IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi there! I am Mordy Golding and welcome
to Illustrator Insider Training: Drawing
| | 00:09 | without the Pen tool.
| | 00:10 | Illustrator has plenty of other
drawing tools and functions that can help you
| | 00:14 | draw artwork more quickly, more
efficiently and more precisely, and that's what
| | 00:18 | this course is all about.
| | 00:20 | I'll begin by showing you how to think
about artwork before you start drawing it.
| | 00:24 | This advanced planning will give
you a better idea about the tools that
| | 00:27 | you'll use and the approach that
you'll take to complete a drawing.
| | 00:31 | Then you'll learn how to draw basic shapes
and paths, the basis for just about any artwork.
| | 00:37 | Next, you'll explore the many ways to
assemble artwork, turning basic shapes
| | 00:41 | into more complex ones, using features
like Pathfinder and the new Shape Builder
| | 00:46 | tool that was added in Illustrator CS5.
| | 00:49 | You'll also explore a powerful and often
misunderstood feature called Live Paint.
| | 00:55 | In addition you'll learn new ways for
adding expressions to the paths that you
| | 00:59 | create by modifying strokes with
variable weights and thickness.
| | 01:03 | Along the way I'll share tips,
insights, and advice and how to get the most
| | 01:07 | out of using Adobe Illustrator,
just as I always do in the Illustrator
| | 01:11 | Insider Training series.
| | 01:13 | So if you're ready to spend more
time expressing creative ideas.
| | 01:16 | join me and learn how to draw in
Illustrator without using the Pen tool.
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| The evolution of vector drawing| 00:00 | When Illustrator was first introduced way
back in 1987, it revolutionized art creation.
| | 00:06 | However, Illustrators' primary drawing
tool, the Pen tool, was far from intuitive.
| | 00:12 | In fact, the joke around Adobe at the
time was that John Warnock, the creator
| | 00:16 | of Illustrator, was the only person in the
world who really knew how to use the Pen tool.
| | 00:21 | Illustrator even came bundled with a
VHS videotape featuring John Warnock
| | 00:26 | showing how to use the tool. But here's
the crazy thing: we don't even draw with
| | 00:31 | the Pen tool at all. Instead of drawing
actual paths, we plot anchor points and
| | 00:36 | adjust control handles to determine shapes.
| | 00:39 | Illustrator then connects the
points for us and creates the paths.
| | 00:44 | It's almost like pulling strings
to make a marionette weave a tent.
| | 00:47 | In essence the Pen tool is more of
technical drafting tool than it is a creative
| | 00:53 | drawing tool, and that could be why
some folks who feel comfortable sketching
| | 00:57 | their ideas on paper have difficulty
when first working with the Pen tool.
| | 01:01 | But there's a whole lot more to drawing in
Illustrator besides the Pen tool.
| | 01:05 | Over the years Adobe has added new drawing
tools and functions, all geared towards
| | 01:10 | helping you draw more quickly, more
precisely, and ultimately more efficiently.
| | 01:16 | The Pencil and Paintbrush tools,
along with some supporting tools like the
| | 01:20 | Smooth tool and the Path Eraser tool, made
it possible to draw paths instead of points.
| | 01:25 | Support was added for pressure
sensitive tablet such as Wacom devices,
| | 01:30 | enabling designers to draw in a more
natural fashion with a pen instead of
| | 01:34 | struggling with a computer mouse, and
in addition to the traditional Rectangle
| | 01:38 | and Ellipse tools, more primitive
shape tools like line, arc, polygon, star
| | 01:43 | and spiral were added.
| | 01:45 | However, designers were still required
to focus on anchor points and control
| | 01:49 | handles, often adding and removing
anchor points manually or spending hours of
| | 01:53 | valuable time cutting paths with the
Scissor tool and joining them with the
| | 01:58 | Average and the Join commands.
| | 02:00 | So perhaps the biggest change in
drawing came when Adobe introduced the set of
| | 02:05 | functions called Pathfinder.
| | 02:07 | A whole new paradigm that combined art
and math by drawing basic overlapping
| | 02:12 | shapes and performing mathematical
functions like add, subtract and divide,,
| | 02:16 | you're able to create more complex
shapes faster than ever. Better still
| | 02:21 | the resulting shapes that you created
were more precise and easier to edit
| | 02:25 | and in short, Illustrator's focus started to
shift from drawing artwork to building artwork.
| | 02:31 | Now in Illustrator CS2, Adobe
introduced something called Live Paint, a feature
| | 02:37 | that changed the rules for
how vector graphics work.
| | 02:40 | Live Paint offered a set of features
that allow designers to focus on the visual
| | 02:44 | artwork itself rather than on the
underlying anchor points or control handles.
| | 02:49 | In Illustrator CS4, Adobe added the
Blob Brush and the true vector Eraser tool,
| | 02:55 | making it easier for artists with
pressure sensitive tablets to draw more fluid
| | 02:59 | and expressive artwork.
| | 03:01 | In Illustrator CS5, Adobe added the
Shape Builder tool. This built on the
| | 03:06 | concepts that were established with
both Pathfinder and Live Paint and in
| | 03:10 | addition, Adobe extended the power of
creative expression with support for
| | 03:15 | variable width strokes.
| | 03:17 | Certainly, the Pen tool in Illustrator
wields considerable power and if you can
| | 03:21 | master it, then you could make
Illustrator bend to your every will. But the Pen
| | 03:26 | tool isn't the end-all and
that's what this course is all about.
| | 03:30 | Putting all of Illustrator's drawing
tools and powerful features at your
| | 03:33 | disposal and understanding how to think
about your artwork before you create it
| | 03:38 | will ultimately help you create
artwork cleanly, precisely, and efficiently,
| | 03:42 | freeing up more time for
creativity and exploration.
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| Getting the most out of this training| 00:00 | I have structured this series of
courses based on years of teaching Illustrator
| | 00:04 | to many different kinds of
people, from newcomers to experts.
| | 00:07 | The topics aren't haphazardly grouped together.
| | 00:10 | Rather, each lesson and each
chapter builds on the previous one.
| | 00:15 | The best way to follow this course is
to watch the movies in order, chapter by
| | 00:19 | chapter. Try to resist
jumping around from movie to movie.
| | 00:23 | Although you may pick up a few useful
tips and tricks if you do jump around,
| | 00:26 | you'll ultimately miss out on what
this training aims to give you: a total
| | 00:30 | understanding of how and
why the tips and tricks work.
| | 00:34 | Now the goal of this training is not
to teach you how to add glows or drop
| | 00:38 | shadows or create shiny
buttons with reflections.
| | 00:41 | Instead, it's my hope that you'll come
to understand the concepts behind the
| | 00:45 | techniques, so that you can come up
with your own solution to the creative
| | 00:49 | issues that you face every day.
| | 00:51 | Oh, and one more thing. To help
reinforce your learning throughout the course,
| | 00:55 | and to so also help you focus on the
important concepts that you'll be learning,
| | 00:59 | I've created a simple worksheet which
you can download as a free exercise file.
| | 01:03 | You can either print out the
worksheet or fill it out in your computer.
| | 01:07 | Now keep the worksheet handy as you
watch each video and as you learn new
| | 01:11 | concepts, fill in the answers.
| | 01:14 | Throughout the training these
important concepts will be highlighted on the
| | 01:17 | screen to help you out.
| | 01:19 | There are also plenty of space on the
worksheet where you can take your own
| | 01:22 | notes or jot down questions that you might have.
| | 01:25 | So if you haven't already done so, go
ahead and download the worksheet now.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you have access to the exercise files
to this course, you might find it easier
| | 00:04 | to copy them to computer desktop, as
I've done here, or anywhere else you'd like
| | 00:09 | where they'll easily accessible.
| | 00:12 | The top folder contains subfolders
for each chapter, which themselves
| | 00:16 | contain the exercise files.
| | 00:18 | If you do not have access to these files,
you can still follow along with your
| | 00:22 | own files or just sit back and
watch as I proceed through the course.
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|
|
1. Core Drawing ConceptsPlotting points vs. drawing paths| 00:00 | Before we learn how to draw without
the Pen tool, let's actually take a few
| | 00:04 | moments to learn about the Pen tool itself.
| | 00:07 | I think this will also give us a better
idea and a better expectation about what
| | 00:10 | we're going to be doing throughout this course.
| | 00:12 | A lot of people think about drawing
with a Pen tool, but in reality the Pen
| | 00:16 | tool in Illustrator does not work like a
regular pen as you might apply it to pen and paper.
| | 00:21 | For example, when I'm using a regular
pen and paper, I'll take the pen, actually
| | 00:26 | place it onto the paper, and drag to
actually create paths, but in Illustrator we
| | 00:31 | don't actually create paths at all.
| | 00:33 | In fact, the Pen tool is used to plot the
position of something called anchor points.
| | 00:39 | Anchor points are really the underlying
definition for all vector paths that we create.
| | 00:43 | To give you a better idea what I mean
by that, I'm actually going to go to
| | 00:46 | this file here called MisterZee.ai. I'm going
to hide my artwork layer here in my Layers panel.
| | 00:52 | So all I'm left with seeing right now
is my sketch. You can see that right now
| | 00:55 | because I have my sketch layer here, and
because this layer right now is hidden,
| | 00:59 | I don't really have any layer that can
draw artwork on so I'm getting this icon
| | 01:02 | on my screen like a
pencil with a line through it.
| | 01:05 | So what I'm going to do here is I'm
actually going to create a brand-new layer
| | 01:08 | here. Let me call it Layer3.
| | 01:10 | It doesn't make a difference where it is.
| | 01:11 | I'm just using this as an example.
| | 01:13 | I'm now going to take my Pen
tool here inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:16 | The keyboard shortcut is the P key.
| | 01:17 | Well, now a lot of people when they
first start to use the Pen tool, they think
| | 01:21 | it works just like a pen does, so they
will actually click and then drag kind of
| | 01:25 | draw a curve here, and they get
these like weird handles here, which are
| | 01:29 | actually called control handles, and
then they try to draw backwards and then
| | 01:33 | forwards and then backwards and then
forwards to get this kind of shape, and in
| | 01:36 | reality what they get is some kind of
weird shape that doesn't match at all with
| | 01:39 | what they're trying to draw.
| | 01:40 | A lot of people who use the Pen tool
kind of start off by clicking and dragging
| | 01:44 | and trying to draw and they get all
this wacky paths everywhere, and they run
| | 01:48 | in the complete opposite direction of
Illustrator, which is usually towards
| | 01:51 | a program like Photoshop which allows you to
draw in a more visual type of fashion.
| | 01:56 | There if you use for example a Paintbrush tool
and you're painting with pixels, you're
| | 01:59 | actually clicking and dragging
on the screen and creating paths.
| | 02:02 | Now the interesting thing about the way
the Pen tool works is that, again, I am
| | 02:06 | not actually drawing the path
themselves. I'm plotting these things called
| | 02:09 | Anchor Points, and for those of us who
are familiar with Illustrator we know
| | 02:12 | there are different kinds of anchor points.
| | 02:13 | There are corner anchor points and
smooth anchor points and smooth anchor points
| | 02:17 | have control handles.
| | 02:19 | It's actually very technical.
| | 02:21 | Yes, you can sit down and you can
learn all the rules for how they work, but
| | 02:24 | it does require some knowledge as far
as understanding when you need certain
| | 02:28 | types of anchor points, how to apply and
work with control handles, so on and so forth.
| | 02:33 | Now, if you're the artist who
actually creates all those connected dots
| | 02:36 | books for kids, then the Pen tool
makes a lot of sense, because you're
| | 02:39 | actually clicking where the actual anchor
points need to go, and here's the important concept.
| | 02:45 | We're not even drawing paths at all
when we're using the Pen tool;
| | 02:48 | we're plotting the anchor points, but Illustrator
connects the anchor points with the paths.
| | 02:53 | So, we're just really kind of
understanding better in our heads where these
| | 02:58 | anchor points need to go and then
hopefully Illustrator will create the paths in
| | 03:02 | the direction or in the areas
that we hope or that we envision.
| | 03:06 | The real secret to using the Pen tool
in that case is anticipating the position
| | 03:10 | of each anchor point.
