Learn How to Convert 2D to 3D in Blender

1. Intro: Hello and welcome. My name is suzana. I must 3D artist and here to explain how to quickly convert 2D icons created in photo editing or graphic design software into 3D models in Blender. This class is beginner level, and previous experience in Blender isn't necessary. For icon creation. In this class, I will use Affinity Photo, but you can use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, gimp or any similar software as long that software can export the required file format we can import to Blender. Once it goes through this class, you will gain skills that will help you further, not only to convert 2D icons to 3D models in Blender, but also to know how to convert logos, text, and many other designs. This skill will also save you plenty of time in your future, 2D to 3D projects. Are you ready? Then? Let's begin. 2. Creating 2D Icon: In this class we're creating 2D Icon. And then we're going to convert that icon into 3D model in Blender. For icon creation, you can use Affinity Photo, Adobe, Photoshop, Illustrator, or any other photo editing or graphic design software. Just make sure that once you create icon, you export that icon as SVG file. So I will begin with creating new file here. And I will set to 1,000, 1,000 pixels, 300 resolution and transparent background. So I'll make sure that you do that as well. No matter which software you're using. And here it is, transparent background. And I will start here with a rounded rectangle tool. And if you want, you can select any other, Your wish. I want to create something like some sort of a Cake or something. So I will draw Something like that. And I will change color into something pink. If you don't see this color. And you're using Affinity Photo, make sure that you go to View, left-click view. And then in view, go to Studio, and then make sure that color is dict. And then you will see this over here. I will love to cook this slider and pull it over here. So I have some pink color. And now I will simply go here alive to pick Edit and Copy. And I will, I left-click again and paste. And then I go here to Move tool. I left-click that. And I push this up until it's aligned. Lined up. As you can see, I have these green lines and this red line showing me when I aligned up this perfectly. And I will make this smaller. And this is, well, let's make sure that it's right in the middle. So I will just left-click here and holding left-click and move it left and right a little until I see this green line. That green line shows that it's right in the middle right now. And I let go, left-click and I will leave this selected if disliked by an accident, you can select again. And I will change this to something blue. So I will left-click here and drag this a little. Can I want a little more light? Something like that. More this way? And I will now copy this again. So I'll go here and to edit. And I copy. And then I go again here to Paste. There are shortcuts for that, but I will show you now this way. And I left, we can drive this as well. And then I left-click and move it left or right to see where the middle is. And that's it. And now we're changing this to some other color, let's say something green. So I will pull this a little and this goes a little back. So something like that. And we have it. I will now export that as SVG file. So I'll go here, Glasgow file, go to Export. And if something else is selected, measure that you select SVG. So no matter which software you're using right now, make sure that you export as S, the G file. And we're exporting, you will select some folder you prefer. I will export this on my desktop and I will call this Cake Icon. And I save. And we have our 2D icon right now. And we will create 3D model of this 2D Icon. And we will do that in Blender. Saw prepare Blender. And we move to changing 2D into 3D 3. Converting 2D Icon to 3D Model: Once you open Blender, left-click general, and then right-click on this cube and go here and left-click delete or just hit X on your keyboard, and it's gone. Now we will impart that SVG file. So you will go here, left-click file and go to impart and don't use this. This is SVG as the grease pencil. And we want to impart Scalable Vector Graphics, SVG. So not this one, we want this, but if you don't see this on this menu, then you need to go to edit a left-click at it. And go to Preferences over here. And make sure that you left-click add-ons. And here in this search bar, I left-click and enter S, V, G. And that will bring it up over here. This one, Scalable Vector Graphics. Make sure that this is dict. And now you can close this. And once you go here to File Import, you will see that here you have that's scalable vector graphics on this menu. Now it's enabled and it's there. It will show up as the last, last one on the list. And now we can import our file and we will select Desktop, and we'll select our Cake. And we import SVG. So it's here. Right now. I will zoom in so you can see it's over here. So now I want that be moved, upload, not plays as is right now. So to make it happen, I will left with this X axis. And I will go here to rotate tool, and I left-click that tool, and I will go here to Cake, and I will left-click this and I press Shift on my keyboard. And I loved pick this curve as well. So one more time, I left good Cake, press Shift on my keyboard and left-click lost curve over here. And I let go shift now. And on this rotate tool, this white ring, this white circle, I will left-click here where? On this blue, blue axis, that axis, right in the middle, I will left with here and holding left-click, I will move it to the left. Rotating this all the way up until I see this big line lined up with that axis. And then I let go. I let go, left-click. And now I will love to pick this x-axis. And holding left-click, I will move it a little, just a little to see, but to be have down here. So now this is all the way up. And if I left-click here on y-axis, I can now left-click move tool and grab this arrow. Left-click and holding left-click, I can move this to the right. And I can do the same here, but left-click on this arrow and move it down. Now, centered over here. And we can see it's positioned nicely. Now, how to make these 3D simple? If you left-click any of these, you will see this curve, curve on curves 32. And these are curves. So you can see here how curves are marked here in Blender. This matches this icon over here. So that's where you need to go to edit any of