured edges to it.

We don't want it to be too curved.

What I want to do is I want to go and reduce the number of vertices.

So I'm going to go to add cylinder down the bottom there where this a little menu pops up when I've got the cylinder selected.

So click on add cylinder.

And then it says that the number of vertices in this object is 32.

And I'm going to reduce that down to 20 and just watch the cylinder when I press the enter key.

And you'll see what happens.

So you can see that that the number of vertices is now reduced and it looks like there's more of a structured edge to the actual cylinder.

So that's my first step is to go to that option and then change it to vertices.

Now the burst is to 20, sorry.

Now I want to go to the bottom of my rocket so that I can start looking at the edges and putting the fins for the rocket.

So I'm going to go underneath.

I'm going to drag that all the way up so that I can see that underneath there.

Which I can now.

And now, I'm going to go over to here where at the moment it's in object mode, which means that it's just that, that object that we put in, that cylinder.

But if we want to start editing the object, we can go to edit mode like this.

So chosen edit mode, and you'll see, as long as your cylinder is selected, then you start to get all these extra little nodes around your object that you can start playing around with.

Now we're going to start by looking at this one.

So we're going to be looking at the edges.

So if you look up here, you've got the three things that we were talking about before we've got the Vertex, the edge and we've got the face.

So we can select different ones to pull out and edit and drag around so that we can change how this shape actually looks.

So we're going to start with the edge.

Now, at the moment everything's selected.

So I just need to click off a second.

Cause I only want to select certain bits.

Now I need to select four edges so that I can pull those four rocket fins out.

So I'll click on the first one like that.

And you can see I've just collect.

I've just selected that one edge.

Now, if I want to select multiple edges, then I've got a hold down, shift on my keyboard.

So I'm going to do that now.

Now I find this quite tricky to see exactly where you've got to do it hold opposites so that it's even either side.

And I find this quite tricky.

So it might take couple of goes.

Maybe I'll do first time.

Let's see.

So I'm holding on shift and then I'm going to go to the opposite wall.

And then, can you see now that I've got two selected? Cause I was holding down shift when I clicked on that one.

Now I need to do this side.

So I've got to try and figure out.

So is even as possible.

So I'm going to hold down shift again while I click that one.

And then I'm going to try and get the opposite one, which it's never quite right.

I think I'm going to go for that one.

I think that one looks like the most opposite.

So I'm going to hold down shift.

Ah, okay.

That looks fairly even now.

So it looks like I selected four of those edges.

Now I need to scale those edges.

So can you remember what button you press on the keyboard to do scale? It was an S so I'm going to press S and now I get those two arrows come up.

Just like it happens before when we've got the whole object selected.

But now it's only going to pull out those edges that I've selected there.

So I need to pull it out so that it looks like a rocket the bottom of a rocket.

So maybe about to there.

And then when I'm happy with what it's done, I just click and then it stays where it is.

And if I look at it now, the right way round, you can say that I've now got the bottom of what looks like a rocket.

So we started to get there.

Aren't we it's starting.

So we've got those edges.

We've scaled them and pulled them out to make that bottom part of the rocket.

Now I'm going to start looking at this top bit here.

Now this whole topic here is called a face.

And what I want to do is I want to pull this out when to extrude it twice.

So I'm going to go to the face one.

So if you, if you forget which one you're looking at, just hover over them and it tells you, so you've got Vertex, edge and then you've got face.

So if you want to select a face, then you choose that one there.

And now it allows me to select the face and now we're going to extrude.

So I'm going to type E on my keyboard because that's going to let me extrude.

So does it seem similar, like we've seen before, so we've got this, so I'll put a press E and then you get this line appear.

And then when I move my mouse up and down now, I can extrude it either way.

So I'm going to do it to about there, I think.

And then I'm going to click cause I'm happy.

And then I'm going to extrude again because I want another part.

So I can make that to sort of cone type shape at the top.

So it's already selected.

So I'm going to press the E again and the same thing happens, but now you can see that we've got a line there to show that they're two separate sections.

So I'm going to go about there, I think.

And then I'm going to click this cause I'm happy with it.

Now.

I want to scale just that top part, that top face.

So, because I'm going to scale the face.

I need to keep face selected, but now wants to scale, So I press that S again on my keyboard, and this is a bit odd how this works.

So just watch how it works.

So here we go.

It's quite easy to get your mouse in a right pickle when you're doing this.

Luckily, what we want is that nice cone shape, which is sort of that, isn't it.

There we go.

Okay.

But don't worry.

Cause you'll be like, Oh, I don't know what I'm doing, but just be really gentle.

And eventually you'll figure it out and you'll get it to the right place.

It needs to be about that.

And then when you're happy, you just click and you're done.

Okay.