| | 03:12 | If you're really good at using the Pen
tool, it means you can understand or at
| | 03:15 | least have an idea in your mind about
where those anchor points are supposed to
| | 03:19 | go to create the paths
that you want to work with.
| | 03:22 | So for example, I'm just going to hit
Command+A here or Ctrl+A and hit Delete to
| | 03:25 | get rid of these paths, and if I
wanted to actually draw and illustrate this
| | 03:28 | part of the path right here, this curve,
I might start by clicking here and
| | 03:32 | because I'm somewhat familiar with using
the Pen tool, I can actually say click
| | 03:36 | over here and get a little bit of curve
going, come down over here, get a little
| | 03:39 | bit more of curve, kind of drag it out,
and then come here and maybe finish off
| | 03:43 | that path or even undo, and then click
and drag and kind of draw it this way,
| | 03:47 | and I'll set my fill color here to be
None so that's easier to see the stroke
| | 03:52 | that I'm working with.
| | 03:53 | And again, we'll deal more with that a
little bit later on the title, but for
| | 03:56 | now I'm kind of getting an idea
about where my path is going to go.
| | 04:00 | But again, I didn't like draw the
path itself. I kind of plotted the anchor
| | 04:03 | points, and because I have some
familiarity with the Pen tool I can
| | 04:06 | anticipate where those anchor points
need to go in order to generate the kind
| | 04:11 | of path that I'm looking for.
| | 04:13 | Press Command+A and delete the shape over here.
| | 04:16 | Wouldn't it be nice if you could simply
draw the lines where you want the lines to go?
| | 04:19 | It happens to be that there is a tool
inside of Illustrator called the Pencil tool,
| | 04:24 | which does allow you to click
and drag and draw the shapes and it's
| | 04:28 | basically the reverse of the Pen tool.
| | 04:30 | The Pencil tool allows you to draw the
path, and then Illustrator goes ahead and
| | 04:34 | figures out where the anchor points need to go.
| | 04:36 | However, because we're working here
with a mouse, 9 times out of 10 it's
| | 04:40 | very difficult to lay down nice and smooth
and clean paths when using the Pencil tool.
| | 04:45 | We'll actually deal with the Pencil
tool much later on in this title when we
| | 04:48 | talk about working with a pen tablet.
| | 04:51 | However, the point that I'm trying to
make here is that throughout this entire
| | 04:54 | course we want to completely avoid
this concept of understanding about where
| | 04:59 | anchor points need to go and how far
control handles need to be stretched in
| | 05:03 | order to get the curves that we need.
| | 05:05 | We want to be able to work in an
environment inside of Illustrator where yes,
| | 05:08 | we're working with vector graphics,
but we're working in a more visual form.
| | 05:12 | We're looking at our artwork and we're
focusing on the paths; we're not focusing
| | 05:16 | on the anchor points that
determine how the paths are shaped.
| | 05:20 | We're not going to care about anchor
points, we don't care about corner smooth
| | 05:24 | anchor points, we don't care about
control handles. All we care about is the
| | 05:28 | artwork that we're trying to create,
and I think they'll give us a whole
| | 05:31 | refreshing new look about how we
draw artwork inside of Illustrator.
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| Drawing artwork vs. building artwork| 00:00 | So we know there is a tool inside of
Illustrator called the Pen tool and the Pen
| | 00:04 | tool allows us to plot anchor points.
| | 00:07 | Remember there are two kinds of anchor
points, corner anchor points and smooth
| | 00:10 | anchor points, and then by positioning
these anchor points we can create these
| | 00:13 | paths to generate artwork inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:17 | But as we had discussed in the previous
movie, we really don't want to focus on
| | 00:20 | anchor points at all. It's extremely
technical and it doesn't allow us to focus
| | 00:24 | on the artwork that we're trying to create.
| | 00:26 | We really care more about the paths
than we do about the anchor points, so
| | 00:30 | let's focus purely on the art that we want to
create, by focusing on the paths themselves.
| | 00:34 | In other words, let's draw visually
instead of trying to understand about how
| | 00:39 | to position these arbitrary anchor
points that seem to exist only in some
| | 00:43 | fantasy land, but not necessarily have
anything to do with the artwork when printed out.
| | 00:47 | Let's take a look at this
piece of artwork right here.
| | 00:49 | It's a lovely zebra here whose name is
Mister Zee, and he looks great, but this
| | 00:54 | entire piece of artwork was
created without any use of the Pen tool.
| | 00:58 | So what happens to be, if we look at
the history of Illustrator itself, there
| | 01:02 | were some functions that
were added called Pathfinder.
| | 01:05 | Pathfinder was basically this
concept where I could take a basic shape and
| | 01:09 | then take another basic shape and then
somehow overlap those shapes and use some
| | 01:14 | kind of mathematical function like add
or subtract for example, and the result
| | 01:19 | of that mathematical function
would give you a more complex path.
| | 01:23 | For the most part, inside of
Illustrator the Pen tool is the only tool that
| | 01:27 | forces us to think about anchor points,
but there are so many other drawing
| | 01:31 | tools inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:32 | So I want to give you a basic example.
| | 01:33 | If I wanted to draw a crescent shape, I
could take my Pen tool and try to draw it
| | 01:38 | or I can kind of think
a little bit differently.
| | 01:41 | I can take let's say my Ellipse tool
inside of Illustrator, which is right here,
| | 01:45 | and I can draw a circle. I'm holding
down a few modifier keys to draw out from
| | 01:49 | the center. I'm holding down
the Option key and the Shift key.
| | 01:52 | Option allows me to draw it from the
center. Shift allows me constrain it to
| | 01:55 | be a perfect circle.
| | 01:56 | If you were on Windows, by the way, that
would be Alt and Shift as you are dragging.
| | 02:01 | Then what I can do is switch to my
regular selection tool here and Option+Drag
| | 02:05 | or Alt+Drag to actually create a copy,
and now I have two overlapping circles.
| | 02:10 | And if I take both of these circles, I
can open up a panel called a Pathfinder
| | 02:14 | panel and choose this option
here called Subtract or Minus Front.
| | 02:18 | Now what I have done is I've taken
two circles, but I've overlapped and
| | 02:21 | I've subtracted them from each other,
and my result is the crescent shape
| | 02:25 | that I'm looking for.
| | 02:26 | So we have a nice little moon there in the sky.
| | 02:28 | Now if I were to use the Pen tool, I
would have to think about where do the
| | 02:31 | anchor points need to go in
order for me to generate such a path?
| | 02:35 | I would also, if I'm not as
experienced with the Pen tool, not get the most
| | 02:39 | perfect nice clean smooth paths.
| | 02:41 | But what I've done here is I've taken
to perfect circles, so the paths are
| | 02:45 | beautiful and clean and smooth,
and I've simply taken two of them and
| | 02:50 | subtracted them from each other to get at the
more complex shape that I was trying to create.
| | 02:55 | This concept is something
called building artwork.
| | 02:58 | In other words, combining basic
shapes to create more complex ones. This is
| | 03:03 | opposed to drawing
artwork inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:06 | Let's go ahead and delete
the moon here for a second.
| | 03:08 | And I take a look here at Mister Zee
and I look at all the constructs and I
| | 03:11 | look at what actually is
going on inside of this graphic.
| | 03:14 | I can start to anticipate how I might
draw some of this artwork by envisioning
| | 03:18 | in my mind very, very basic shapes like
circles or straight lines, things like
| | 03:23 | that, and by combining those, maybe
get at more complex shapes which make up
| | 03:28 | the actual zebra that I'm trying to draw.
| | 03:31 | The secret to building artwork is
analyzing your artwork before you actually
| | 03:35 | draw it. I'm actually going to close
the Pathfinder panel here, hide my artwork
| | 03:40 | layer, so now I just see the
sketch that I'm dealing with here.
| | 03:43 | And we'll talk a little bit later in
the next chapter about how to bring
| | 03:46 | sketches into Illustrator and setup
your documents so you can trace them a
| | 03:48 | little bit more easily.
| | 03:50 | But I'm going to create now a new
layer here inside of my document, Layer 3.
| | 03:54 | Let's start by taking maybe a shape
over here, just a regular plain Ellipse
| | 03:57 | tool, and let's focus on this tuft of
hair over here on the mane on the top of
| | 04:01 | Mister Zee's head. I'm going to zoom in over
here, so I can see this a little bit better.
| | 04:04 | Yeah, we've got a lots of points going
in different directions here, but if I
| | 04:08 | can visualize, hey, you know something,
these curves are kind of portion of
| | 04:12 | maybe ovals or circles.
| | 04:14 | If I can draw a very basic oval shape,
maybe I could end up actually using very
| | 04:19 | simple shapes to draw what might
appear to be a much more complex shape.
| | 04:23 | I'm actually going to hold on my
Option key again, because I want to draw it
| | 04:26 | from the center, and I am going to
click and drag and I am going to drawn an
| | 04:29 | oval shape about this big, and you can
see right now that it kind of matches
| | 04:33 | that shape just from the
area over here to over here.
| | 04:36 | Of course, this whole oval continues
here, but let's now focus on that, I just
| | 04:40 | know there's a part of that oval
that might be very useful to me.
| | 04:43 | I'm actually going to take my Fill
color, which is currently set to white
| | 04:47 | which is Illustrator's default setting,
I'm going to change it to None because
| | 04:50 | I don't want to actually see a fill,
I just want to see the path itself, and
| | 04:53 | again, we're going to focus more on how to
optimize Illustrator for drawing in this way.
| | 04:58 | So now I'm going to actually switch to
one of the tool called the Rotate tool.
| | 05:02 | The keyboard shortcut for the Rotate
tool is the R key. I am going to click once
| | 05:06 | right about over here.
| | 05:07 | Now what I've done is I have actually
defined a new origin point for where that
| | 05:11 | rotate is going to take place.
| | 05:12 | And now I can kind of grab this circle
here from the bottom and notice now it's
| | 05:16 | rotating from that spot, and if I hold
down my Option key or my Alt key, you'll
| | 05:20 | notice that I'm now dragging a copy of
his artwork and I've kind of matched
| | 05:24 | this part of the curve over here. I
still have the Rotate tool right now
| | 05:28 | selected. If I click over here and then
click on this part of the here and drag
| | 05:33 | it out this way, again, with the
Option key down, and then I go ahead and I
| | 05:36 | click here to make a new origin point,
Option+Drag this way, kind of repeat the
| | 05:41 | same process here. All I'm doing is I'm
taking an oval, a very basic primitive
| | 05:45 | shape, but I'm making copies of it and
I'm rotating in a way that will hopefully
| | 05:50 | mimic the shape of what
I'm actually trying to do.
| | 05:52 | So I'm actually going to continue to do
this, just simply clicking once here to
| | 05:56 | change the origin point, Option+Drag to
create a shape over here, and now I have
| | 06:01 | some paths that need to
go in the other direction.
| | 06:03 | I can actually take this over right here
and just Option+Drag, make a copy of it,
| | 06:07 | let's say right above over here,
and then again set my origin point with
| | 06:12 | the Rotate tool, I'll press the R key
on my keyboard to get my Rotate tool.
| | 06:17 | Click here to set my origin point here
and I'll click and drag right now to
| | 06:21 | rotate this, so it matches the
curve that I'm looking for on this side.
| | 06:24 | Now I'm happy with the origin point is
right now, so I'm just going to click
| | 06:27 | and drag to rotate it back, but again,
holding down the Option key or the Alt
| | 06:31 | key to create a copy.
| | 06:33 | Now it looks like I have just
created a mess of shapes here, right?
| | 06:36 | However, there is a tool inside of
Illustrator that was introduced now in CS5
| | 06:41 | called the Shape Builder tool. It
allows you to apply Pathfinder functions,
| | 06:45 | but in a visual way.
| | 06:47 | So if I take for example now my
selections tool, and I select all these shapes
| | 06:50 | that I have just created, and I take
my Shape Builder tool, which is right
| | 06:54 | here, the keyboard short is Shift+M, and I now
simply click and drag inside of these shapes here.
| | 07:00 | Notice how it's combining these
shapes together and even though they
| | 07:04 | originally started out as a whole bunch of
ovals, I'm now turning them to one combined shape.
| | 07:09 | Illustrator also allows me to use the
Option key or the Alt key to subtract areas.
