Lesson video

Hello, I'm Josh.

I'm your computing teacher.

And welcome to lesson two of the 3D modelling unit.

In this lesson we're going to look at making changes to 3D objects within your work planes.

You're going to need a pen and some paper, so make sure you have those ready.

You will also need your class code and nickname in order to use the Tinkercad software again.

Make sure you've got a nice quiet space, free from distractions, and then we can get started.

Okay so lesson two.

In this lesson, you will use digital tools to modify a 3D object.

To do that you will identify how graphical objects can be modified.

You will resize a 3D object and you will change the colour of a 3D object.

So let's move on to those bits now and see how we get on.

The first thing we're going to look at, is we're going to look at working with 3D graphics.

Now, in a moment, I'd like to pause the video and I'd like to consider these two things.

Firstly, what did you do to manipulate your 3D objects in lesson one? I said, thinking back to lesson one, what did you do and how did you manipulate the 3D objects? And two, what did you create? What model did you create in lesson one? Pause the video.

Have a think about those now, and resume the video when you're done.

Okay, welcome back.

So hopefully you remembered that in the first lesson you were looking at how objects could be moved around your work plane, and you were looking at how they interacted with one another when they were right on top of each other or next to each other, occupying that same space.

You also looked at the function buttons down the side your zoom in, your zoom out.

Your home view and your fit all in view.

And you checked out the viewing cube in order to see different angles of the objects on your work plane.

In the end, you came up with a 3D maze.

Now yours might have looked similar to mine, or it might look a little bit different and that was all down to your creative style.

You should have used boxes for your walls however, and you should have used your cylinders to create your start and your end points.

And that was the first creation of your 3D model within the Tinkercad software for this unit.

So well done for completing that in lesson one.

In this lesson, we're going to look at something a little bit different.

We're still going to be checking out how we can alter our 3D objects and how we can manipulate them.

And the first thing we're going to look at is resizing.

So in a moment, we're going to jump into the Tinkercad software.

So make sure you have your class code and your nickname ready for task one when we get to it, and we'll see how we do some resizing within our work planes.

Okay, so the first thing we're going to need to do is we're going to need to jump into the Tinkercad software.

So I'm going to type up, here into tinkercad.

com.

And I'm going to click the sign in button up on the right hand side over here, get rid of that little cookie statement and I'm going to click students join your class.

Now you're going to add your own class in here.

Obviously it does include the spaces remember, but if you've got it on your clipboard, you can copy and paste it into that box there and click go to my class, and then type in your nickname and say, that's me or press enter.

And that will take you to your dashboard.

Now, as we mentioned in the last lesson, the dashboard shows you all of your projects that you've already created previously.

And as you can see, I've got my 3D maze over here and I've got my 3D modelling intro, which is here.

And if I wanted to, I could Tinker this model here and I use this Button Tinker this down the side.

I'm not going to do that this time.

I'm going to create a new design and that's what we should be doing when you do your task as well.

And I'm going to wait for that to load.

And once that's loaded up, I'm just going to change the name of this project.

Because as we said before, it can be a little bit difficult to know what your projects are about because of the names that they are given.

So I'm going to call my resizing 3D objects.

So I've named my project.

I'm now going to drag a box from the right hand side onto my work plane here.

I'm just going to put that down in the middle there.

And I'm just going to get a little bit closer so that you can see it in a little more detail.

And I'm also going to change my viewing angle to make it clearer as to what is happening.

And if you look closely, you can see these dash lines around the base of my square, my cube.

And what that's telling me is that's telling me where the edges are of my cube that I can't see.

So it's showing me the edges that I can't see.

And you've also got this dash line down the middle, which is showing me my centre point.

Now we're going to focus on these little black handles to start with.

And if I hover over one, you will be able to see arrows appear and what these arrows are telling me, it's telling me that my cube at the moment is 20 by 20.

Okay, so that means that it's got 20 of these little squares.

