Affinity Designer Isometric Tutorial for Beginners - Part 1

hello designers and welcome back to another  affinity designer tutorial today i will show   you how to set up an isometric grid and start  creating isometric designs in a beginner-friendly   and slower pace i will sprinkle tips and tricks  throughout to help speed up your creative process   including the use of symbols and assets if you  want to skip sections i will include time stamps   let's jump right in okay starting from the very  beginning i've opened up affinity designer and   if you're going to follow along with me uh you  can from this point forward okay so we're gonna   want a new document um this panel appears when i  open affinity designer uh some people disable it   down here but i like to see it because it shows  uh the new brushes and things that are coming out   so let's make a new document so you can either  press this one here i never do that for some   reason i press file and new so we're going  to want to choose one of these presets now so   if you go along at the top it says web here and  click on that and we're going to scroll down   and we're going to choose this one fhd 1080p this  one is 1920 by 1080 pixels and it's 16 by 9 ratio   so you can either click on that once and then  press create or you can double tap it now you can   see all the settings here that are part of this  uh preset so it's just it's in the rgb 72 dpi etc   but we're just going to double tap this so if we  have our document and our canvas i'm just going to   get rid of this grid by pressing command and  single quotation mark you can see down here   any um shortcuts i use so starting with a clean  slate first of all let's see what our default   grid is and how we do that so head on up here and  it says view click on that go down and it says   show grid and there's that shortcut i told you  about earlier click on that and as you can see   it's a square grid here and what we want  to do is we want to work with an isometric   grid but before we do any of that let's just  check that our snapping is enabled so up here   you can see snapping it's a little magnet symbol  we're going to click on the drop down menu and   here are some of the settings that i have checked  so i've checked snap to grid snap to baseline grid   snapshot object bounding boxes snap  to key shape points and snap to object   geometry these are the ones i've clicked on  maybe we'll click on more later maybe not   okay that's done so why is this snapping important  well because of this if i let me zoom in a little   bit so you can see what i'm doing so here's our  grid and you can see this uh red and green lines   uh it's snapping to the grid and this is going to  be useful for when we design our isometric design okay let me just uh switch to  the move tool so i'll press v   and you can see down here i've pressed v and  it's gone to this move tool which is the arrow   basically now let's open an isometric grid  there's a couple of ways of doing this but   just follow along with me and we'll get there  so head on up to view and head down to studio and you see here it says isometric click on that  now you can see this panel has appeared it says   in order to use this in order to use the  isometric panel a compatible grid must be   configured click the button to modify  the current grid okay let's do that okay another panel has appeared  and it says grid and snapping axis   and it's also got this panel here which  is isometric which is the one we wanted   now i did say there was another way of getting  to this point and i'll quickly run through that   you go up to view and then you keep going down and  you can see grid and axis manager if you clicked   on that create an access manager just this panel  would appear not this isometric one in order to   get this up here once you're in here you'd have to  um you'd have to go to advanced and then isometric   and then this this button here create plane  set you check that and then that would appear   but we're not going to use that today so so  far what we have done we've gone to view studio   and studio and we've gone to isometric we've  clicked on that now i'm not going to go too much   in detail with all of these settings in this  video because we're going to be concentrating   on the isometric grid and today we're going to be  choosing a preset which affinity has provided and   it's here isometric we're just going to click  on that but before i do that i'll just quickly   run through a few of these just so you can get  a basic idea of what all of this is about so if   we press automatic that was our original grid  if you remember that that's an automatic grid   basic that's a basic grid you can see and it's got  spacing 64 pixels that's the size of each one of   these little squares and divisions is one um what  does that mean well let's just change it to two   i'll press return you can  see it's created even more   mini squares within there and this helps with  snapping when creating designs with more detail okay advanced now under advanced there's  a lot more going on grid type standard   there's an isometric one and you've got a  whole host of other options going on here and you've also got cube this one looks a little  bit more intense but it's really not it relates   to your document in the background if i just  start playing around with some of these you   can see it changes what you see on your document  and what these are they relate to this elevation   orientation and roll and now this can be uh  useful if the isomet if the preset isometric grid   that we're going to use isn't exactly what you're  looking for so let me just change this real quick   so it's straight we've kind of got a i'll press  zero on that so we've kind of got an isometric   grid in the background so if i was just to press  and hold and click up and down on this elevation   you can see we can kind of  get a different perspective   ready for designing but anyway forget  about all of that let's go on up to   presets and we're going to choose this  one 64 by 32 pixel isometric with planes okay so if i just move this across a  little bit you can see we have these um   these dark gray lines and then these slightly  lighter gray lines and this will help when   we're snapping and drawing whatever we're going to  draw later if these are a bit too faint for you if   you're using different colors and stuff you can  change the grid color and the opacity down here   and i'll just play around with that so you  can see look you can see it a little bit more   prominent there which might help okay let's let's  leave it at that okay so we've chosen our preset   and we're just gonna press close  okay before we draw anything   before we create anything i just want to show you  this isometric panel a little bit more in detail   now there's