WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.835
Hey guys, are you interested in making something

2
00:00:01.836 --> 00:00:04.421
in Blender that you want to then 3D print?

3
00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:08.186
So come along on a little journey with me where I show some

4
00:00:08.187 --> 00:00:11.760
examples of how I actually make some stuff for 3D printing.

5
00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:17.080
And I'll give you my thought process and show you some tips and tricks along the way.

6
00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:19.164
Bear in mind that I am going to assume that you

7
00:00:19.165 --> 00:00:21.541
have some general knowledge of Blender already.

8
00:00:21.580 --> 00:00:24.529
So for the first example, I'm going to be

9
00:00:24.530 --> 00:00:27.580
modeling a little token or a coin for board games.

10
00:00:27.860 --> 00:00:31.000
It's going to be quite simple, but it's going to illustrate a lot of the

11
00:00:31.001 --> 00:00:34.175
fundamentals that you will later need if you want to make

12
00:00:34.176 --> 00:00:36.741
something or design something a little bit more complicated.

13
00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:38.440
All right, let's get into it.

14
00:00:38.620 --> 00:00:40.940
So we have fresh Blender here.

15
00:00:41.080 --> 00:00:43.675
The Blender I'm using right now, it's December

16
00:00:43.676 --> 00:00:45.700
of 2025, so right at the end of the year.

17
00:00:46.200 --> 00:00:50.780
And the most current version of Blender is Blender 5.10 alpha.

18
00:00:50.980 --> 00:00:55.460
You're in the future, so your Blender is going to be more cool than mine.

19
00:00:56.260 --> 00:01:00.740
Just bear in mind that maybe some buttons or settings or something with the user

20
00:01:00.741 --> 00:01:05.480
interface changed, but all the basic principles should remain the same.

21
00:01:06.720 --> 00:01:10.120
So let's just customize a little bit our little thing here.

22
00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:11.600
All right.

23
00:01:11.820 --> 00:01:13.920
So first off, setting up the scene.

24
00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:18.160
You see this little guy here, default cube.

25
00:01:18.860 --> 00:01:21.780
He is two meters by two meters by two meters.

26
00:01:22.460 --> 00:01:26.360
But when you're 3D printing, that is a little bit outside the scale.

27
00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:28.100
Usually you're working with millimeters.

28
00:01:28.460 --> 00:01:31.001
So first thing we want to do is we want to change

29
00:01:31.002 --> 00:01:33.801
the unit of the scene itself to millimeters.

30
00:01:33.900 --> 00:01:39.980
So we go here to scene, units, and unit scale, 0.001.

31
00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:44.220
And we're going to set this meters thing here to millimeters.

32
00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:45.080
Boom.

33
00:01:45.340 --> 00:01:46.340
All right.

34
00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:50.643
And it is kind of nice to have having the scene

35
00:01:50.743 --> 00:01:53.700
grid also to the same thing, so the same scale.

36
00:01:53.860 --> 00:01:57.760
So we're going to go here to overlay, set this to 0.001.

37
00:01:58.020 --> 00:01:59.120
And fantastic.

38
00:01:59.220 --> 00:02:01.880
Now we are in the same scale and working with millimeters.

39
00:02:02.060 --> 00:02:05.040
I want to talk just a little bit about the workflow.

40
00:02:05.660 --> 00:02:09.980
So I'm just going to do the workflow that I usually do.

41
00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:13.800
This is coming from nothing, just my personal experience.

42
00:02:14.180 --> 00:02:16.720
So keep that in mind as you develop your own workflow.

43
00:02:17.180 --> 00:02:23.960
So we're going to be making a board game coin that's probably like maybe like four

44
00:02:23.961 --> 00:02:27.720
centimeters or like 40 millimeters by three millimeters, something like that.

45
00:02:28.140 --> 00:02:31.075
And how I organize things in the collections,

46
00:02:31.076 --> 00:02:34.800
I would want kind of the main thing to be here.

47
00:02:36.520 --> 00:02:40.680
Let's make a collection called like main, and that's maybe the main objects.

48
00:02:42.540 --> 00:02:47.474
And then as I kind of boolean add, join things

49
00:02:47.475 --> 00:02:52.740
together, I'm going to want to organize them here.

50
00:02:52.900 --> 00:02:58.880
And then some stuff I'm going to boolean subtract or whatever the phrase is.

51
00:02:59.200 --> 00:03:01.200
So sub, take those away.

52
00:03:01.980 --> 00:03:05.460
I like to work as non-destructive as possible.

53
00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:09.660
And then I would make something that was, you know, maybe it had some reference

54
00:03:10.300 --> 00:03:12.140
meshes that I would want to work with.

55
00:03:12.200 --> 00:03:13.640
So I would throw that in here.

