How to Create a Properly Textured Die in Blender

6 min readJul 26, 2020

My name is Samuel Cohen and this is how I single-handedly designed, developed, and launched a website where you can customize a die and have it 3D printed in 30 days. Below is a technical update post. If you wish to read more about the project, the landing page is here.

In order to create a 3D color customizer, I had to create a model that had visual properties. To create my model I chose to use Adobe Illustrator and Blender. I used Adobe Illustrator to create icons that would be imported into Blender and turned into 3D models.

Below is a video highlighting my rationale for using Blender and the basic methods I used to create the model. If you want to know the specifics, continue reading. This model incorporates icons created in a previous tutorial and once complete, will be used in an upcoming tutorial to customize colors.

Blender Overview

Creating a Die Model in Blender

In the first tutorial, I create the die faces that are going to be stamped on to the 3D model. I am going to import the image, format the die, and then export the model with a lightmap.

Importing Die Faces

First, I open two instances of Blender. One will contain the die model and the other will be the workspace for dot formatting. In one of the instances, I am leaving the cube for the dice base.

In the other window, I go to File-Import-SVG.

In this window, I sect the die face SVG that I had exported in the first tutorial.

At the end of this step, I see the basis for the SVG in Blender. Next, I move on to formatting.

Isolating One Face:

Each component of the SVG can be selected. I select all of the portions except for the one-face dot and delete them.

Now that I have one dot, I can start formatting for 3D.

Turning a 2D image 3D:

Now that the image is isolated, I can begin formatting the dot. The first thing that I do is select the dot, right-click, and convert to mesh. This doesn’t change the look of the 2D image, but it makes it possible to turn 3D.

Now, I can go into edit mode. Edit mode can be selected in the upper-right hand corner in the area that currently says object mode.

From there I can select the whole dot and then click E on the keyboard. This is the command for extrude. Then I can type in a number, that determines how large you want the model to be. I am using .25m.

Formatting the 3D Model:

Now the dot is 3D, but the proportions are wrong. In order to fix that I open the transform menu and change the dimensions. I change the X and Y dimensions to .3m.

Now the dot is properly proportioned. Next, I am going to prepare to import this model. In order to do this, I have to reset the origin. To do that I select the dot, right-click, and select the origin set origin to center of mass. The location value changes when this command is used.

Next, I change the location numbers to 0.

Now, I am ready to copy the dot to the die base. To do this, I select the dot, right-click, and select copy.

Fitting the Model:

Now I can move over to the die base. Here I change the dimensions of the base to 1x1x1 to make alignment easier.

Now that the block is prepared, I can paste the dot into the scene.

I can see that the dot was placed in the center of the block. I can move the dot position from there. I am going to move the dot up by changing the z value. In this case, a good z-height is .376m.

Now the dot is in the correct position. From here I follow a similar process for the rest of the dots.

Note: When I create faces 2–6, I have to join the dots together so that they keep their position relative to each other.

To do this I select the 2–6 dots, right-click, and select join. Now they function as one object and I can continue the same process.

UV Unwrapping:

Once I add the dots to the correct faces, the die looks like this. Now, I need to create something called a lightmap using the UV unwrap tool. This allows me to edit the visual properties of the model later.

First, I drag in a new window in the upper right-hand corner. Once this is complete, I see a duplicate of the current screen.

Now that the duplicate window is open, I change the editor type in the second panel to UV Editor.

Now that the UV editor is selected, I go back to the first window and select all elements using alt + H and then hit A to select all.

Once that is complete, I move into edit mode, hit F3, and type in smart uv and hit enter.

I change the island margin option to .03 and hit OK.

Now I see the lightmap in the second panel. From this point, I am done making edits to the model.

Final Formatting and Export

Now that the UV unwrap is complete, I can export the model so that the colors can be changed. In the right-hand panel, I can see the names of each component. For example, the base is called Cube. I have to rename all of the dot models to something that can be referenced later, like Number1.

Then I click file-export-gITF 2.0. This format allows me to change the colors individually.