That's how wide it is.

And it's 20 in the length as well.

So my box is 20 by 20.

And we can use these little black squares to resize our box in one direction.

And you can see where the arrows are pointing.

The arrows are pointing this way and this way, and that's telling me I can resize my box by dragging this in this direction or this direction.

Going to pop that back there.

And it's the same for this one here.

It goes the other way back and front, okay.

And it's the same for the back one and this one here, okay.

So it's allowing me to resize in the direction that the arrow is showing me.

If I wanted to resize in more than one way, I could use the little white squares.

Now these little white squares are showing me two arrows.

They're showing me the width and the length, and I can use this to change my shape in this direction here.

The width and the length are changing, you can see the numbers increasing and decreasing.

Or I could go the other way and make it bigger.

And that's allowing me to change two things at the same time is allowing me to change the width.

And it's allowing me to change the length.

So that is the little black handles down here and the little white handles down here.

They all allow you to resize your box in different ways.

So it's, you know, using the one that's easiest for you to achieve what you're trying to achieve.

We've also got this white handle up here.

Now this white handle up here is on this centre dashed line.

And this allows us to move the box, resize the box up and down.

We're altering the height using this handle here.

So we can drag that up to make our box taller, or we can drag it down to make our box smaller.

And you can see that in the arrow is telling me which way I can resize my box using this white handle.

So those are the ways to resize our box.

You're going to have a go at doing that in a moment.

So let's head back to the slides now and have a look at what your task will be.

So I'd like it to have a go now at resizing a 3D box within the Tinkercad software.

So you'll need your class code and your nickname to sign in.

Once you're in there, drag a box onto your work plane and have a go at using the black and white handles to alter the height, the width, and the depth of your 3D objects.

Once you've done that, have a think about how small you can make your boxes, how big you can make your boxes, and just see if there's any difference or disparity there.

Resume the video once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you had a bit of time there to experiment with changing the size of your 3D box.

Hopefully you were able to alter the width, the height and the depth of your box during that experimentation.

If you were looking at how small you could make it, it was 0.

01 by 0.

01, which is really, really small.

And if you were looking at how big you could make it, it didn't really seem to be a size that you could make it too big.

You just kept being able to drag the handles.

Now both of those options are not really fit for the purpose of what you're creating.

You need to make sure that when you're resizing boxes or 3D objects, you're making sure that they are the right size for your model.

So we're going to look at something a bit different.

We're going to look at a different handle that we can use to manipulate our 3D objects.

So let's move on to that now.

And then we'll have it go in Tinkercad before you get to go on your own.

So on the side, you've got a picture of a house and you've got a 3D model made in Tinkercad, which is loosely based around the garage area of the house.

What I'd like you to consider and I'd like you to pause the video to do this, is which 3D shape has been lifted to create this model? So pause the video, and think about which 3D shape has been lifted to create this model? Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you realise then that the 3D shape that has been lifted is the triangular prism.

And you can see that a little bit more clearly because I lifted it a little bit higher for this image here.

And you can see it just above that sand colour cube.

And lifting objects within our 3D workspace is a really fundamental part of making our models because we don't want it all just to be flat along the work plane.

And we want to make sure that we are able to create models that have higher elements in them.

So we're going to go into Tinkercad now, and we're going to have a look at doing that ourselves.

Right, so we're back in the Tinkercad software.

And as you can see, I've still got my box in the middle of my work plane.

And what we're going to do now is we're going to look at how we can lift objects.

So I'm just going to go back to our home view up here.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to drag in this roof object here, which is our triangular prism.

I'm just going to pop that in front of my box for now.

And I'm going to zoom in on that, using the fit all in view button, just to show you a little bit closer, what we're going to be looking at.

So when you looked at these square handles and we've figured out what they do for resizing.

Now, we're going to look at this teardrop shaped handle up here, this black handle here.

Now this is the, the handle that we're going to use to lift our object.

So we're going to click that.