| | 07:14 | So now I'm simply removing parts that
I don't want and again we're going
| | 07:19 | to go into detail later on inside of the
title as we learn about how to use the
| | 07:23 | Shape Builder tool.
| | 07:24 | But you can see that in a few quick
strokes, I've taken simple oval shapes and
| | 07:29 | then I've combined them to turn them
into a final more complex looking shape.
| | 07:35 | As an added benefit, all the paths that
I'm working with right now are clean and
| | 07:39 | smooth. Notice out perfectly curved
they are, because they were all originally
| | 07:43 | parts of just an oval shape,
which was very basic and very clean.
| | 07:47 | All it takes is a little bit of
creativity, the ability to actually look at your
| | 07:51 | artwork and try to figure out or kind
of break down your more complex artwork
| | 07:55 | into more simple shapes that will
ultimately lead you to your goal.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The keyboard shortcuts you HAVE to know| 00:00 | When it comes to drawing inside of
Illustrator, perhaps most important thing is
| | 00:05 | being completely comfortable with the
tools inside of Illustrator is that you're
| | 00:08 | not focused on which tool do I use
or where is that tool found in the menu?
| | 00:13 | You should be able to find those
keys immediately with your hands on the
| | 00:17 | keyboard without even taking
your eyes off the screen itself.
| | 00:20 | We'll also be making heavy use
of transformation tools it's like Rotate
| | 00:24 | and Scale, for example.
| | 00:25 | Those are things again that you
should be able to do without having to look
| | 00:28 | down at the keyboard or even hunting or
searching for particular tool inside of the toolbar.
| | 00:34 | This toolbar here is very nice, but
it's really there for just the first time
| | 00:37 | that you want to start using a tool.
| | 00:39 | The more familiar you become with
Illustrator, the more you'll actually be
| | 00:42 | removed from that toolbar and being
focused purely on the artwork in front of
| | 00:46 | you on the artboard itself.
| | 00:49 | So in this movie, I want to focus on
the keyboard shortcuts that you must know
| | 00:53 | in order to really be
comfortable drawing inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:56 | Adobe has a really nice thing.
| | 00:58 | If you go to the Edit menu, on the
bottom here you'll see something called
| | 01:01 | keyboard Shortcuts and this gives you
a list basically of all those keyboard
| | 01:05 | shortcuts for each of the tools and
in addition also those for all the menu
| | 01:09 | commands inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:10 | I'm not suggesting that you give
yourself a quiz and you actually have to
| | 01:14 | memorize all these keyboard shortcuts
for every function inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:18 | Rather what I want to share with you
in this movie here is a way for you to
| | 01:21 | understand the most important keyboard
shortcuts, so that you within maybe even
| | 01:26 | a day, you become completely
comfortable with these keyboard shortcuts because
| | 01:29 | these are the most important ones.
| | 01:30 | We're going to be using a heavy
dose of these basic or what I call
| | 01:36 | primitive shape tools.
| | 01:37 | I don't mean primitive
meaning back in the Dark Ages.
| | 01:40 | I mean primitive meaning
they drove very basic shapes.
| | 01:43 | So the first tool over here if you
go to the shape tools right here is
| | 01:46 | called the Rectangle tool.
| | 01:47 | An Illustrator does help you out a little bit.
| | 01:49 | It has the keyboard shortcut for that
tool if there is one assigned for it,
| | 01:53 | listed on the far right and that also
exist, by the way, for menu commands.
| | 01:57 | So if I go to the File menu, for example,
I can see that the keyboard shortcut for
| | 02:01 | Save is Command+S. If you're on a
Windows machine, you would see that it says
| | 02:05 | Ctrl+S. But here is my advice on how to
basically become more comfortable when
| | 02:11 | using tools and functions
that do have keyboard shortcuts.
| | 02:14 | Say you want to use the Ellipse tool.
You don't know by heart that the
| | 02:17 | Ellipse tool is the L key.
| | 02:19 | So you would go here to the Tools panel,
you'd click over here on the Rectangle
| | 02:23 | tool and you would see that the Ellipse
tool has a keyboard shortcut of L. So my
| | 02:27 | advice to you is now don't
choose the Ellipse tool yet.
| | 02:30 | Go back to the Rectangle tool and now
force yourself to hit the L key to now
| | 02:34 | switch to the Ellipse tool.
| | 02:36 | Do to the same thing when you
are working inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:38 | If you go to the File menu and you
realize you want to save something instead of
| | 02:41 | choosing File and then Save, come
down here, see what keyboard shortcut is,
| | 02:45 | in this case it's Command+S, go back
to File and don't choose that option, and
| | 02:49 | then on the keyboard press that
option which brings up the dialog box.
| | 02:53 | In this way, it may be a little bit
more painful at front, but I guarantee you
| | 02:57 | that's the best way to learn how
to use these keyboard shortcuts.
| | 03:00 | More importantly that become committed to
memory so quickly that you won't think
| | 03:04 | about them when you need to use these functions.
| | 03:06 | Now if you want to use Line Segment
tool-- and it may seem like pretty basic, like
| | 03:10 | why are we going to be using the Line
tool-- you'll see later on this title that
| | 03:13 | we're actually going to make pretty
good use of the Line Segment tool inside
| | 03:16 | of Illustrator and the keyboard
shortcut for that is the Backslash key, not
| | 03:20 | the Forward slash key.
| | 03:22 | The Forward slash key, by the way,
you'll find at the bottom of your keyboard in
| | 03:25 | the right side and that's the
keyboard shortcut for the None attribute.
| | 03:27 | For example, you have an object
that's filled with a color and now you want
| | 03:31 | to fill it with None.
| | 03:33 | We know that these keyboard
shortcuts exist to allow us to select those
| | 03:36 | tools, but we'll also find that while
we're actually using the tools we have
| | 03:40 | the ability to use additional keyboard
shortcuts to help us draw these shapes
| | 03:44 | in a very specific way.
| | 03:46 | So let me give you an example.
| | 03:47 | I am going to press the M key on my
keyboard. That gives me the Rectangle tool.
| | 03:50 | I can now click and drag to draw
rectangle and notice that when I am doing so,
| | 03:54 | I actually start from the upper left-hand
corner and I'm dragging down and to the right.
| | 03:58 | That gives me a rectangle this way.
| | 04:00 | I could choose to drag up and
to the left, but again, whichever way
| | 04:03 | you're more comfortable with
that so you can draw a shape.
| | 04:05 | However, if while I am holding the
mouse button down, I'm still dragging with
| | 04:09 | the mouse, I press and hold down the
Option key on a Mac, and again that'll be
| | 04:13 | the Alt key on Windows, you can see that
the origin point is now coming out from
| | 04:17 | the center of my object.
| | 04:19 | This allows me to draw artwork
outwards from a specific point and we'll soon
| | 04:23 | find that as we're drawing shapes that
can be very helpful because it gives us a
| | 04:27 | much better way of positioning
our artwork as we're drawing it.
| | 04:32 | Now if I start to click and drag
again and I hold down my Shift key, you'll
| | 04:35 | notice that now I'm constraining the
Rectangle tool to only draw a perfect square,
| | 04:40 | meaning all the sides now are equal in length.
| | 04:43 | If I don't hold the Shift key
down, I could draw rectangles.
| | 04:46 | Tall and thin or wide.
| | 04:48 | I have the ability to adjust how I'm
creating the rectangle by using the Shift key.
| | 04:53 | Now notice also if I hold down the
Option and the Shift keys together, I'm
| | 04:57 | drawing out a perfect square from the
center basically of where I've clicked from.
| | 05:01 | So these are ways again that I could
modify my artwork as I'm drawing it.
| | 05:05 | Another thing that I can do is I can
click and hold my mouse button down and
| | 05:08 | again, the key here is
not to let go of the mouse.
| | 05:11 | I can now press the Spacebar and the
Spacebar lets me kind of freeze the drawing
| | 05:16 | and actually move the shape
anywhere else inside of my document.
| | 05:19 | So if I'm drawing a shape over here and
I realize that I kind of want to align
| | 05:22 | it or move it somewhere else, I can
press the Spacebar, move it to where I want
| | 05:26 | it to go, and then let go the
spacebar and continue drawing.
| | 05:30 | Whenever you have a certain tool
selected, that tool stays selected until you
| | 05:34 | choose another tool.
| | 05:36 | So for example, if right now I am
drawing rectangles, you'll notice that as I
| | 05:40 | finished drawing a rectangle, my
Rectangle tool is still selected on my toolbar
| | 05:44 | and I'm ready to draw yet another rectangle.
| | 05:45 | But let's say now that I've drawn this
rectangle and I have committed it to my
| | 05:49 | artboard, now I actually want to move
this somewhere else, so I want to resize
| | 05:53 | another shape or even I want to resize
this shape right over here, I have to
| | 05:56 | actually go back to my Selection tool to
now go ahead and do that, either resize
| | 06:01 | this object or select another object.
| | 06:03 | Now if I want to draw more rectangles,
I have to now go back to my Rectangle
| | 06:06 | tool and now go ahead and
choose to draw more rectangles.
| | 06:10 | So to avoid that, as you're working
inside of Illustrator, it's important to
| | 06:13 | know that no matter what tool that
you're using, whenever you press the Command
| | 06:18 | or the Ctrl key, so again that'll be
Command on the Mac, Ctrl on Windows,
| | 06:22 | Illustrator temporarily activates
the last selection tool that you used.
| | 06:26 | So right now I'm drawing with my Rectangle
tool. I realize now I want to resize this shape.
| | 06:31 | I can press and hold the
Command key on my keyboard.
| | 06:34 | Notice now, my cursor turns to the
black arrow tool because that's the last
| | 06:38 | selection tool that I used
and now I can resize that shape.
| | 06:42 | Now if I let go over the mouse, I'm
back to using my Rectangle tool and I can
| | 06:46 | draw more rectangles.
| | 06:47 | It's pretty straightforward and easy
to understand when you understand how
| | 06:50 | Illustrator kind of built
these keyboard shortcuts.
| | 06:53 | The V key on your keyboard, V for Victor,
accesses the regular Selection tool or
| | 06:58 | the solid arrow tool.
| | 07:00 | Now to access the Direct Selection tool,
press the A key,. So whenever you're
| | 07:04 | working inside of Illustrator, always
know that you can press the Command or the
| | 07:08 | Ctrl key to go back to the last
selection tool you used, but if you know
| | 07:12 | specifically you need either the
regular Selection tool or the Direct Selection
| | 07:15 | tool, you can use the V or
the A keys to access that.
| | 07:19 | Let's focus on just three more important
keyboard shortcuts inside of Illustrator.
| | 07:24 | We already know that I can press the
V key, for example, to go back to my
| | 07:27 | Selection tool and I can
click on a shape to select it.
| | 07:30 | But we're going find that we're going
to be using the transformation tools a
| | 07:33 | lot inside of Illustrator and there are three
transformations tools that we'll use most often.
| | 07:37 | The first one is the Scale tool.
| | 07:39 | Now we know that there's a feature
inside of Illustrator called the bounding box.
| | 07:43 | The bounding box allows you to
actually kind of move your cursor over just
| | 07:47 | to the corner here and rotate a shape or to
click on a handle and actually scale the shape.
| | 07:51 | So why would I need to have the Scale
tool or the Rotate tool as individual
| | 07:56 | tools if I can access it
directly for the bounding box?
| | 07:58 | We'll talk about the bounding box in
another movie later on in this chapter.
| | 08:02 | So if I want to scale something, I can
press the S key on my keyboard for Scale.
| | 08:07 | In fact, the transformation tools are
pretty straightforward as far as how their
| | 08:10 | keyboard shortcuts go.
| | 08:11 | The R is the Rotate tool.
| | 08:14 | If I want to mirror or reflect something,
the keyboard shortcut for that is the letter O.
| | 08:19 | The reason why the O is the shortcut
for the Reflect tool is because the O if
| | 08:23 | you kind of slice it in half and you
kind of mirror it on both sides, it looks
| | 08:27 | like a mirror image of itself.
| | 08:29 | It is so important as you work
inside of Illustrator, you're going to be
| | 08:31 | focusing on the arc that you need to create.
| | 08:34 | The last thing you want to start
doing is hunting for the specific tools or
| | 08:37 | functions inside of Illustrator.