two ways it's really cool there's  two ways you can design uh using this panel   it's edit in plane which is basically editing on  the grid which i'll show you and fit two plane i'm   going to show you how both of those work right  now so to start off i will head on over and i   will grab a rectangle tool and i'm just going to  click and drag out a square i'll keep my finger   on shift so it's a perfect square and i'll make  it slightly darker here over in the colors tab just going to hit v for the move  tool so we've got our square   i'm going to create a couple more of these so i'm  just going to press command j which is going to   duplicate it you can see here in the layers here  i'm going to drag that out i'm going to press   command j again and it knows what i did because  i just told it to before that's a power duplicate   i'll click on the first one and i'll head on over  to this isometric panel and i will press this   fit to plane you can see now it's  slightly looking a bit more isometric and   the reason it did that when i pressed fit  to plane is because this one was selected   top current plane see if i switch these  you can see the the grid slightly changes   this will make more sense in a  minute i'll click on this square here   and i'll click on side and i'll press fit  to plane now that's changed again okay   so the first one we did was the top so this one  here let's put that at the top second one we   did was the side and you can see the blue side  here so it's kind of like this side of the cube and the last one i'll select it i'll press front   and fit to plane you can see  a cube is being formed here okay let's change the color of this slightly i'm  going to now that they're put together i'm just   going to press that shortcut command and quotation  marks so we can see what we're doing a little bit   more i'm going to change the color of these it's  good to think about say maybe where the lighting   is coming from in scenarios where you're working  with like these kind of 3d isometric objects   so i'm just going to make a little sun i'm going  to hit the ellipse tool here which is m for a   shortcut and i'm just going to draw out a little  sun and make it yellow here there we go orange   okay so if the sun's up here it's going to  be lightest on top so i'm going to make that   slightly lighter here so i'm in the colors tab  and i'm playing around with the colors all right   there we go it's the lightest here which is the  furthest away would be the darkest so i'll leave   it like that and this one would pretty much be  like kind of maybe a little bit more like that   so you can see we've created a cube um through  using the fit to plane that's one way of doing it   so you can kind of create a kind of  flat pack and then put it together   like that but let's get rid of all of that okay  let's play with edit in plane so i'll click on   that now let's get our grid back command small  quotation mark much more single quotation mark   i will press top now you can either use the pen  tool with this or rectangle tool it's up to you   you can use any of these but we're going to create  a cube so i'm going to choose the rectangle tool   i will click and drag outwards and i'll keep my  finger on shift to so it stays a perfect square there we go you can see i'm now creating  within the plane of the isometric grid   all right i want to create the side now so  i'll click on this one you can see the the   shape we've just created is still highlighted  so i'm just going to press escape so that   that's not selected anymore and i'll zoom in a  little bit so you can see what's going on here okay keep my finger on shift  it's a perfect square again there we go that's the side i'll just make that  dark okay so i want to make this next side so   i'll press front and click and drag keep my  finger on shift to keep it a perfect square there we go i'll change the color on that slightly make the top lighter so there's two ways  of creating the cube using this isometric   panel edit in plane and fit to plane now you  see there's other options underneath here   i'll just draw something else out so that makes  more sense to you so i'll click and drag out a   heart let's make it red so we've done edit and  plane fit to plane flip horizontal you're not   really going to see much difference if i press  that but if we press flip vertical it flips it   vertical like within the plane and then you've  got rotate anti-clockwise and the other way   that can be useful okay let's stylize this cube  into something else so that i can show you a   couple more tricks you can use to save time  so let's make this into a chair so first of   all i'm going to press command and shortcut to  get our grid back and i'll press the move tool   and top for now i'm going to get rid of the  sun and in the layers panel i'm just going   to grab all of my layers highlight them and  i'm just going to drag it down a little bit   okay so let's make a chair so to start  off with i'm going to i'm going to press   front here so we can see all the uh all the mini  little grids for this side as we work on this   side and i'm going to make it um three three of  these thick this is this will be the base of our   chair i'll select the other side and i'll  just drag it up and do the same for that one one more okay we've now got the base of our chair  and i like to keep things tidy so over here in   the layers panel i'll select all of them so select  the first hit keep your finger on shift select the   last one and then we'll press command g which  is uh group command g so we now have our base   the next thing i want to do is create the  legs so i'm going to grab the rectangle   tool again which is m and i'm just going to  press escape so this is not selected anymore   now i'm just going to go ahead and draw out  the first leg uh that'll that'll be okay all   right i'm going to change the color so that  it matches the color of this for this side   so i'll head on over to the color the dripper  tool or the dropper tool and i'll click that and   select that so i'll let go and then you see this  has changed i'll click on this and now that has   changed that color okay and we'll need to make it  look 3d we'll need the other side so i will select   the move tool again and instead of drawing out i  will i'll press command j and that will duplicate   it as you can see here it's duplicated now it's  in the layers panel just there and i will flip it   around so heading on up here flip horizontal click  on that and there we go that snapped in place   and i've got to make that dark as well so i'll  make it the same color as this so i'll use that   um dripper tool again so click and drag on that  i'll select the darker one and click on the little   circle and there it is i'm going to select both  of these sides of the leg