56
00:03:13.940 --> 00:03:19.120
And then a lot of cases in some steps that I'm doing that are a little bit more

57
00:03:19.121 --> 00:03:23.920
destructive, I like to have a backup collection.

58
00:03:24.880 --> 00:03:30.260
That's kind of where along the way, I throw things in there just to be safe.

59
00:03:30.700 --> 00:03:34.300
So if anything were to happen, I could always maybe take a few steps back

60
00:03:34.301 --> 00:03:36.660
or have it as a reference point or whatnot.

61
00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:41.320
When you're organizing stuff like this, you want to find a balance where you have

62
00:03:41.321 --> 00:03:44.098
that kind of creative freedom to be making stuff

63
00:03:44.099 --> 00:03:46.360
but not get bogged down with all the overhead.

64
00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:49.860
You don't want to overthink it, you don't want to make it unnavigatable,

65
00:03:50.660 --> 00:03:51.400
if that makes sense.

66
00:03:51.620 --> 00:03:55.964
So a lot of times I'm not actually naming a lot of my meshes,

67
00:03:55.965 --> 00:03:59.300
but sometimes I do when I know that it can be very helpful.

68
00:03:59.980 --> 00:04:04.020
But as a rule of thumb, I'm always trying to work as non-destructive as possible.

69
00:04:05.060 --> 00:04:07.520
And I'll give some demonstrations of that later.

70
00:04:07.920 --> 00:04:11.136
First things first, I just wanted to mention

71
00:04:11.137 --> 00:04:14.681
that there are two common types of 3D printers.

72
00:04:14.900 --> 00:04:20.520
So one is kind of commonly known as an extrusion printer, and one is a resin printer.

73
00:04:20.820 --> 00:04:24.540
Extrusion printers are called FDM, which is Fused Deposition Modeling,

74
00:04:24.541 --> 00:04:30.140
and then the resin ones are called Stereolithography SLA.

75
00:04:30.880 --> 00:04:33.518
But mentioning the printer, you have to keep in

76
00:04:33.519 --> 00:04:36.641
mind that the printer itself has a resolution.

77
00:04:36.820 --> 00:04:41.020
So that's actually another... let's add a collection here called...

78
00:04:42.180 --> 00:04:44.680
And I want you to keep that in mind.

79
00:04:45.160 --> 00:04:46.940
So I'm going to make a cylinder here.

80
00:04:48.960 --> 00:04:52.860
And I am going to give it a dimension.

81
00:04:53.540 --> 00:04:58.580
So this is going to represent, just visually, what, you know,

82
00:04:58.600 --> 00:05:01.855
as you have the nozzle of your 3D printer, it's

83
00:05:01.856 --> 00:05:04.500
extruding the the plastic through the nozzle.

84
00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:12.700
You have to bear in mind how big it is, because that essentially is your resolution.

85
00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:17.464
So if you see here, this is the thickness of it, and the

86
00:05:17.465 --> 00:05:21.720
layer height, I think by default it's 0.2 in my printer.

87
00:05:22.520 --> 00:05:27.569
For this project, I would probably like manually set it to something like 0.

88
00:05:27.669 --> 00:05:28.880
12, like 12.

89
00:05:29.500 --> 00:05:33.040
And so this, you know, it's not obvious now because you're kind of seeing this

90
00:05:33.041 --> 00:05:37.700
without context, but this will be a helpful guide in

91
00:05:37.701 --> 00:05:40.361
understanding the resolution that you're working with.

92
00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:44.960
It is important to know that as you print stuff, there's a margin of error.

93
00:05:45.620 --> 00:05:47.700
There's many reasons for that margin of error.

94
00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:51.960
So even if you model something perfectly in Blender and you want to 3D print it,

95
00:05:52.140 --> 00:05:56.260
it's never going to be a complete 100% match.

96
00:05:56.960 --> 00:06:02.920
There's always a little bit of tolerances that you have to deal with.

97
00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:06.820
So just as an example, let's say you have this cube, and let's say, I don't know,

98
00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:12.120
it's 20 millimeters, and this is just a hypothetical here.

99
00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:15.580
Let's say I inset it a little bit here.

100
00:06:15.760 --> 00:06:18.060
Okay, so it has this kind of groove.

101
00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:22.120
And by the way, this is a helpful thing for me personally.

102
00:06:22.160 --> 00:06:26.560
I like to put on the cavity in the viewport shading and put it on both.

103
00:06:27.260 --> 00:06:29.800
And that way, you see difference here.

104
00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:36.820
It gives you just that kind of extra visual feedback on where it's kind of

105
00:06:36.821 --> 00:06:39.840
inset or the corners and the edges and all that stuff.

