Lesson video

Hi, I'm Rebecca you're competing teacher for the vector graphics unit.

For this lesson, you're going to need the Inkscape application that you should have installed with your parent or carer's permission in lesson one, you're also going to need to perhaps have a pen and paper handy in case she wants to make any notes.

The other thing you need to do is make sure you remove as many distractions as possible so that you can really focus in this lesson.

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

In this lesson, you will manipulate groups of objects and you will combine objects as well.

So to get started then, take a look at this flag.

It's the Swedish flag there.

How many rectangles can you see in this flag? Pause the video while you think about that.

Well, you might have come up with something like this.

So if you look, we've got seven rectangles there, cause it's been broken up into seven sections.

You might have done it a slightly different way possibly, but mine, it splits it up into seven rectangles.

There are other ways though.

So what if you could stack the rectangles and in that case, you would only need three rectangles to make exactly the same shape.

Vector graphics are made up of paths.

A path can be a line and many paths can be combined to make a shape.

Shapes and lines are sometimes referred to as paths.

The term path is used because lines and shapes have a start and end point with curves and angles along the way, just like a garden path.

Let's take a look at the tools we can use to select multiple shapes or paths.

We will also discover how to group and ungroup objects.

Let's look at how to select multiple objects then.

There's a few ways to do this, like with anything else that we do in this package, there's lots of different options.

So if I wanted to just let those three objects on the screen there.

There's one way I could do it is to just click and hold making sure that I've got the selection tool there and just click and hold and drag over the objects that I want to select.

and then I can move them all at the same time.

Another option is to go up to the top left hand corner there where it says select all objects or all nodes.

And if I click on that, it does exactly the same thing.

Another option is to hold down Shift, so I can click on that one.

I can hold down Shift and click on that one and then click on that one and then I've selected them.

That one's quite useful if you want to just select certain things on your canvas and not everything that's quite a useful, handy tip.

So that one was just holding down Shift on my keyboard while I click the ones that I want to select.

So selecting all is quite a useful thing if you want to move them all and keep them all in the same place, same distance from each other, but then obviously move them around in a big group like this.

You can also group objects together.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to create an eye with my three shapes and you can do this too when you have a go, you can draw your three circles and colour them in and draw an eye.

So I've got the white part and then I've got the colour part, and then I'm going to put the black on the front.

And if I draw on them the wrong way round what I could have done, if you remember from last lesson from lesson one, you can change the order of your objects so you can move them to the front if you need to.

So there's my eye, and if I try and move that now it's just going to move that, but I could select all and move it altogether, something else I can do ease group so I can right click and I can choose group.

And now all of those three objects are joined together, which could be really useful, especially if you wanted to make two eyes, if you wanted to duplicate it.

So remember we have the duplicate option too that we had last lesson.

So I've got duplicate and I've got to have two of them, and now I can have two eyes on my screen like that.

So that was just group.

And then I can group all of those as well.

So I can right click and I can group two.

If I want it to split them up, If I wanted to ungroup, then I just select the object that I want to ungroup, right click choose Ungroup and now they are separate and I can edit each part separately.

So that's just quite a useful tip if you're drawing something, and you want to group objects together, or if you want to select them all as well.

So it's time for you to have a go and you might want to draw those eyes too when you do your experimenting.

Try it yourself then, draw your own objects on your canvas, and then you can select all and you can group and ungroup them and try drawing those eyes if you want to.

Pause the video while you have a go at that.

Excellent.

So what we're going to do now is we're going to find out how to align and distribute multiple shapes.

I've added some extra eyes to my page so that I can show you how to align and distribute objects.

So I've got four objects there.

In order to align and distribute, what you need to do is find that window.

Now it's a little bit like what we did with Filling stroke, what we did lesson one, we found the tool over here and we clicked on it and the window opened, same thing for this.

So just go three up and it's Align and distribute objects.

If I click on that one, then that window opens.

And if you notice my Filling stroke window has appeared just below it.

And just like way before we can cross it off if we don't want it anymore, and then we can open it up when we need it.

So these are the align and distribute options.

You're going to play around with these yourself in a little while, so I'm not going to go through every single one, but essentially align is making those objects appear in the same place together.

So nice and neatly and straight lines in certain locations.

And there's lots of different options so for example, this one, it says Align left edges.

So what it'll do is it'll take the left most objects, which is this one, and it will align all the edges of all the objects to that left one, so you can see that happening there.

So just undo that, just click it again, can you see? It's just aligned it to the left edges.

You've then got a centre one as well so that you could pick the centre point and just bring them all to the same location.

Then you've got, and you can just choose different ones, just keep pressing undo, and trying different ones so that you can see what they all do.

