Welcome to ‘Beginning 3D Modelling’ Month!

This month’s creative digital skill is 3D modelling. Join us as we create simple 3d objects then add them to a 3D Retro Cafe scene! Beginners welcome! Here’s how your scene could look at the end of this series:

Note: This video shows a scene which includes additional, FREE pre-built assets. We will create the coffee mug and Space Invaders, and the spaceship shown is included with the ‘Kenney Shape’ software used in this series.

Why 3D modelling?

You can create documents in Word and professional-looking presentations in PowerPoint, but can you incorporate 3d scenes or simple animations? The ability to use 3d software is central to the world of digital creativity in 2024, and could help you land the job of your dreams!

The more time you spend working with 3d software, the more you’ll discover it’s not about learning specific platforms or programs (many of which are complex and expensive), but about developing a transferable skillset. Your 3d skills could be applied to:

Social media and marketing
Game development
Architectural Visualisation (ARCHVIZ)
If you’re not sure what this is, have a look at How to make an interior in Blender and The future of architectural visualisation
3d modelling
Animation
Computer Aided Design (CAD)
3D printing
Creating teaching and training resources

This month we start at the beginning, using free and very low cost (under £5 /$5) software to introduce virtual 3d spaces and create simple 3d objects including a coffee mug and a Space Invader!

Through this series of 8 explainers we’ll

Get tooled up (Including creating accounts for Tinkercad , Kenney Shape and Unity)
Learn to navigate in 3d and add 3d shapes to a Tinkercad scene
Combine 3d shapes to create a coffee mug in Tinkercad
Export the coffee mug as a 3D OBJ file
Learn to use ‘Kenney Shape’ and export a built-in 3d object
Use Kenney Shape to ‘trace’ a Space Invader and generate a 3d object
Create a Unity project and import our saved 3d objects
Import a free Unity coffee shop asset and incorporate our 3D objects

Later this year we’ll go on to hone our modelling skills using one of the most popular, low cost 3d modelling tools, that allows you to model directly inside Unity: uModeler!