So you're going to have a go at making that rocket as well now.

So you can follow along with me again, just by going back and seeing if you can do it yourself or try and do it from memory.

If you want to.

I am going to pause the video then now so that you can draw that rocket.

And you've got a skilled checklist there just to remind you of what you need to do.

But if you forget as well, don't worry, you can just rewind the video and look earlier on and just watch what I'm doing.

That's fine.

And if you do that really easily and you find it quite easy, then maybe you should try drawing your own things.

So something like a car, for example.

So you can have a go at drawing a car in your 3D animation.

That'd be really cool.

Wouldn't it? So try and do the rocket first.

See how you get on, if you get on quite well.

And you're all right.

Have a go at drawer in the car as well.

That'd be a good idea.

So pause the video while you have a go.

Awesome.

So the next thing we're going to be looking at is advanced colouring.

So use the materials tab to add multiple colours, assign them to different parts of your model in edit mode.

So this is going to be fun.

Isn't it? Let's have a go.

Let's add some colours to this rocket then.

So I have my rocket there.

Make sure you've got yours opened up to.

And I need to select the materials tabs.

So I'm going to go down to there, materials properties, and I'm going to add three new colours.

So I'm going to do add, add, add three times.

And now I've got three active materials, but haven't said it said to put anything in there yet.

So I'm going to do a plus on that first one.

And I'm going to choose, let's do the cone.

So yeah, let's do the cone first.

So rocket cone, there we go.

That's my first one, press the enter key.

And then I've got another one and I've got rocket body and then I'm going to have rocket Stripe.

So my rocket body is going to be blue.

So I'm going to go to rocket body and I'm going to change it to blue, like so, and the Stripe is going to be white.

So I'm going to keep that as it is and the cone is going to be red.

So I'm going to change the base colour to red.

There we go.

So now I've got my colour selected.

What I can do is I can go and I can select each part individually.

Now, if I want to select the whole thing, notice I'm still in edit mode there.

What I can do is I can press I on my keyboard and that selects the entire object that's on there.

So it selects everything.

So if I want to make all of that blue, then I can go to the body there and I can choose a sign.

And then that assign in that colour to the whole thing, and the reason that it doesn't look like, the whole colour has changed is because I haven't got this render option is selected.

So I'm just going to select it now.

There we go.

And hopefully it'll come back and it's blue.

There we go.

So I've got my rocket body now as blue and I can move around it and take a look.

And because it's just, because it's selected at the moment, it looks funny colours.

I'm just click off it and they go, you can see now the whole thing is blue.

But what I want to do is I want to add stripes to these faces that around here.

So I just need to make sure that I've got faces selected, which I have.

So is this the third one up here face select, and then I can do it individually, one by one, or I can select them all so I can click on that one, And then just like I did before I can hold down the shift key and then I can move to the next one so that every other one I'm going to make it this white colour or grey colour.

So I'm just going to go around and select that now, like, so as I'm moving around, I'm nearly there, nearly at the end, just this last bit.

And then if I want to make that all white, then I can go into the Stripe and I can then choose a sign and it assigns that material to it.

So now I've got a rocket with this all blue, and then it's got white stripes on it.

Now I'm going to go to the top and I just want the very top bit that face there to be red.

So I'm going to go to rocket cone and I'm going to assign, so now I've got some different colours now on those faces of that rocket.

So it's starting to come alive a little bit more now.

So have a go yourself then now at adding to your rocket, pause the video while you have a go at that.

Excellent.

Right.

What's our next bit then.

So Luke cut and face addition.

So you will now make a stool by using the loop cut and deleting and adding faces.

So let's see how we do that.

I just opened up a brand new blender file and you straight away, you get the cube and I do actually need the cube this time.

So I'm not going to delete it, but if you didn't have the cube day, then you could just go to add mesh and then choose cube from there if you wanted to.

So we've already used the scale button, but now we're going to add an extra tool because the scale on its own makes things like larger and smaller all together, keeping everything in proportion.

If I just go to edit and do, if I type an S then a Z, you'll see how they i get that blue line.

And what it's going to do is it's going to move that cube along the, the blue line.

So now that I can stretch it and it does change those proportions in that sense, and for our chair base for the seat part, we want it to be around this thickness here.

So when I'm happy with the size, then I click.

So let's just undo that again, just so that you can see.

So I pressed S then Z and then that blue line appeared.

So that's a little bit of information to remember.

So S then Z, and then I clicked on it like that.

Alright, now I'm going to use that loop cut, and I'm going to actually zoom in.

Now I've got a scroll wheel on my mouse, so I can just scroll up.

And then that zooms me in, but you can also zoom in using the magnifying glass over here.

If you want to see him in that way instead, that's up to you.