You've then got Distribute, which is making the objects sort of an equal distance from each other.

And again, there's lots of different options for this.

So if I wanted them to be an equal distance horizontally or vertically from each other, then I just go to these different ones and you can see from the symbols, that's to do with width, and that one's to do with height just from the way the symbols are.

So I can click that one and the vertical gap between each of these objects now is equal, which is really handy.

So I could do that one and I could do the centre one.

And now I've got four eyeballs right in the centre, all an equal distance from each other, which could be quite handy if you were doing some kind of poster or whatever it is and you wanted to make sure that these objects were an equal distance from each other.

So what I want you to do is just draw a few more objects on your canvas and find that Align and distribute window, which is just here, like that.

And then have a go at looking at the different options for Align and the different options for Distribute, have a go.

So pause the video now, while you have a go at that, Brilliant.

So now what we're going to do, we're going to find out how to combine paths and shapes using a tool called Union.

What I'm going to do then is I'm going to use Union to combine these three shakes together.

You'll see what union is when I actually pressed the button you'll see what happens.

So I'm going put these objects together so that they're kind of in the shape of an F, there we go.

And then what I want to do is I want to join the object together so that it becomes one solid object.

So I highlight them all.

Then I go to Path, and then I go to Union, like so, and can you see how they all joined together like that? So if I just press undo, they're three separate objects at this point.

And then if I go to path and then I click on Union.

Haven't selected them, so Path, click on Union, and now they're all one object, one perfect shape.

So if I wanted to make an F, it's kind of a bit strange now, but wanting to make an F, then that's how I can do it.

What I want you to do, you can do an F as well if you want to, or you can just choose other objects to combine together using union.

So pause the video while you have a go at combining objects using union.

Excellent.

So what we're going to do now is we're going to find out how to combine paths and shapes using difference this time.

When we're using difference then, we have two objects like we've got here and we put one object over the other object, and you're going to see how it all works magically very soon.

Now this top object is the important one.

So I've got one below it and I've got one at the top there.

And if I wanted to swap them round, I remember that I can change them using these tools here, but what I do to select both objects, like that and then I go to Path, and I click on Difference.

And what's happened is, where there was the overlap of that top object it's actually removed that part.

So now I've got a bit of a crescent moon shape going on there.

So let me just show you that one more time.

So I made two circles.

I put one circle over the top of the other one.

I highlighted them both.

So I've selected them all.

And then I went to Path, and I selected Difference, and then the one on the top was removed.

So that path was removed from the lower object there.

So you're going to have a go at that now.

Pause the video now then, while you have a go at that.

Excellent then, what's next? So we will now find out how to combine paths and shapes using the intersection tool.

Let's see how the intersect tool actually works then.

This time I've got a square and a circle on my screen.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to this circle so that it is overlapping the square underneath, and hopefully you'll be able to see you've got the intersection, is where the two are meeting, this section here.

What do you think is going to happen when I do the intersect button? Let's go and have a look.

I've selected them both and I go Path, and then I go Intersection.

And what it's done is it's literally just taken that section where it was overlapping the two, and it's just left me with that bit.

That's quite a cool tool, isn't it? Let's just look at that one more time so you can see whether they were overlapping there.

I can select it and then I can go to Path, and then I can click on Intersection and it just takes that section out.

And you can try this with all sorts of objects to get some interesting shapes.

So you might want to draw a star, for example.

Whoa, that's not a star, is it? That's remembering my settings from before.

So I'm just going to change that back using the tools.

There we go.

It's cause I've got Randomised set.

And I've got Rounded as well set.

There we go, I've got a normal star now.

I've got a normal star, I'm just going to make it a little bit smaller and I could have a rectangle maybe.

Let's just get that like that.

Like so.

And then the intersection for this is going to cut out this shape here, isn't it? So let's select those shapes.

I don't want the top one.

Select both the shapes, go to Path, go to Intersection, and it's just left me with that shape there.

You have a go and experiment with different intersections.

Have a go at using that, but also I've got a little explore task for you there as well.

And to try and come up with some funky artwork that you use is those three tools, the union, that difference and intersection, that'd be really cool to be able to see what you've done there.

Pause the video while you have a go.

Awesome.

I've got a question for you then to see if you know the answer.

See what's happened to this object.

What has been used to place this shape or path in its current position? Take a look at those options.

See if you can remember from the very beginning It was, Align left edges to page.

That's everything for this lesson.

So you've picked up quite some technical tools there and you should be able to start making some really, really good pieces of artwork with the skills that you've picked up so far in lesson one and lesson two.

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

I'd love to see some those funky drawings that you've come up with this lesson.

See you soon for the next lesson.