And I'm going to hold it down.

And as you can see, it's got two numbers that have appeared.

So those two numbers are just telling me how high my triangular prism is.

And if you look closely, you can see a shadow will appear if I let go, which shows me that my 3D object is no longer on the work plane.

I'm going to look at that from the front so you can see I've lifted off my work plane, is now a little bit of the way up this cube here.

So let's go back to our home view.

I'm going to zoom back in.

And if we remember, by clicking on the cube, I can see how tall my cube is.

So my cube is 20 high.

So if I want to lift my triangular prism to put it on top of my cube, I need to make sure that I am lifting it 20 of the drops off the work plane.

So there we go, you've got the 20 there.

You can see my arrow is pointing up to show that I've lifted it up.

I go back to the front.

You can see that it is the height of like a 3D cube here.

So now I'm going to drag that over the top of my cube.

And what that's going to do is that's going to make sure that is sat on top, and I'm going to zoom in here so you can see a little bit closer and just spin it around.

And you can see that it's now sat on top of my 3D cube.

So we can lift objects using this teardrop shaped or triangle handle here.

And if you click on it, remember you can see which way it's going to go.

It will tell you the arrow as to where it's going, if you are lifting it and I've placed it on top of my cube.

So in a moment, you're going to have a go at jumping into Tinkercad and having a look at lifting objects and popping them on top of other objects.

And you will be completing your task for task two.

Okay, so what I'd like you to do for task two is I'd like to use a cube and a triangular prism and I'd like to create a very basic house model.

So just using the cube or cuboid, and a triangular prism, create a basic house model.

You can resize them if you would like to resize them and just make sure that the triangular prism is sat nicely on top of your cube or cuboid.

So pause the video, have a go at doing that in Tinkercad and resume the video once you've finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully then you've been able to create a very basic house model, and we're going to look at altering our models a little bit more using a different tool.

Okay, so we're back in the Tinkercad software and you can see I've got my cube and my triangular prism, my basic house model.

Hopefully you have something similar to this on your work planes as well.

And what we're going to do now is we're going to look at changing the colour of our 3D objects.

At the moment I had a green roof and a red cube for my house.

I don't really want that to look that way.

I want it to make it look a little bit more like a real house.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to click on my triangular prism.

And I'm going to click this circle here within the shape box that appears.

And that will give me a preset number of colours that I can choose from.

So I'm going to choose this grey up here just to make it a little bit darker.

And I can also do that for my box.

If I'd like to do that for my box.

And I'm going to make my house has a brown colour.

So what I've done is I've changed the colour of the 3D objects in order to make it look a little bit more like what I want my model to look like.

So that's very, very easy, very quick way of changing our models for the better, making them look a little bit more like they should.

What I'd like to do is I'd also like a door.

So we're going to use our knowledge of putting objects within other objects to do this.

So I'm going to drag another box to my work plane here, and I'm going to resize it.

Now I could use my resizing tools, my handles, or I could use these boxes here.

And actually just to make this a bit quicker, I'm going to type in, let's say six for my length, and I'm going to change this to let's say four, let's say 10, and I'm going to change my height to six as well.

And what I've got now is a smaller cuboid, and I'm going to drag that, so that it's just sticking out.

In fact, I want to make that a bit taller so I'm going to use my dragon tool here, and I'm going to make it a little bit a little bit smaller width.

And I'm going to look at that from the front.

Oh, it wasn't on the front from the right, just to see where I placed it.

Make sure it's in the middle if I want it in the middle, but then I can get mine exactly in the middle.

But as you can see, I've started to build my house by using another cuboid to create my door.

And you can do that using the boxes.

You can use the other shapes as well.

If you wanted to make a chimney, for example, you might want to put that here.

I'm going to change this then to, let's change it to two by two, and let's put the height as 10, we'll just put that there.

And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to use my lifting tool to lift that up, and I'm going to drag it across.