Now, we're going to edit this because what we've got to do is you've got to pull that loop cut in.

So we've got to put in edit mode.

So we're an object mode at the moment, and I want to edit this.

So, I'm in edit mode now, and when I do loop cut, I have to do control or command, depending on what keyboard you've got.

And then control R when I have done control R you can see that this yellow sort of outline appears, and you can either have it that way round, or you can have it that way right now.

I want it this way round first and how this works is you click and hold.

Then you drag it to where you want it to be.

So at the moment, I'm still holding down my mouse.

So I click and hold, and then I want to sort of, I want to have four legs.

So I've got to make four sets of squares in the corner, so that one needs to go about there.

And when you're happy, you can let go and you can click.

And then that will fix it.

And you do another loop cut.

So loop cut is either command or control with R on your keyboard.

And again, you'll get that yellow outgoing appear.

So you go click and hold, and then I want it sort of roughly there.

And then when I'm happy, I click and it's there.

And then same thing again, control R.

And this time I wanted the other side.

So I click and hold.

It's roughly looking a bit like a square on it, on that edge.

Then when I'm happy I click.

And then last one, I'm going to have it about there.

So what I've done there is I've added four loop cuts.

So now that you can see I've got new faces that I can use to extrude the legs at the bottom and the back on the, on the back there.

So I'm going to do the legs first.

So I need to go underneath my shape and I want to select the faces because I want to extrude the faces out.

So I'm going to go to the faces one up here.

I don't want it to be even so I want to do it all at the same time.

So I have to click on the first one and then hold down shift with my keyboard and then click on the averse.

And now I'm going to extrude.

Can you remember what you press on your keyboard for extrude? It's the A, so I'm going to press the A and then when it looks about right, I can just click.

I think that's about right.

So I'm going to just click now.

And that's the bottom of my chair with my legs done.

So we get, and now I want to do the top bit.

So in order to make this look pretty, I'm going to extrude it a few times that I can put that back in and then have a little bit at the top of it as well.

You see what I mean in a second? So again, this sub decided is going to be the back.

So again, I need to click the faces.

So doing it at the same time, remember because you want to keep it even.

So they're in there and I'm going to extrude.

So I'm going to press that E and then it's going to take me up and I want it to be about there.

And then I'm going to extrude again, because I need to have the bar across the back.

And then I'm going to extrude one more time, because this is going to be just above the bar.

So now I am almost there.

If you take a look.

Now, this is where we need to delete faces.

And then we have to put new faces in to, in order to put that back rest across the back.

So I'm going to delete.

So I've still got faces selected, so I can just go to it.

Now, if I want to do it at the same time, then I can select them both by moving around and then just press delete, or it can do one at one at a time.

So this time when I press X, this is why it's important to get used to pressing that X.

I get this menu up here and I want to delete the face.

So I'm going to choose faces.

Then I'm going to go round to this one, and I'm going to click on it.

I'm going to press X and I'm going to choose faces again.

So now I've got some space there and I can actually start to put in my, new faces for the edges of this back rest.

So this is an interesting one.

So I'm going to select just the edge.

So I need to go to edge select, and I'm going to click on that one.

And then I'm going to click and hold on this one.

And if you're not quite sure if it's done it right, you can just go around and just double check.

Now, this feels a little bit like magic.

When you do this.

If you press now that F on your keyboard, it makes a face.

There we go.

I've got a new face.

So I just need to repeat it all the way round.

So I've got membrane to have edge selected, so edge, and then I am going to have to spin round this time I'm going to hold down my shift key and get the other edge, and I can just double check.

And then what do I press to make a face? I press the F and then a face appears.

And then I can go all the way around to the back, and I can click on that edge and hold down shift and click on that edge, and then press F again, to make another face.

And then just go all the way to the bottom of it and click on that one and click on that one, and then press F again, to make another face.

And now, as if by magic, I've got a 3D model of a chair.

how cool it that? So you can pause the video now, while you have a go at drawing that chair yourself.

And if you take a look on there, you've got the skills checklist, just to remind you of what you needed to do in order to do that.

So pause the video while you have a go.

That was awesome.

Well done.

So you've just learned an awful lot more again.

Now about blender.

You're really building your skills up.

We're halfway through these units and think about where you were at the very beginning, How overwhelming it all looked and all those buttons that you had to press.

And now you should hopefully be starting to build your confidence a little bit more and getting used to those that control or moving it around.

So Well done for persevering with it.

That's really, really good.

And if you'd like to, please ask your parent or care to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

because I'd love to see the chairs you've made, or maybe you drew a car this, this time, or maybe you came up with something completely different.

It'll be really cool to see what you've been getting up to that.

I'd really appreciate having a look at those pictures if you're allowed to.

So that would be great.

And I'll see you soon for lesson four.