| | 08:39 | We want to be comfortable
with these keyboard shortcuts.
| | 08:42 | A real good way to practice is
to completely hide or close
| | 08:45 | your toolbar altogether.
| | 08:47 | That way you force yourself to
use the keyboard shortcuts for these important functions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Groups and layers really do matter| 00:00 | In one of my other titles that focus
on Illustrator, namely Illustrator CS5
| | 00:05 | Essential Training, I introduced the
concept of working with groups and layers
| | 00:09 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:10 | But really, again, it's kind of arbitrary.
| | 00:12 | Inside of Illustrator you don't have to
use groups and you don't have to use layers.
| | 00:17 | It's simply a matter of being organized.
| | 00:19 | It's not merely for organizing artwork,
but it also allows you to take advantage
| | 00:23 | of a tremendous amount of
functionality inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:27 | When it comes to working with drawing
inside of Illustrator, I can tell you that
| | 00:31 | the benefits of working with groups and
layers do have a lot to do with simple
| | 00:36 | organization inside of your document.
| | 00:38 | Let's take a look at this
piece of art right here.
| | 00:41 | It's a document called MisterZee.
| | 00:42 | And if I look at my Layers panel here,
I see that I have a Sketch layer and I
| | 00:46 | also have an Artwork layer.
| | 00:48 | We're going to find out that many times
when you're working with sketches inside
| | 00:51 | of Illustrator, you want to be able to
separate the two so you can easily jump
| | 00:54 | back and forth between them.
| | 00:56 | But beyond just layers itself, it's also
important to organize your artwork into
| | 01:00 | groups, not just arbitrary
groups but groups that make sense.
| | 01:04 | In this case here with MisterZee, if I
take a look at my Artwork layer and I
| | 01:08 | expand it, I see that I have a
single group called MisterZee.
| | 01:11 | And inside of that group, I
also have a Head and a Body group.
| | 01:15 | And inside of the Head group, I have
other subgroups here as well and inside of
| | 01:19 | the Body group, I also have other subgroups.
| | 01:21 | And I've gone through the trouble of
actually naming these groups so that as
| | 01:24 | I'm working, I can easily jump
to a specific part of my image.
| | 01:27 | The reason why this is important is
because if I'm using groups, I have the
| | 01:32 | ability to take advantage of
Isolation mode inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:37 | It can be sometimes a pain to have to
navigate through all these different
| | 01:40 | objects inside the Layers panel when
many times I just want to work on just the
| | 01:44 | artwork itself right here on my screen.
| | 01:46 | Again, I want to work kind of
visually than having to deal with everything
| | 01:49 | that's here inside of the panels.
| | 01:51 | So if I'm using my regular Selection
tool and for example I decide that I need
| | 01:55 | to make a modification, maybe I need to
add another stripe to his body or maybe
| | 01:59 | I need to make some other kind of adjustment,
| | 02:01 | if I double-click on MisterZee, you
can see right now that I've isolated
| | 02:05 | MisterZee and you can see over here in
the gray bar I have my Artwork layer and
| | 02:09 | I've now isolated the group
called MisterZee inside of that layer.
| | 02:13 | Now if I double-click on the body, I
now see I've gone a group deeper.
| | 02:17 | I'm now working in the Body group that is inside
the MisterZee group that's on the Artwork layer.
| | 02:22 | And if I double-click again over here on the
stripes, I'm now dealing with the Stripes group.
| | 02:26 | And I can even double-click one more
time and now I'm dealing specifically with
| | 02:30 | one of the paths that live inside of
the Stripes Body group that's inside the
| | 02:34 | MisterZee group, that's
inside of the Artwork layer.
| | 02:37 | We can almost make a song out of this.
| | 02:38 | But you can see though how important
this is, because as I'm working inside of
| | 02:42 | Illustrator I have the ability to
quickly add elements or make edits and those
| | 02:47 | edits happen directly inside
of the groups as I'm working.
| | 02:50 | So as we start to draw more and
explore more about different ways of drawing
| | 02:54 | inside of Illustrator, we're going to
find that it's really important that we
| | 02:57 | actually create groups and we work
with layers inside of our document.
| | 03:01 | Just know that it's important to keep
your drawings organized and that will
| | 03:05 | save you a lot of heartache as you
work on more and more complex drawings
| | 03:09 | inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Taming Smart Guides and the Bounding Box| 00:00 | It's time to have a frank talk about
two features inside of Illustrator that I
| | 00:04 | find sometimes really annoy people.
| | 00:06 | And usually it's because they either
don't understand why it's there or they
| | 00:10 | have no idea on how to control it.
| | 00:12 | So let's talk about something called
the bounding box inside of Illustrator and
| | 00:16 | also let's talk about Smart Guides.
| | 00:18 | Now the easiest one to talk
about is the bounding box.
| | 00:21 | That's basically where I take your
shape, for example an oval here. I'm going
| | 00:24 | to click and can drag.
| | 00:24 | Let's make a nice long shape like this.
| | 00:26 | And when I click on it to select it
with the actual Selection tool, I'll
| | 00:30 | see that there is now these handles that
appear around the bounding area of the artwork.
| | 00:34 | Now if I position my cursor just to the
edge of any of the corners here, I can
| | 00:38 | actually rotate this and I could also
click and drag on these handles to scale.
| | 00:43 | That is of course possible without having to
use the dedicated Rotate tool or the Scale tool.
| | 00:48 | Now I know that many professional
people who use Illustrator prefer to turn the
| | 00:53 | bounding box off and you can actually
do that by going to the View menu and you
| | 00:57 | can choose Hide Bounding Box.
| | 00:59 | The keyboard shortcut to toggle this
feature on and off is Command+Shift+B if
| | 01:03 | you're on a Mac, or Ctrl+
Shift+B if you're on a PC.
| | 01:07 | Now let's talk about though one of
the benefits of using this bounding box.
| | 01:11 | First of all, it's important to
realize that the bounding box is only visible
| | 01:15 | when you're using the black
arrow, the Selection tool.
| | 01:17 | If I have the artwork selected with my Direct
Selection tool, I do not see the bounding box.
| | 01:22 | Now I'm going to choose to actually
select this piece of artwork right now with
| | 01:25 | the actual Selection tool
so I see the bounding box.
| | 01:29 | If I now want to rotate this piece of
artwork, so I'm actually going to use a
| | 01:32 | dedicated Rotate tool so I'm going to
press R on my keyboard, I'm going to click
| | 01:35 | and drag to rotate this art just like this.
| | 01:38 | And now if I go back to my Selection
tool, you can see that the bounding area
| | 01:42 | rotated along with the actual object itself.
| | 01:46 | The reason why this can be beneficial
is because if I'm drawing some basic
| | 01:49 | shapes and I know I need some kind of
an oval and I rotate it into a certain
| | 01:53 | position, and now I realize that the
oval that I made is too shallow, I need to
| | 01:56 | kind of thicken it up a little bit, I
can actually grab one of these handles and
| | 02:00 | drag and you can see how it's only
scaling it constrained to this angle.
| | 02:05 | So that means that I'm able to now make a
wider oval, but I'm not distorting my artwork.
| | 02:10 | The bounding box does provide me some
really important ways of working and I'll
| | 02:14 | show you by the way, that there is a
feature inside of Illustrator that allows
| | 02:17 | you to reset your bounding box.
| | 02:19 | I have my artwork selected right now.
I can go to the Object menu, I can go
| | 02:23 | to Transform and choose this
option here called Reset Bounding Box.
| | 02:27 | And when I do so, now you can see
how the bounding box looks different.
| | 02:31 | Now that I've reset it with this
orientation, I no longer have the ability to
| | 02:35 | scale this oval in a non-proportional way.
| | 02:39 | For example, if I click over here and I
stretch it, it's kind of getting taller
| | 02:42 | and wider at the same time, so I
can't just make it wider in one direction.
| | 02:47 | We can see that the bounding box does
give me some pretty useful functionality
| | 02:52 | if I leave it turned On.
| | 02:53 | And if I always end up using the Direct
Selection tool, it never really ends up
| | 02:57 | getting in the way either.
| | 02:58 | In fact, if I press undo a few times
to go back to this state here before I
| | 03:03 | reset the bounding box, if I'm using my Direct
Selection tool, I don't see the bounding box.
| | 03:08 | If I press the Command key, Illustrator
actually toggles to the Selection tool,
| | 03:13 | which now activates the bounding box
which allows you to make a change over
| | 03:16 | here like this or even hold down the
Option key and kind of stretch it out from
| | 03:20 | its center this way.
| | 03:21 | And then when I let go the keys, I'm
back to my regular Direct Selection tool.
| | 03:24 | So we can see that the bounding box does
offer some benefits inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:29 | We just kind of have to understand it a
little bit better and find a way to make
| | 03:32 | it work for us inside of our workflow.
| | 03:35 | Now let's focus on another aspect of
Illustrator which is something called Smart Guides.
| | 03:39 | I know that a lot of people are
sometimes annoyed by Smart Guides, mainly for
| | 03:44 | something called object highlighting.
| | 03:46 | For example, I'm going to go to my View
menu right here. I'm going to go down to
| | 03:49 | over here where it says Smart
Guides and I'm going to activate it.
| | 03:52 | The keyboard shortcut for activating
Smart Guides is Command+U on the Mac
| | 03:56 | or Ctrl+U on Windows.
| | 03:58 | With this option turned on, any time I
mouse over a piece of artwork, even if
| | 04:02 | it's not selected, so I'm just going to
deselect the art, as I mouse over this
| | 04:06 | artwork, you can see how it lights up,
you see how the word path appears in my
| | 04:09 | screen right about my cursor, a
little x appears in the path itself.
| | 04:12 | If I move to the center here, it says
center. It gives me the X and Y coordinates.
| | 04:17 | As I'm drawing new shapes for example,
maybe I'm drawing a rectangle, it shows
| | 04:20 | me the actual size of
the rectangle as I draw it.
| | 04:23 | And some people find that information
helpful, but many people find that when
| | 04:27 | you have lots of objects in your file,
as you just simply move around your
| | 04:30 | artwork, things start lighting up.
| | 04:32 | And on top of that as you move artwork,
you see these lines kind of appear,
| | 04:36 | which are what we call alignment guides.
| | 04:38 | They help us align objects to each other.
| | 04:40 | Well, what I want to talk about here
is a way to understand what the Smart
| | 04:43 | Guides are and more importantly
than that, let's find a way to tame this
| | 04:47 | feature so that we can only use the
parts of the Smart Guides that are important
| | 04:51 | for us and jettison the parts that
are not important to our workflow,
| | 04:55 | specifically in this case for drawing.
| | 04:57 | I'm going to press Command+A or Ctrl+A
and just delete everything on my artboard.
| | 05:01 | I'm going to start by
drawing a regular rectangle.
| | 05:03 | A lot of people inside of Illustrator
are familiar with this fact that sometimes
| | 05:08 | when you're drawing, you may have two
shapes and you want to take one shape and
| | 05:11 | you want to kind of move it so that
it's actually close to another object.
| | 05:15 | And sometimes you'll notice that when
you have an object that's kind of near it
| | 05:18 | and it feels like it snaps the artwork,
but then when you kind of zoom in really
| | 05:22 | close, you see they're not actually touching.
| | 05:24 | People sometimes think that Illustrator
is just not precise and the only way for
| | 05:27 | them to align artwork correctly is to
zoom in really close and then to try to go
| | 05:31 | ahead now and have those objects snap correctly.
| | 05:34 | It happens to be not that
Illustrator really is not precise at all.
| | 05:38 | In fact, sometimes it's too
precise and that can mess this up.
| | 05:41 | Let me actually turn off
Smart Guides here for a second.
| | 05:44 | I'm going to go to the View menu,
choose Smart Guides to now uncheck that
| | 05:47 | option, and I'm going to grab my path,
let's say right from this part right here.
| | 05:52 | I'm not grabbing it from the anchor point.
| | 05:54 | I'm grabbing it just to the right of that.
| | 05:56 | Now we're familiar inside of
Illustrator with this concept that whenever you
| | 05:59 | have one object and you want to snap
it to another object, that's something
| | 06:03 | called Snap to Point.
| | 06:04 | It's a great feature inside of Illustrator.