106
00:06:40.300 --> 00:06:42.451
So let's say hypothetically, we have this kind of

107
00:06:42.452 --> 00:06:45.640
a cubey thing and it has this kind of hole in it.

108
00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:51.840
And let's duplicate this and make it into another object.

109
00:06:52.020 --> 00:06:53.060
And I extrude that object.

110
00:06:53.280 --> 00:06:55.880
Okay, so now I have a box, right?

111
00:06:55.881 --> 00:06:59.520
And it goes snugly into this hole.

112
00:07:00.620 --> 00:07:04.800
And I'll just tell you right now, if you took these two objects and you 3D

113
00:07:04.801 --> 00:07:09.020
printed them, put them next to each other, put them in a 3D printer, print them out,

114
00:07:09.460 --> 00:07:13.300
they will never ever ever fit into one another.

115
00:07:13.880 --> 00:07:15.420
And that's because of tolerance.

116
00:07:15.900 --> 00:07:21.410
So it just means that there is a margin of error where it'll be

117
00:07:21.411 --> 00:07:25.500
slightly more or less than you expected, usually slightly more.

118
00:07:25.900 --> 00:07:29.443
And that means that when you're designing stuff in

119
00:07:29.444 --> 00:07:32.681
Blender or whatever, you need to keep that mind.

120
00:07:32.980 --> 00:07:34.200
So what is the rule of thumb?

121
00:07:34.320 --> 00:07:38.490
Because the changes in size and the actual tolerance

122
00:07:38.491 --> 00:07:41.000
levels, they can depend on so many different things.

123
00:07:41.060 --> 00:07:46.300
It's the material of the filament itself, is it PLA, ABS, the temperatures you're

124
00:07:46.301 --> 00:07:52.200
using, the fan that's there, the color, the resolution, the infill, the printer

125
00:07:52.201 --> 00:07:56.417
itself, how well it's maintained and whatnot, the nozzle

126
00:07:56.418 --> 00:08:00.180
size, the overall heat and the humidity in the air.

127
00:08:00.420 --> 00:08:03.414
There's a lot of these variables that can come all

128
00:08:03.415 --> 00:08:06.820
together and they can make it slightly inconsistent.

129
00:08:07.260 --> 00:08:13.240
So if I have a certain printer here and I design something and I print it and it's

130
00:08:13.241 --> 00:08:19.960
fantastic and I send the model to a friend of mine in Zimbabwe or whatever and he has

131
00:08:19.961 --> 00:08:25.040
a different printer and the temperature of the room is different and whatnot,

132
00:08:25.200 --> 00:08:30.089
he prints it out, it might not have the same fit as maybe

133
00:08:30.090 --> 00:08:34.020
my original design had and how it printed out for me.

134
00:08:34.660 --> 00:08:39.120
So the rule of thumb when you're making pieces fit together and you're thinking

135
00:08:39.121 --> 00:08:44.280
about the tolerance level is you want... If you're aiming at a snug fit,

136
00:08:44.520 --> 00:08:47.920
it's between 0.1 and 0.2 millimeters.

137
00:08:48.520 --> 00:08:51.742
So it would be... You create kind of a gap

138
00:08:51.743 --> 00:08:55.160
between... So here I'm doing maybe like two.

139
00:08:55.161 --> 00:08:59.220
You could split the difference and go like 0.15.

140
00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:01.860
Here I'm just doing 0.2.

141
00:09:01.920 --> 00:09:04.660
I keep being zoomed out, sorry.

142
00:09:08.200 --> 00:09:12.687
So for example, now this box hypothetically would,

143
00:09:12.688 --> 00:09:17.100
if they were printed, it would fit snugly in.

144
00:09:17.400 --> 00:09:23.320
But it wouldn't end at the right position because this problem would also be here at

145
00:09:23.321 --> 00:09:27.160
the bottom if it was really important that it would fit all the way to the end here.

146
00:09:27.560 --> 00:09:30.180
So you may need to move this also.

147
00:09:30.640 --> 00:09:36.900
So you're kind of creating a pocket of air that is the margin of error.

148
00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:41.508
So just keep that in mind that tolerance is a thing

149
00:09:41.509 --> 00:09:45.040
that you have to be careful about as you design stuff.

150
00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:49.880
And the more complicated your designs are, the more it becomes a factor.

151
00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:55.525
So with that being said, we are going to be using, by the

152
00:09:55.526 --> 00:09:58.920
way, just PLA because it's a very beginner-friendly material.

153
00:09:59.140 --> 00:10:01.720
It's the one I'm more familiar with.

154
00:10:01.721 --> 00:10:11.880
And yeah, my printer is a P1S run-of-the -mill with a 0.4 millimeter nozzle.