these curves. So we open here object data properties. That's how it's called. Left-click there. And we get this over here. And once we get there, make sure that you have here Judy is selected not 3D, but 2D. And once we go here, there will be geometry. So let's click this arrow. It will expand if you don't see this well You can point here and use mouse wheel and scrawl Aloe. That goes up and you can see it nicely. Now we will use this axis. I will have to click on this y-axis, and I will drag this little to the right. Holding left-click, I'm dragging this y-axis. So we can see this from this angle. Here. In geometry, there's extrude. And if you left-click here this arrow, it will extrude immediately to 0.0, 1 m. And you see it's a little bigger. So if you left-click this curve now and do the same, then this one is extruded as well. Let's do that too preserved as well. And we have now all three extruders. So now it's not anymore 2D, it's now already 3D. But what we can do further, let's make a different, let's make this a little bigger. So we select the last curve, awake, making it a little bigger. Let's make it almost square like this. The cook you something like that. And mobile make this one bigger. Something like this. And the last one, we make a little bigger than that. Okay, so now we have it. More interesting. So we have our 3D icon now, which looks like a Cake. We can even expand this more. You can go further. And we can go more this way. We have our Cake 3D icon of our Cake right now. Quick and easy. And now those are curves. So if people would like to edit, for example, to continue editing this in Blender. And you go to Edit Mode. And you will realize that you don't have all the tools here that you normally have when you are editing mesh. And if you want to make this a mesh from curb, that simple. You can go here. Left-click first, curve, press Shift on your keyboard, holding Shift, left-click on loss curve. Now we selected all three at the same time. And then left-click here object. Any object go to Convert and select mesh. So you are converting curves to mesh. Left-click mesh, and you'll see what happened. And all these icons over here changed from curves to mesh. Now see this triangle here shows it's a national and you can see here it's not anymore that curve over here. It's mesh as well. Now you can further edit your model just as any other mesh. You can add it in Blender further and make it a little different. Changing shapes, changing faces are changing vertices, and so on. Quick and easy 4. Correcting Origin: So we've created our model and let's fix origin. What is origin? Origin is this little dot over here. Somebody does. If I select for an example, this one over here, this curve on top. And you can see origin of that curve is here. I will show now on this axis, so can understand what's happening. Origin is all the way here. So if I go here to object, and I want to center this properly, and I go here, enter zero. And I look what's happening. It went all the way there and it should be here. When I entered zero, right at the center where those axons are crossing. I will move this now, backward pass. So how do I change that? How do I make this Origin go here at the center, which should be. So when I enter values here, those applied properly on this top object. To make that Origin go here, you need to select object. And then go here to object and set origin. Origin to geometry. And Origin went right at the center, as you can see now, it's right here at the center of this object. It's right in the middle. Now when I say here, zero, it will line up right at the center to zero. If I do here as well. Object and I go here, set origin, origin to geometry, and I enter here zero. It will line up nicely. So now they will line up perfectly. When we do that. Let's do here is about set origin, origin 2D geometry. Why it's important origin to geometry, not geometry to origin. If we select this, you see what happens. Our objects will move to origin spot. And we don't want that. So we select object and we'll go here to object set origin, origin 2D geometry. Origin moves 2D geometry, not geometry to origin. And now when I enter here zero, this lines up as well. And now I can line up on this side as well. So I select this and I go here to zero. And I go here to zero. And I go here to zero as well. These other three on that font or the zed axis should stay as those are. Because if I enter zero, you see what happens. It will sink down. So we don't want that. Those will stay. We are aligning up on this axis, Y and X. And on that axis, those will stay as it is. So now we moved Origin back and we have our model ready. Now, if you decide that you want this model to be used, just disease, you don't want to do anything further with that. And you want to move it around easily. Now when you move this entire model, you need to select first curve, second curve, and third curve to be able to go to Move tool and move all three. If you deselect even one, you see what happens. And that can happened by accident. So every time you decide first and second and third, and then to move those around. If you want to move all three. If you don't want to edit further, then it's easier to do this way. You can select first and you can select, you can press Shift key on your keyboard and select lost. Now let go shift and go to object over here and select join. But that will do that will make this one object instead of three. Now you have one single object and now you don't need to think when you need to move this object, you're just select one and move it normal or three, just one. Now we can place it anywhere you wish. Without worry that you will detach one. Forget to click on all three. You have one object and you can move it around. Your icon is ready, and you can export that icon. Now it's FBX or whatever you wish you go to Export. And then I've here options, how you can export your 3D icon. Now, as you can see, colors will match those colors. You have selected in photo editing software or your graphic design software. Those will match colors in Blender as well. Because RGB colors are, but Blender recognizes and also be just the same 5. Closing Words: I hope you liked this class and that what you learn today will help you speed up your 2D to 3D work in some future projects. Don't forget to upload your project and please deliver review for this class. That means a lot to me and other students as well. Keep practicing and keep learning until next time. Bye