| | 06:06 | And you can always tell when
something is snapping because your cursor
| | 06:09 | changes to be hollow.
| | 06:11 | It now has a white center.
| | 06:12 | That's Illustrator's way of letting me
know that I'm now snapping to another point.
| | 06:16 | But what's interesting to note here is
that if I take the actual point and I
| | 06:20 | kind of line it up with this
other shape, it's not snapping at all.
| | 06:23 | It's only when my cursor
kind of gets there and it snaps.
| | 06:26 | Now if I'm kind of zoomed down inside
of my artwork when I'm doing this, it may
| | 06:30 | appear that I'm actually
snapping those two corners together.
| | 06:33 | But the reality is, is that I've been snapping
the position of my cursor to the anchor point.
| | 06:39 | The term Snap to Point doesn't mean snap
one anchor point to another anchor point.
| | 06:44 | It means snap my cursor to another anchor point.
| | 06:47 | So the reason why people sometimes
get messed up is because if you're not
| | 06:50 | actually selecting and clicking on your
object exactly on an anchor point, then
| | 06:55 | Illustrator is going to snap your
cursor position to another anchor point.
| | 06:58 | And that's why I get this situation here
where I zoom in really close and I'm like "whoa!
| | 07:02 | Why those two objects not align perfectly?
| | 07:04 | I thought I snapped it."
| | 07:06 | The answer is that since you didn't
grab the object from the exact point, the
| | 07:10 | point didn't snap to the other object.
| | 07:12 | Your cursor position snapped to the other
object and that's why it's aligned in this way.
| | 07:18 | So people just find it easy when you
zoomed in really close and you select the
| | 07:21 | piece of artwork, it's a lot easier to
now click on just the anchor point and
| | 07:25 | snap that anchor point here.
| | 07:27 | But again, what I just did that it
wasn't the anchor point that was snapping to
| | 07:30 | the other anchor point.
| | 07:31 | It was the actual cursor that was
actually snapping to the anchor point.
| | 07:35 | So how do we solve this problem?
| | 07:37 | That's one of the reasons why
Smart Guides was added to Illustrator.
| | 07:41 | If I press Command+U or Ctrl+U to
activate Smart Guides, notice now I'm going to
| | 07:45 | grab my artwork let's say
from this part of the path.
| | 07:48 | And as I start to move it over here,
you can actually see that a little guide
| | 07:52 | pops up and says Intersect.
| | 07:54 | The objects themselves actually
snap to each other by that corner.
| | 07:57 | In other words, when Smart Guides are
turned on, Illustrator pays attention
| | 08:02 | to the bounds of your artwork and it has the
ability to snap those bounds to each other.
| | 08:07 | If I don't have Smart Guides On, I have
no way to do that and I need to rely on
| | 08:11 | the previous snapping that we
discussed before with those problems.
| | 08:14 | But this is just one part of Smart Guides.
| | 08:17 | The fact that I have artwork that
highlights or lights up every time I mouse
| | 08:20 | over it is not a part of this
snapping behavior for Smart Guides.
| | 08:24 | In fact, Smart Guides is really a
collection of many different types of guides.
| | 08:28 | Let's actually see how to control that
by going over here to Illustrator and
| | 08:33 | choosing Preferences.
| | 08:34 | If you're on a Windows machine,
you can find the Preferences submenu
| | 08:38 | underneath the Edit menu.
| | 08:40 | Alternatively, the keyboard
shortcut to activate your Preferences is
| | 08:43 | Command+K or Ctrl+K.
| | 08:44 | I'm going to go over here to this pop-up list
and jump down to where it says Smart Guides.
| | 08:49 | And we can see that we have all the
different checkboxes because there are
| | 08:52 | actually many different types of Smart Guides.
| | 08:54 | In fact, there are six types of Smart
Guides that exist inside of Illustrator.
| | 08:59 | We have something called Alignment Guides.
| | 09:01 | These are those guides that we saw that
kind of light up, that tell you when an
| | 09:04 | object is going to snap to another object,
meaning it understands the bounds and
| | 09:09 | the anchor points inside of my
artwork and it's going to snap those to the
| | 09:12 | object no matter where my cursor position is.
| | 09:15 | That's the valuable part
about working with Smart Guides.
| | 09:18 | We have Object Highlighting which just makes
your objects light up as you mouse over them.
| | 09:22 | And that's usually the annoying part
about what's happening inside of Illustrator.
| | 09:25 | So what I'm going to do is I'm
going to uncheck Object Highlighting.
| | 09:28 | Now there's another setting
here called Transform Tools.
| | 09:31 | That allows you to, as you're
rotating artwork, it tells you, oh,
| | 09:34 | you're rotating this 22 degrees.
| | 09:35 | So I'm going to leave that checkbox turned off.
| | 09:38 | I'm also going to leave off Construction Guides.
| | 09:40 | Again, that allows you to, as you're
drawing, have objects kind of automatically
| | 09:44 | snap to preset angles.
| | 09:46 | This happens to be useful by the way,
when you're drawing like isometric
| | 09:49 | drawings that have to be
locked to a very specific angle.
| | 09:52 | But for now let's take a
look at these two other options.
| | 09:54 | We have Anchor and Path Labels, which
when I started using Illustrator I turned
| | 09:58 | off but I'll tell you that I found it more
useful and I had to have these turned on.
| | 10:01 | And we'll see as we're kind of going
throughout the title, that it's useful to
| | 10:05 | know whenever you're working inside of
Illustrator, are you snapping something
| | 10:08 | to a path or to an actual anchor point?
| | 10:11 | And for Measurement Labels,
I'm going to turn that off.
| | 10:13 | Again, Measurement Labels were when I
was drawing a rectangle it had a little
| | 10:16 | box that as I was drawing Illustrator
would tell me how big that box is and
| | 10:19 | that rectangle is as I'm drawing.
| | 10:21 | So we don't care about a
specific size right now.
| | 10:23 | So when I'm using Smart Guides for
drawing, I'm only working with these two
| | 10:27 | specific options in Smart Guides,
| | 10:29 | Alignment Guides and Anchor/Path Labels,
and of the two, realize that the most
| | 10:35 | important Smart Guide
setting is the Alignment Guides.
| | 10:38 | So I'm going to click OK and now that I
have those two settings available to me
| | 10:42 | inside of Illustrator, I will find a
much better experience in snapping artwork
| | 10:46 | to each other, working around, moving
objects without all that highlighting or
| | 10:51 | other things getting in the way.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Do you need a drawing tablet?| 00:00 | When talking to people about drawing
inside of Illustrator one of the first
| | 00:03 | questions I get is, do I
need to have a drawing tablet?
| | 00:07 | Now there is a company out there
called Wacom which makes fantastic
| | 00:10 | pressure-sensitive tablets that
work very well when using Illustrator.
| | 00:14 | However, it really depends on the
kind of artwork that you are going to
| | 00:16 | create, and more importantly, it also depends
on how much drawing you are going to be doing.
| | 00:21 | The Illustrator itself, from a utility
perspective, can create tons of graphics
| | 00:25 | and Illustrator can also be used to
create technical drawings and more drawings
| | 00:30 | that fit within a drafting realm.
| | 00:32 | In that area, you really don't need to have
a pen tablet in order to get your work done.
| | 00:36 | When you have an illustration like
this for example like I have this Mister
| | 00:40 | Zee, and you are actually kind of
looking to create something that has more
| | 00:43 | fluid motion inside of it, maybe these
types of curves or this curve that we
| | 00:47 | have it here on the back of the zebra,
you'll find that it can be very difficult
| | 00:51 | to draw those smooth paths using a mouse.
| | 00:54 | In this case here the reason why it
works with a mouse is because as we are
| | 00:57 | going to find out, we are always going to be
working with a sketch inside of our designs.
| | 01:02 | So basically, it's going to be a
process of where I actually take some artwork,
| | 01:06 | I draw it on a piece of paper, I then
photograph it or scan it into my computer,
| | 01:11 | and I use that as a base to
draw artwork using my mouse.
| | 01:15 | However, if I am just kind of drawing
for my mind, I want be able to sketch very
| | 01:19 | cleanly inside of Illustrator itself,
I'm really going to want to have a tablet
| | 01:23 | available to me when I start using Illustrator.
| | 01:26 | I am also going to be able to
take more advantage of things like
| | 01:28 | pressure sensitivity so I can have
really nice thick and thins, although as
| | 01:32 | we are going to find out we can also do
that inside of Illustrator without a tablet.
| | 01:36 | So what it really comes down to is comfort.
| | 01:38 | Try going to a store that has a tablet
on display and try to work with it and
| | 01:42 | see if you find it comfortable.
| | 01:43 | There is one other thing to note about
working with pressure-sensitive tablets
| | 01:47 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:48 | For example, some of the Illustrator's
brushes, he Eraser tool, the Pencil tool,
| | 01:54 | the Paintbrush tool, these are all
things that actually work and feel a lot more
| | 01:58 | natural when working with a pen input
than trying to deal with a mouse input.
| | 02:03 | We cover all these things in a chapter
called the "Drawing with a tablet" which
| | 02:07 | you'll find towards the end of this title.
| | 02:10 | So while having a pressure-sensitive
tablet does unlock some more functionality
| | 02:14 | inside of Illustrator, the real
question is going to be is that functionality
| | 02:18 | going to be something that you are going to
use often enough to justify the cost of a tablet?
| | 02:23 | Whether using a pressure-sensitive
tablet or whether using a mouse, you will be
| | 02:27 | able to draw just fine without
the Pen tool inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Workflow: Drawing PathsTo sketch or not to sketch?| 00:00 | Perhaps one of the most daunting things
about using Illustrator is what I call
| | 00:04 | this blank screen that we start out with.
| | 00:06 | This is especially true for people
who are new to using Illustrator.
| | 00:11 | For example, when you create a new document,
| | 00:12 | I will just press Command+N or Ctrl+N
to create this document and I will use
| | 00:16 | my letter size page.
| | 00:17 | I am actually basing this in my Print
profile, but I just want this to be a wide
| | 00:21 | format, a landscape instead of a
portrait view and I'll click OK.
| | 00:24 | So now I have this page
here. It's a blank page.
| | 00:27 | I've got all these tools in the left
side, and we've got all of these panels
| | 00:30 | in the right side over here, and I have a
blank screen and I don't know where to begin.
| | 00:34 | If I have a really good idea in my
head about what I want to create, I could
| | 00:38 | start to put some stuff on my page,
but usually when you have a blank page
| | 00:41 | like this, it's just a little bit more
difficult to kind of get an idea about
| | 00:45 | where you want to start.
| | 00:46 | This is different than other
applications, for example Photoshop, where nine
| | 00:50 | times out of ten you are actually
opening a photograph and you're going to
| | 00:53 | start working with a photo.
| | 00:55 | So what we do inside of Illustrator?
| | 00:56 | When we want to draw artwork, we want
to create artwork, I find it very useful
| | 01:00 | to actually first draw your ideas out on paper.
| | 01:03 | It just gives you a better way to
visualize what you are trying to create so
| | 01:06 | that when you get into Illustrator you at
least know where to begin, where to start from.
| | 01:11 | So in this project, I really want to
work on drawing that nice cute little zebra
| | 01:14 | that we've seen before and if I go here
to that File menu, I can choose Place,
| | 01:19 | because I want to place an image now as
my layout and in Chapter 2 over here of
| | 01:23 | my exercise files I am going to
choose this file called misterszee.psd.
| | 01:27 | If I click Place right now, it now puts
this image onto my page and I am going
| | 01:32 | to be using this image as a base for my design.
| | 01:35 | It's a sketch that I have created with
just pen and paper and I just scanned it
| | 01:39 | in and then I have placed
it now here into Illustrator.
| | 01:42 | The concept here is that I at
least have something to look at.
| | 01:44 | So in my head I have a really good
idea about where I am going to start.
| | 01:48 | Perhaps most importantly sketching
allows us to visualize the shapes that we
| | 01:52 | are going to need to draw.
| | 01:54 | We build artwork by creating simple
shapes and then combine them or subtract
| | 01:58 | them to create more complex ones.
| | 01:59 | Well, now by looking for example at his
stripes, I might say, oh you know, I can
| | 02:04 | use some ovals to create those strikes.