It sticks out of the top of my roof.

I'm going to get that a little bit taller as well.

And again, you can use lots of different shapes to create your 3D house.

Could use a cylinder to add the chimney element of the chimney if you wanted to add that, pipe element.

And you're going to have a go in a moment at changing your 3D or your basic 3D house model and making it look a little bit more like a house.

So we're going to go out of Tinkercad now, because I just wanted to show you what your house could look like.

Now, I don't expect you to go into this much detail.

I think you could make a nice looking base, a house model by just changing the colour and adding a few different elements.

But you can see this house on the slide has been created really, really carefully.

You've got the slanted roof with the slights.

We've got holes where the windows should be and a door as well.

And it's really, really good example of how we can create really enhanced 3D models within the Tinkercad software.

So let's move on to task three on your worksheet.

What I'd like you to do is I would like you to enhance your 3D model of a house.

So you might want to add a chimney.

You might want to add doors, windows, you choose how to enhance your 3D model.

So have a go at that and make sure you're changing the colour as well, to make sure that it looks a bit more like a house.

So have a go at task three, resume the video once you're done.

Welcome back, hopefully you enjoyed creating your 3D model of a house, and you're able to use your resizing skills, your lifting skills to make sure you were able to put objects above other objects and you were changing the colour and adding your features.

So hopefully you now have a 3D model of a house on your work plane.

I'm just going to show you mine.

So you've got an example of what one could look like, and it's not as detailed as the one we saw previously, but it does have changes of colours and I've added a few other elements as well.

So as you can see, I've added parts to my chimney to add the pipes at the top.

I've also added some windows and a door, and you can see that I've only done that on the front.

I have added a door on the back, but it is not completely finished.

And that's okay.

If you haven't managed to finish yours today, that's absolutely fine.

You can also see that there's a bit of greying out in some of my windows and that's just where I've got it in line with the black cube as well.

If I want it to get the black cuboid, sorry.

If I wanted to get rid of that, I would have to resize my black cuboids so they would sit above and below my window.

But now that's absolutely fine as it is.

So that is an example of how your, the front of your house could look.

You might have gone a different way, just like we did do that maze all down to your creative style.

So in today's lesson we've looked at resizing, we've looked at lifting, and we've looked at changing the colour of 3D objects within our 3D workspaces.

Before we finish, I'd like to briefly talk about 3D printing.

Traditional printers use ink to print there images and pictures, and they do this by mixing the colours to create finer detail throughout.

3D printers, however, use melted plastic to draw their model.

And they do this by starting at the base and drawing the layers until they get to the top.

Now, 3D printers have to use the plastic that's installed on the printer.

As you can see on the image, this is all in red, but other printers might use just black or they might use just white.

The point is they can't change the colour to represent the colour in the 3D modelling software.

So we need to consider this question.

If 3D printers only print the colour that is installed on the printer, then why change the colour of your 3D model in the modelling software? Pause the video, have a think about that, and then resume the video once you're done.

So I hope you've had a bit of time there to think about why you still might change the colour of your 3D models inside the modelling software even though the 3D printer would print it to a specific colour.

There are lots of reasons for doing this.

A couple of good ones.

The first one is that you might just be using the 3D modelling software to create your model.

You might not want to 3D print.

And if you're doing that, you want to make sure it represents how your model would look.

And you do that by changing the colour and resizing and things like that.

You might also use change of colour to ensure that you can differentiate between the different objects on your screen.

So if you got a cube on a cube, for example, it can be difficult to see where it starts and where it ends, if it's all the same colour.

So those are just a couple of reasons why you might change the colour of your 3D modelling software, even though the 3D printer would only print it in the colour installed.

So that's the end of lesson two.

Thank you very much for joining me.

I hope you enjoyed creating your 3D houses.

If you would like to share your work with us, we would really love to see it.

So please consider doing that.

Ask your parent or carer to share it on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

I really look forward to seeing you for lesson three.