and group them together   again select that hold down shift select  the other one uh command g that's grouped   i'm gonna call it leg so keep everything  tidy and i'm gonna call this one bass and you can see it's going over part of the chair  here so i'll just click and drag that down on the   layers panel it looks good now okay we're going  to want two more of these legs so i'm going to   press command j which is going to duplicate  it and i'm going to offer it up here okay there we go that's snapped into place and i'll  do one more of those command j and there it is   snapped into place really easy so the next  thing we want is a back to our chair um i   think i'll just make this a kind of blocky chair  otherwise we'll be here for a very long time um   okay so selected that and i'll just  zoom in a little bit and i'll go three   three in and oops i've forgotten something  i'll press command z to go back i want to   choose this one this front face here okay so  i'll i'll do it from here and i'll drag out i'll just drag it out to there for  now and i'll make sure that that   so this one is on the top on the layers panel so  it's not hiding behind anything and i will also   change the color before i do anything else  so do the same again grab that drip at all and that's changed to a good color now and  i'll press the v tool as our move tool again   and i'll just drag some of these nodes there  we go like that let's see how high we want   it maybe about here that looks good and we  just need the sides here now just the top and   the other side there this side would  be this so i'm going to select this   because we're editing in plane and again grab  the rectangle tool and i'm going to go up and just drag that there we go i'll change that  to the same color as this now it can be slightly   easier if you create a swatch for this so you  can kind of create a swatch so you always got   the same colors so it's all coordinated  but for this i'm just going to be uh   doing it by eye so i'm going to be dragging  that dripper tool quite a bit okay last one is   the top here so i will press  top our rectangle tool still   and it's one more across i'll just drag that down  and this will have to be the same color as this there we go i'll just group that together  press command g to group it and i'll just put   back here and i'll group them all together command  choose the last one here command g to group   and i'll just call it chair so we have our chair  we've turned a cube into a chair it looks cool   it's on the isometric grid so the trick i wanted  to show you say if you were creating a scene and   you needed more than one chair you might want  to do something like this so you could either   select it and press command c command v which is  copy and paste very old school way of doing it   i'll just get rid of that that's one way you can  press command j which is going to duplicate it   and you can move it and then press command j again  and you just keep pressing that and there's just   tons of them i'll get rid of all of those we can  use something called symbols so we have our chair   selected head on up to view studio and symbols  you click on it here now i'm not going to click   on it because i already have it in my workspace  so over here you can say it says symbols so i've   selected that okay so i have my chair selected  and i have symbols i will press create now   and you can see chair is now within this symbols  so let's say i'm creating a room i want another   chair in there i'm like okay i'll just grab that  chair and i'll just drag it out and put it there   and say if oh no i want all of my chairs i want  them all to be a slightly different color uh   on this section here so um you could just go  in i'll go to the base in the layers panel   got my base now now i'm going to change the  color so i'm going to go up to here to fill and i'm going to change it to let's say red and as  you can see now that it's a symbol it will change   across the board so each symbol that you  drag out of here and place it will change the   colors or anything else you do to it and that is  because it's synced so you've got them synced so   i created one and then i made a symbol out of it  and then i dragged the symbol out here i can drag   as many as i want because they are synced if i  if i just say wanted to change one of these like   oh i want one of them to be yellow then i'd uh  i'd click off of sync and i would go in the base   choose that base there and then  i would make it well let's say   yellow and you see it hasn't changed with the rest  of them so that's one really cool way of doing it   when you're working on a document and let  me just go back on all of those so i'll just   press command z go back to what i was uh  when i had one chair when life was simpler   okay so we got our one chair again so symbols  that's one really cool way of doing it another way is to uh build like an assets library  if you were creating a whole scene again like i   was saying before and you had chairs maybe plant  pots and windows and other things like that   that you that you might want to use in a future  project then you would use assets so i'm going   to show you how to do that first so you go to  view studio and then you go assets okay so this   thing has opened up here now you can see i have  a few assets here uh here's one i made earlier   so we're going to want to make one of  these if i click on these three lines here   i can press create new category i'll  press that and it's just called assets2   for some reason um so i can rename that  i can name it um let's call it room there we go so now with the  chair i would just drag it   across and now it's there in my assets it's a  chair and if i make anything else i can create   maybe that plant part or an extra door or  something that i might use over and over again   i can keep dragging those over there and then  when i get to my next project i can just simply   just designing something i'm like i need a  chair in there i just drag that out and they   will always be there and it's really cool thanks  for watching i hope you found that useful why not   check out part two where you will learn how to  create an isometric bedroom scene and ice lolly   click on the link in the description  or the suggested video on the right

Channel: ArtistWright

Views: 8,439

Keywords: affinity designer isometric tutorial, affinity designer tutorial, affinity designer for beginners, affinity designer isometric, affinity tutorial, isometric, affinity designer, isometric grid, isometric drawing, symbols, assets, workflow, how to, beginners, 2021, illustration, isometric drawing affinity designer, vector, artistwright, isometric drawing tools, tutorial

Id: BW1oRou_WzQ

Length: 24min 39sec (1479 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2021