| | 02:06 | So the more work that you can do on pen
and paper, just by sketching your ideas
| | 02:10 | and then bringing them into Illustrator
as an image, it gives us a great way to
| | 02:14 | get started with our artwork.
| | 02:15 | As long as I have an idea and I can
visualize what shapes I am going to need to
| | 02:20 | create my artwork, then that's going to
get it out from me to use as a sketch.
| | 02:24 | Now in the next movie we will talk
about how once we bring our sketch into
| | 02:27 | Illustrator how we can set it up to
make it easy for us to create our trace.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up a template layer for your sketch| 00:01 | So at this point I'm going to
assume that you already have a sketch.
| | 00:04 | You have done something on paper, you
have put your idea down, you really have
| | 00:08 | an idea about where you want to go, and
you now either take a picture of that or
| | 00:12 | you scan that and you now have an image
that you can now place into Illustrator
| | 00:15 | to use as what we call a template
to create now our final artwork.
| | 00:19 | So I am going to start off by creating a
new document here inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:22 | Just Command+N or Control+N. I can
choose over here a new document profile.
| | 00:26 | I can choose a Print Profile and just
because of the orientation of the zebra
| | 00:30 | here I am going to choose the
wide or the landscape format.
| | 00:32 | So now I am going to click OK and I get
this document here and I want to place
| | 00:36 | now that image into this document so
I could start to use it as a template.
| | 00:40 | So I am going to go over here to the
File menu. I am going to choose Place.
| | 00:45 | Inside of my Chapter 02 Exercise
Files folder I am now going to choose this
| | 00:49 | image here called misterzee.psd.
| | 00:52 | Now I'll let you know that I saved
that as a Photoshop file, a PSD file,
| | 00:55 | but there is no reason why you
couldn't use a JPEG or a TIFF or really any
| | 00:58 | other image file format.
| | 01:00 | As long as it works for
you, that is totally fine.
| | 01:02 | Remember, we are not using this for production.
| | 01:04 | In fact, once we're done with our
file we are just going to throw it
| | 01:06 | away, because we are going to have our final
vector version that we are going to create.
| | 01:10 | But we need something to get started with.
| | 01:12 | So we are going to be using now this image here.
| | 01:14 | Now I'll also tell you that when I am
working here with templates, I'm usually
| | 01:18 | going to not use a linked image.
| | 01:19 | I am going to embed that image.
| | 01:21 | Sure, I can embed this later on.
| | 01:23 | I can uncheck this button right here.
| | 01:25 | That image now is going to be
embedded into this document.
| | 01:27 | Meaning, I will no longer need to
have a link to that external file.
| | 01:31 | So this way if I move the file around
that I don't have to worry about missing
| | 01:34 | links so on and so forth.
| | 01:36 | So I am going to choose Place and now
Mister Zee appears right here on my artboard.
| | 01:41 | The first thing we want to do though
is we want to set this now to be some
| | 01:44 | kind of a template.
| | 01:45 | We are going to be drawing on top of this.
| | 01:47 | So we are going to create something inside
of Illustrator called the Template layer.
| | 01:51 | If I look at my Layers panel, I have a Layer 1.
| | 01:53 | I am going to double-click on Layer 1,
and I am going to give it a different name.
| | 01:57 | I am going to call this one Sketch,
because that's where my sketch is going to go.
| | 02:00 | There is a checkbox over here called Template.
| | 02:03 | And if I turn that option on,
you'll see a few things happen.
| | 02:05 | First of all, these
other options get grayed out.
| | 02:08 | So Illustrator is automatically
going to keep that layer Shown.
| | 02:11 | It's going to have it in Preview mode.
| | 02:13 | It's also going to lock that layer so
it doesn't get in the way as I draw.
| | 02:17 | It's also going to uncheck the Print option.
| | 02:19 | Meaning that when I print out my
document, I don't ever want this sketch to
| | 02:22 | show up in my printout.
| | 02:24 | So Illustrator automatically
changes it to a nonprinting layer.
| | 02:28 | Finally, Illustrator is going to dim
that image back to about 50% so that
| | 02:31 | it doesn't get in the way of my drawing.
| | 02:33 | I will not even tell you
that 50% is not enough for me.
| | 02:36 | I actually prefer using a
setting of either 20% or 30%.
| | 02:39 | I prefer a 20%, so I am
going to choose 20 right here.
| | 02:41 | But again, whatever works best
for you is what you should be using.
| | 02:44 | Then I am going to click OK.
| | 02:45 | So what I've just done now is
I've created a template layer.
| | 02:49 | Notice that the image is now locked.
| | 02:50 | In fact, if I try to take let's say my
Rectangle tool, you can see that I have
| | 02:54 | a pencil icon with a line going through it,
meaning I cannot create any artwork here.
| | 02:58 | This layer is locked.
| | 02:59 | You can see the word Sketch.
| | 03:01 | The name of the layer is italicized.
| | 03:03 | Whenever you see a layer that has words
that are italicized that indicates that
| | 03:06 | that layer is a nonprinting layer.
| | 03:08 | So what I can do now is if I want to
start drawing, I would now create a new layer.
| | 03:12 | Let me name this layer Artwork,
click OK, and now I could start creating
| | 03:19 | artwork on this layer.
| | 03:20 | But I'm using that sketch, which I
have now brought into Illustrator as a
| | 03:24 | template, for the design
that I am going to create.
| | 03:27 | Again, the beauty of this also is that
because it's is a separate layer, I can
| | 03:30 | easily toggle that on and off.
| | 03:32 | So I can choose to view the template
or turn it off just so I can see the
| | 03:35 | progress of my design.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Optimizing default settings for drawing| 00:00 | Before we get started drawing Mister Zee
| | 00:03 | over here, let's talk for a moment
about the default settings inside of
| | 00:06 | Illustrator, specifically as
they pertain to drawing artwork.
| | 00:09 | Now what we're going to be doing is we're
going to be drawing shapes on top of this sketch.
| | 00:14 | Now the default setting for
Illustrator for a regular object is going to be a
| | 00:17 | white fill and a black one-
point stroke, as you see over here.
| | 00:20 | In fact, if I take a regular rectangle
for example and I click and drag here, I
| | 00:25 | can see that that's my default setting.
| | 00:26 | In case you ever are drawing some of
the artwork and you want to get back
| | 00:29 | to default setting,
| | 00:30 | we know that the D key on your
keyboard is the keyboard shortcut to reset an
| | 00:35 | object back to its default settings.
| | 00:37 | So if I choose for example to change
the color here to yellow and maybe I
| | 00:41 | increase the Stroke Weight and let's
change this to blue or purple for example.
| | 00:45 | I can take this object, press the D key
on my keyboard, and that resets it to a
| | 00:49 | white fill and a black one-point stroke.
| | 00:52 | However, as you can see when
this artwork is on top of Mister Zee,
| | 00:54 | because it has a white fill, it
kind of blocks my template, so I can't see
| | 00:59 | what I'm working on.
| | 00:59 | Many times when I'm drawing inside of
Illustrator I will not be able to see the
| | 01:03 | artwork underneath it if it has a fill.
| | 01:05 | So I really don't want my
artwork to have a fill inside of it.
| | 01:09 | Second of all the Stroke Weight right
now is set to 1 point, but as we're going
| | 01:12 | to be working on Mister Z over here, whatever
we're drawing you want to be able to pay attention to
| | 01:16 | the detail, we want our paths to be
beautiful and clean and smooth and set in
| | 01:20 | just the right way.
| | 01:21 | So we wanted to be able to zoom in a
lot. If I press Command+Spacebar or
| | 01:25 | Ctrl+Spacebar on Windows you get the
Zoom tool and I can click and drag to draw
| | 01:28 | marquee and zoom in really close, and
we'll see that a one-point stroke is going
| | 01:32 | to be too thick for us.
| | 01:33 | In fact when we're drawing inside of
Illustrator, we don't really care yet about
| | 01:37 | what colors we're going to apply to
the artwork; we just want the paths to be
| | 01:41 | correct so that we can later on
choose to color the artwork, but as we're
| | 01:44 | drawing, we want to focus on the path itself.
| | 01:47 | So usually what's ideal is actually
change your Fill Setting to None because we
| | 01:51 | don't care about the fill now, so we
could actually see the entire template
| | 01:55 | through the artwork.
| | 01:56 | And we want our Stroke Weight to be
maybe even a quarter of a point. It's
| | 01:59 | very, very thin setting. We want to be able
to see it but we don't want to get in the way.
| | 02:04 | Now notice over here also that
my color of my path is black.
| | 02:07 | Now in my example here the sketch
that I created is just a black-and-white
| | 02:10 | version. It's kind of dimmed back to 20%.
| | 02:13 | So a black stroke here is going to
work just fine, but you may find that if
| | 02:16 | you're drawing on top of a color image or
something else that black doesn't work for you.
| | 02:22 | So what we really want to do is we want
to change Illustrator's default setting
| | 02:25 | because as I'm working inside of
Illustrator if I ever change something, for
| | 02:29 | example, I decide that I want to
increase the Stroke Weight somewhere, I do
| | 02:31 | want to color something else in, I
want to be able to quickly reset my object
| | 02:35 | back to its default setting, and I
don't want default to go back to a
| | 02:38 | white-fill and a black one-point stroke.
I want it to go back to a no-fill and
| | 02:42 | a quarter point stroke.
| | 02:43 | So how do we do that?
| | 02:45 | The answer is that we change the
default setting inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:48 | I don't want to change
Illustrator's default settings forever.
| | 02:51 | I want to change Illustrator's default
settings for this one document, because
| | 02:55 | when I'm drawing I want certain defaults.
| | 02:58 | At the same time when I'm doing some
other kind of project I may have other
| | 03:02 | defaults that do work for me.
| | 03:03 | For example, a white-fill and a
black one-point stroke probably works for
| | 03:06 | some other kind of application, but
not when I'm drawing or I'm trying to
| | 03:09 | trace artwork here.
| | 03:11 | I'm going to zoom out just a bit.
| | 03:12 | I'll press Command+0 just to
kind of fit this in the window.
| | 03:15 | I have this shape here selected. I'm
just going to simply delete it. I don't
| | 03:18 | need that right now.
| | 03:19 | Let's go to our Graphic Styles panel
here inside of Illustrator. I have mine
| | 03:22 | right over here. If you don't have it
on your screen set up the same way that's
| | 03:25 | mine, you can simply go to the
Window menu and you'll find Graphic Styles
| | 03:29 | listed here as well.
| | 03:31 | Now we don't really care about all the
other graphic styles in our document but
| | 03:34 | the first graphic style that up here is
listed in your panel is a very important
| | 03:38 | setting. It's called your
Default Graphic Style setting.
| | 03:41 | If I click on it, Illustrator will
now show me in the Appearance panel the
| | 03:45 | settings for that default style.
| | 03:47 | This happens by the way for any graphic style.
| | 03:49 | I can click on this style for example,
and the Appearance panel tells me I
| | 03:52 | don't have any artwork selected, but
it's showing me what the settings are for
| | 03:56 | the Illuminate Yellow graphic style.
| | 03:58 | So if I click on my Default Graphic
Style, Illustrator is showing me right
| | 04:01 | now that my default is a one-point
black stroke and a white fill, which we
| | 04:05 | already spoke about.
| | 04:06 | I'm going to make a change though.
I'm going to click on the Fill here. I'm
| | 04:09 | going to set it to None.
| | 04:10 | I'm also going to change my Stroke
Weight from 1 point to a 0.25 point, and I'm
| | 04:15 | going to leave at color black.
| | 04:17 | Now that I've made these changes here,
I'm going to take this icon right here,
| | 04:21 | I'm going to click on it and drag it,
I'm going to hold down the Option key on
| | 04:25 | the Mac or the Alt key on Windows, I'm
going to drag it on top of my default
| | 04:29 | swatch and you can see now it gets
highlighted with a black outline.
| | 04:33 | That means that now I'm taking the
settings that are in my Appearance panel and
| | 04:37 | I'm using those settings to
override the existing default setting.
| | 04:40 | I'm going to release the mouse and then
I'll release the Option or the Alt key.
| | 04:44 | So let's see what we've accomplished.
If I now take a rectangle and I click and
| | 04:47 | I drag to create a rectangle my
rectangle by default now has no-fill and a black
| | 04:52 | quarter point stroke.
| | 04:53 | So if I change this for example to
yellow and let's change the color here to
| | 04:57 | blue and let's change the
Stroke Weight here to like 4 point.
| | 05:00 | Now if I'm working and I realize, hey,
| | 05:02 | I want this shape now to be filled with
none and have a 0.25 point stroke, I can
| | 05:06 | now press the D key on my keyboard, D
for Default, and now my object changes to
| | 05:10 | my new default setting, which is no-
fill and that 0.25 point black stroke.
| | 05:14 | So when I'm drawing I do find it
helpful to redefine my default setting here
| | 05:18 | inside of Illustrator so that moving
forward I can simply press that D key to
| | 05:23 | get just the right format that I
want for the paths that I'll be drawing.
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| Using the primitive shapes tools| 00:00 | So we've placed our image into our
document as a template. We've set out
| | 00:04 | defaults correctly. Now we're
ready to start creating some artwork.
| | 00:07 | And the first thing we're going to start
with here is working with the Primitive
| | 00:10 | Shape tools. I mean the very basic shapes.
| | 00:13 | Things like polygons, triangles,
rectangles, circles, so and so forth.
| | 00:20 | So let's explore some of these tools,
some of them are very basic and you
| | 00:22 | already know them but some of them also
have some hidden settings inside of them.
| | 00:26 | For example, I'll come over here to the
Rectangle tool and as I click and drag
| | 00:31 | with the Rectangle tool I'll see that
I'm drawing my shape out from the upper
| | 00:34 | left-hand corner. But if I hold down
my Option key you'll notice that I'm now
| | 00:38 | drawing my shape out from its center.
| | 00:40 | Likewise the Shift key allows me
to constrain it to a perfect square.
| | 00:44 | So these are the things
that we've already discussed.
| | 00:46 | I also know that I can press and hold
the Spacebar and now that freezes my
| | 00:50 | drawing and if I move my mouse it actually
move that rectangle around to another position.
| | 00:55 | When I release this Spacebar I
can continue dragging with my mouse.
| | 00:59 | The secret about drawing with basic
shape tools inside of Illustrator is to keep
| | 01:03 | the mouse button down.
| | 01:04 | As soon as you release the mouse button
you commit the shape and now it can no
| | 01:08 | longer be changed until you
start modifying the path itself.
| | 01:12 | Press Delete button here to
get rid of that rectangle.
| | 01:15 | And let's say I wanted to draw a
triangle. Well how would I do that?
| | 01:18 | I don't have to use the Pen tool to do that.
| | 01:20 | I can come here and instead of choosing the
Rectangle tool I'll choose the Polygon tool.
| | 01:24 | Next, I'm going to click and drag, I'm
going to keep my mouse button down, and
| | 01:29 | now I'm going to use the
down arrow key on my keyboard.
| | 01:32 | Each time that I press the down arrow
key it removes one side from my object.
| | 01:37 | So now I have a pentagon, now I have
a four-sided object, and now I have a
| | 01:42 | three-sided object which is a triangle.
| | 01:44 | If I also hold down the Shift key,
it will align the base to be perfectly
| | 01:48 | straight and now if I let go over
the mouse I've gotten a triangle.
| | 01:51 | So the fastest way to draw a
triangle is to use the Polygon tool.
| | 01:55 | Let's explore few other shapes.
| | 01:57 | I'm going to delete the triangle here.
| | 01:59 | Let's go now to for example the Star tool.
| | 02:01 | When I click and drag with the Star tool
I get a five-pointed star, but again if
| | 02:05 | I use the up arrow or the down
arrow I add or remove points of my star.
| | 02:10 | If I hold down the Command key-- I'm on
my Mac, so if you're Windows that would
| | 02:14 | be the Ctrl key-- you can click and drag
and that changes the delta between the
| | 02:18 | inner radius and the outer radius of the star.
| | 02:21 | And any time I can press the Spacebar,
reposition it somewhere else, maybe move
| | 02:26 | it over here and then
continue drawing it this way.
| | 02:29 | Once I release the mouse I've now
committed the star to that shape.
| | 02:32 | Let me press Delete again.
| | 02:33 | You'll notice, by the way, the way
these tools are grouped, Rectangle, Rounded
| | 02:37 | Rectangle, Ellipse tool, the Polygon
tool and the Star tool, they all create
| | 02:42 | filled or closed objects.
| | 02:44 | If I go over here to these Primitive
Shape tools like the Line Segment tool, the
| | 02:48 | Arc tool, the Spiral tool, and these
Grid tools, they create open paths and
| | 02:53 | that's really why they are
grouped in two separate areas.
| | 02:56 | The Line Segment tool is
extremely helpful to use.
| | 02:58 | If you click and drag and create
straight lines, we're going to see that we will
| | 03:02 | sometimes create straight lines even if at the
end of the day we want that line to be curved.
| | 03:07 | It can be easier sometimes to
start out using a straight line.
| | 03:10 | And again, the same rules apply as well.
So if I hit the Delete key to get the
| | 03:13 | rid of it, as I click and drag and If I
hold down my Option key, it draws that
| | 03:17 | line off from the center, and if I
press the Spacebar it allows me to
| | 03:20 | reposition that, and when I let go over the
mouse I can now commit that shape to my artboard.
| | 03:25 | I'm going to delete this line here.
| | 03:28 | Now there's another Primitive Shape
tool which I find very helpful inside of
| | 03:31 | Illustrator and that's the Arc tool.
| | 03:33 | I'll come over here to my Tools panel
and I'll choose the Arc tool and when I
| | 03:37 | click and drag it creates an arc.
| | 03:39 | Really if you want to match in a
circle or an oval for example, and you just
| | 03:43 | basically split it into four sections,
an arc is just one of those fourths. It's a
| | 03:48 | quarter of an ellipse.
| | 03:50 | But as I'm drawing that shape and I'm
moving it around, before I actually commit
| | 03:53 | the shape I can use the up and the down
arrows to adjust how sharp or steep that
| | 03:59 | angle is when I create the arc.
| | 04:01 | I can use another keyboard shortcut
which is the F key which will allow me to
| | 04:05 | Flip the arc from being convex to concave.
| | 04:09 | It's a toggle that goes one way or the other.
| | 04:11 | It's only when I release the mouse
that I commit that arc to the artboard.
| | 04:15 | So let me delete this. As an
example, when I'm looking at Mr.
| | 04:18 | Z over here and I look at this
shape over here, this could be an arc.
| | 04:21 | And if I click over here with the Arc
tool and kind of drag downwards I can
| | 04:25 | basically increase the angle here just
a little bit or maybe even decrease it,
| | 04:30 | and kind of match exactly maybe what
the shape looks like right over here.
| | 04:34 | Forget about the part that is extra over
here, we're going to see there are easy
| | 04:37 | ways for us to remove that, but for now
I've got a nice clean, smooth arc that's
| | 04:41 | going to match one of the stripes on Mister Zee.
| | 04:43 | The most important aspect of all
these tools that we're using, these
| | 04:47 | Primitive Shape tools whether they're
filled objects whether they're open paths,
| | 04:51 | is that I'm really not
focusing on anchor points.
| | 04:53 | I'm really kind of drawing the paths themselves.
| | 04:55 | So I'm looking at the artwork that I
have as my sketch, I'm simply trying to
| | 04:59 | match it up with the paths that I'm
drawing, lay it down and then later on combine
| | 05:04 | those paths to build the
final version of my artwork.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Mastering the modifier keys| 00:00 | In the previous chapter we spoke about
knowing certain keyboard shortcuts and
| | 00:05 | how important those keyboard shortcuts
are to working inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:09 | Admittedly Illustrator is a complex program
that has many different tools inside of it.
| | 00:13 | However, when we're drawing we'll
only need a certain number of those tools
| | 00:17 | and more importantly we really need
to focus on the artwork that we're
| | 00:20 | creating, so we don't have time to
keep glancing down the keyboard and try to
| | 00:25 | find out where a certain key is.
| | 00:27 | Perhaps the most important of all, the
Modifier keys are incredibly important.
| | 00:31 | The Modifier keys are the Shift key,
the Option key and the Command key on a
| | 00:37 | Mac, if you are on Windows that would be
the Shift key, the Alt key and the Ctrl key.
| | 00:44 | These keys are called Modifier Keys
because they change the behavior of
| | 00:48 | how tools usually work.
| | 00:50 | So it's incredibly important that your
hand becomes familiar with these modifier
| | 00:55 | keys, so that they just
kind of happen automatically.
| | 00:58 | This is even more so than
the other keyboard shortcuts.
| | 01:01 | Identify where the Shift, the Option
and the Command keys are on a Mac or if
| | 01:04 | you're on Windows, where the Shift,
the Alt and the Ctrl keys are.
| | 01:08 | Position your hands over that
part of the keyboard permanently.
| | 01:12 | For example, I mouse with my right
hand, so I'll have my right hand on the
| | 01:17 | mouse, but my left hand will always be
hovering over that lower left-hand corner
| | 01:21 | of the keyboard right above the
Shift, the Option and the Command keys.
| | 01:26 | Now I also sometimes draw with a
tablet it happens to be that I'm somewhat
| | 01:29 | ambidextrous, so I actually draw
with the pencil with my left hand.
| | 01:33 | When I'm using the Wacom Tablet and I
have the pen on my left hand I now have
| | 01:38 | the right-hand focused on the right-
hand inside of my keyboard, again mainly
| | 01:42 | over the Shift and the Alt and the
Ctrl keys on Windows or Shift, Option and
| | 01:47 | Command when I'm using a Mac.
| | 01:50 | As a few exercises what you might want
to do is close your eyes and press the
| | 01:53 | Command key and close your eyes and
press Option key and the Shift key and try
| | 01:56 | to do this a few times that you're
completely confident with these tools.
| | 02:00 | Once you do that you will be able to
focus much more on the artwork that you're
| | 02:04 | creating than worrying about how to
actually choose the tools to make it happen.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Mastering the transform tools| 00:00 | In addition to becoming familiar with
the modifier keys inside of Illustrator,
| | 00:04 | you also have to really be efficient
with using the Transformation tools that
| | 00:09 | Illustrator has, namely the Scale tool,
the Rotate tool and the Reflect tool,
| | 00:16 | we'll start by using the Rotate tool.
| | 00:18 | So I'm going to first start by drawing
a shape. I am going to take a rectangle
| | 00:21 | maybe click and drag and make a nice
long rectangle over here and now maybe I
| | 00:25 | want to rotate this.
| | 00:27 | So if I now press R on my keyboard
which will activate now the Rotate tool, you
| | 00:31 | can see there right now in the center
of my screen it's a little bit of a crosshair
| | 00:35 | right on the center point of my object.
| | 00:38 | That crosshair is what would we refer
to as the origin point that means that
| | 00:42 | that is where the
transformation is going to take place from.
| | 00:45 | Imagine if right now I have this
rectangle and I kind a nail it to a board
| | 00:50 | right through the middle.
| | 00:51 | Now if I try to rotate it I can rotate
it around that nail, but that middle area
| | 00:56 | can't move. So let's imagine for right
now that the object is locked on this one
| | 01:00 | point. What I want to do when I want to
actually rotate this. I want to move my
| | 01:04 | cursor as far away from that point as I
can, which will give me more leverage on
| | 01:09 | how I can actually adjust that shape.
| | 01:11 | So for example I don't need to
actually grab any of the other parts of the
| | 01:15 | object here. I am going to move my
cursor out to let's say right about this part
| | 01:18 | and if I click now and drag in one
motion, you can see that my rectangle is
| | 01:22 | rotating around that origin point.
| | 01:25 | But I have a lot of control as I'm
rotating this because my cursor is far away
| | 01:30 | from that origin point.
| | 01:31 | Let me actually press Undo for a second.
| | 01:34 | We can always move or adjust the origin
point and there are two ways to do that.
| | 01:39 | I can take the actual point itself and
click on it and drag it to reposition it
| | 01:43 | elsewhere and by the way that point
will snap to other anchor points here or
| | 01:46 | paths inside of Illustrator and
that's because my smart guide is turned on.
| | 01:51 | So if I go over here and I snap it to
this corner, now when I move my cursor out
| | 01:55 | of here and I click and drag it
is rotating around that point.
| | 01:58 | So again it's really important that I
can get completely different results by
| | 02:01 | simply repositioning my origin point.
| | 02:04 | Now another way for me to redefine
the origin point to just simply click
| | 02:08 | once with the mouse.
| | 02:09 | So if I go over here and I click and
release, you can see that now the origin
| | 02:13 | point is over here. Realize right
now that the origin point is not even
| | 02:17 | touching the object at all.
| | 02:19 | However, if I come let's say right
about over here and I start to click and
| | 02:22 | drag, I'm rotating the
object around that origin point.
| | 02:26 | Let me delete this shape.
| | 02:28 | Let me create some other shape. For
example let's do a star and I am going to
| | 02:32 | drag a star right about over here,
maybe decrease the radius over here, so I
| | 02:38 | have a nice little star and I
want to make this larger now.
| | 02:41 | So what I'm going to do is I'm going to
press the S key to activate my Scale tool.
| | 02:44 | Notice that right now the origin
point in the center of that star, so if I
| | 02:48 | move my cursor and I start to click
and drag outwards, I'm scaling the start
| | 02:53 | out from its center.
| | 02:54 | Now if I want to reduce it in size,
but I want to reducing in the size from a
| | 02:58 | specific point, I can actually click
once here to set my origin point for
| | 03:02 | example at the top part of the star
and now if I move my cursor down here and
| | 03:05 | then Shift+Drag this way, I
can now scale it to that point.
| | 03:10 | I've grabbed it basically right from
the bottom here. I'm kind of distorting in
| | 03:13 | this way, but if I press Undo and I grab it
let's say the outer edge here and go downwards,
| | 03:18 | now because I'm kind dragging
diagonally I'm getting that proportional scale as
| | 03:22 | I go towards that origin point.
| | 03:24 | Remember the O key on your keyboard is
a shortcut for the Reflect tool and if I
| | 03:29 | set my origin point let's
say right about over here--
| | 03:31 | So notice it's not touching the object,
but now I click and drag I can reflect
| | 03:36 | the tool exactly this way. The smart
guide thumbnail right now is saying it's lined up this
| | 03:40 | way, but I can also hold down
the Shift key to do this as well.
| | 03:44 | But by the way whenever you
reflecting something, nine times out of ten,
| | 03:47 | you don't want to reflect the actual object;
you want to reflect a copy of that object.
| | 03:52 | So you'll not only need to hold down
the Shift key to get a perfectly aligned,
| | 03:55 | you'll also need to make sure that the
Alt key or the Option key is also being
| | 04:00 | pressed while you doing this function.
| | 04:02 | Notice by the way that if I release that
Option key right now, my cursor has just
| | 04:06 | one arrow, but if I hold on the Option
key I now see a double arrow as my cursor.
| | 04:10 | That indicates to me that Illustrator
is now making that copy of that. If I
| | 04:15 | release the mouse and then release the
keys on my keyboard I now see that I was
| | 04:19 | able to reflect the star, but I
reflected a copy of it not the original one.
| | 04:23 | So we'll see this more as we start to
draw shapes inside of Illustrator, but
| | 04:27 | we really need to pay attention to
how that origin point works and also to
| | 04:30 | make sure that we're clicking and
dragging from a point that's far enough away
| | 04:34 | from that origin point
| | 04:35 | in order to give us enough
leverage to move that piece of artwork.
| | 04:37 | Let's see how we do that right now.
| | 04:39 | I am going to take these two
shapes and just delete them.
| | 04:41 | And let's say we want to create the
stripes over here and I want to use maybe an
| | 04:46 | oval or an ellipse to
actually create that shape.
| | 04:48 | So I'm going to start over here by
taking my Ellipse tool. Again I can use the L
| | 04:52 | key which is the keyboard shortcut
for that. If I draw let's say an ellipse
| | 04:56 | right over here and you can't see this
lower portion of it kind of matches what
| | 05:00 | I trying to get over here.
| | 05:01 | So what I'd like to do is somehow match
a circle or an oval to kind of come to
| | 05:05 | this part over here. You know, kind
of imagine where that oval will be and
| | 05:09 | anticipate where the center that oval might be.
| | 05:11 | So maybe it's like somewhere over and
if I'm wrong, again we can always adjust
| | 05:14 | things as we're drawing, so don't worry about it.
| | 05:16 | I am going to click and hold down the
Option key, so I'm drawing out from the center.
| | 05:21 | And now as you see I kind of move it
here, look at that. I get a shape that kind
| | 05:24 | of matches exactly what I'm trying to do,
which is this curve right over here.
| | 05:28 | Let's zoom in a little bit closer here
on this area and I can see that I now
| | 05:32 | have a shape that kind of matches this
part right here and the instead of me
| | 05:35 | drawing now the second circle,
| | 05:37 | what I can do is I can hit
the R key for my Rotate tool,
| | 05:41 | click over here because I want the origin of
my rotation to happen at this point right here,
| | 05:46 | and now what I'll do is I'll move my
cursor away from that origin point then
| | 05:49 | I'll click and drag and you see now how
I'm rotating the circle? But I also want
| | 05:53 | to hold down the Option key, because I
want to rotate a copy of my circle and
| | 05:57 | now what I've done is I've created
this part of the curve that I'll need and
| | 06:01 | also this part of the curve that I'll need.
| | 06:03 | Later when we start learning how to
use Pathfinder or even the Shape Builder
| | 06:07 | tool inside of Illustrator, I'm going
to now take these paths that I've created
| | 06:11 | and combine them or subtract them to
get at the final stripe, but for now
| | 06:16 | instead of me struggling with trying to
draw that kind of a curve I've used the
| | 06:19 | simple oval shape and I've made a copy of it to
create the paths just the way that I need them.
| | 06:26 | This is the experience that we're
looking for inside of Illustrator when we talk
| | 06:28 | about drawing without the Pen tool.
| | 06:30 | I get very clean precise paths and I
draw them much more quickly than I would if
| | 06:35 | I had to use the Pen tool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating curves with the Reshape tool| 00:00 | In the previous movie we saw how we can
take some basic shapes like ellipses and
| | 00:05 | by simply rotating them or resizing
them in a certain way we can actually get
| | 00:10 | the curves that we need to create some artwork.
| | 00:13 | However, not every curve that I need
for my artwork is going to be able to
| | 00:16 | reproduced using some of these basic shapes.
| | 00:19 | Sometimes I need to create more complex curves.
| | 00:22 | Let's take a closer look at Mister
Zee here in this file. It's called Sketch3.
| | 00:26 | If I zoom in over here, you can see
that I started to create ellipses, so I
| | 00:30 | start creating some of the stripes
in the bottom of his belly over here.
| | 00:33 | But I also have to create this
line across the bottom here like this.
| | 00:37 | Now it doesn't really match perfectly
just because the nuance is the way that it
| | 00:40 | is that I would be able to use
maybe an oval shape to draw that.
| | 00:44 | So I want to create a curve in another
way and then if we take a look at some of
| | 00:47 | the other curves here on the body, like
for example, this part of the leg. This
| | 00:51 | is a curve that starts in one
direction and then comes back in another.
| | 00:54 | So there is certainly no way that I can
use any of the primitive shapes inside
| | 00:57 | of Illustrator to make that happen.
| | 00:58 | In fact, if I zoom out just a little bit,
let's take a look at the entire back
| | 01:02 | of the body here, from the neck all
the way back here down to the tail.
| | 01:06 | That's also a shape that's
a little bit more complex.
| | 01:09 | So let's focus on ways so we can
actually draw these kinds of shapes inside of
| | 01:12 | Illustrator without using the Pen tool.
| | 01:15 | What's really interesting about
this technique I'm about to show you is
| | 01:17 | that we're actually going to be
drawing straight lines in the beginning to
| | 01:21 | create these curves.
| | 01:23 | So let's start with something basic which is
this bottom part here at the belly right here.
| | 01:27 | I am going to zoom just to this area right here.
| | 01:29 | I am going to start by taking my
regular Line tool here, my Line Segment tool,
| | 01:33 | I am going to start clicking where I
want the path to begin and I am going to
| | 01:37 | click and drag and come to here where I
want it to end and then release the mouse.
| | 01:41 | So I have now a straight line kind of
connecting where the start and the end
| | 01:46 | is going to be, and now I am going to use a
tool inside of Illustrator called the Reshape tool.
| | 01:51 | The Reshape tool actually has several
different functions that it can do inside
| | 01:55 | of Illustrator but perhaps one of the
most powerful ones is that you can use the
| | 01:59 | Reshape tool to convert a
straight path into a curved one.
| | 02:03 | Let's see how that works.
| | 02:05 | I am going to go over here to the
Scale tool. I am going to click and hold my
| | 02:08 | mouse button down and I will see
that the Reshape tool is down over here.
| | 02:12 | In fact, we are going to see that we
are going to use the Reshape tool so
| | 02:14 | often inside of Illustrator, we are
actually going to assign a keyboard shortcut to it.
| | 02:18 | We will do that towards the end of this movie.
| | 02:20 | But for now, I am going
to choose the Reshape tool.
| | 02:22 | I am going to click on one part of the
path, let's say right about over here.
| | 02:26 | Click and that's going to
add an anchor point here.
| | 02:29 | Again, forget about the fact there is an
anchor point there. Just note that it's
| | 02:32 | kind of point that I can drag from,
and if I click and drag downwards, I can
| | 02:37 | kind of move and adjust where this is
to match the curve I am trying to create.
| | 02:42 | Now in this example here, the curve
is just going in one direction, so it's
| | 02:46 | pretty easy and straightforward to do it.
| | 02:47 | Let's focus on some other shapes
that maybe a little bit more complex.
| | 02:51 | Let's move over here to the hind leg.
| | 02:53 | Let me zoom out just a drop here
and focus on this area right here.
| | 02:58 | Once again, I am going to take my
regular Line tool, I am going to click over
| | 03:01 | here at the top, and I am going to
drag down here to the bottom.
| | 03:05 | Now the feet over here is actually
going to be a separate shape, so I want the
| | 03:08 | curve to end right about over here.
| | 03:10 | So I now need to create a bend over
here in the path over here and then
| | 03:14 | back again this way.
| | 03:15 | So I am going to start off by going to
the Reshape tool. I am going to click
| | 03:19 | over here and then drag out this path to
match this kind of curve right about over here.
| | 03:24 | The Reshape tool actually allows you
to either move parts of the path if the
| | 03:28 | anchor points are selected or if you
have no anchor points selected, it only
| | 03:32 | moves a part of the path.
| | 03:35 | So if I were to switch now to my
Direct Selection tool and then click off to
| | 03:38 | that path, but just click on the path
itself right here, so I don't have any
| | 03:41 | anchor points selected. You see
how they are all filled white.
| | 03:44 | So right now if I take my Reshape tool
and I click now on this center part and
| | 03:49 | I drag it back, what I am doing
now is I am leaving this anchor point
| | 03:53 | stationary, this one is stationary and
this one is stationary, but I am just
| | 03:57 | moving the path back in over here.
| | 03:58 | My result now is a beautiful curve that goes
out here and then comes back again this way.
| | 04:04 | Let me zoom out just a bit here and we
can focus on this path that goes across
| | 04:07 | the top of the body.
| | 04:08 | Once again, I will switch to my Line
Segment tool and I will start right over
| | 04:12 | here, just click, drag all the way
across to here from where I want it to start
| | 04:17 | and where I want it to end.
| | 04:19 | Like I said, you want to be able to
use the Reshape tool a lot inside of
| | 04:21 | Illustrator but it doesn't have a
keyboard shortcut assigned to it by default.
| | 04:25 | So let's go ahead and do that now.
| | 04:26 | Let's make our life a
little bit easier for ourselves.
| | 04:28 | I am going to go to the Edit menu
and towards the bottom I am going to
| | 04:31 | choose keyboard Shortcuts.
| | 04:33 | Now you can see a list here of all my
tools. By the way the Illustrator also
| | 04:37 | lets you apply keyboard shortcuts to
menu commands, but we want to use the
| | 04:40 | Reshape tool, so I have here Tools
selected. So I am going to scroll down this
| | 04:44 | list over here until I find the
Reshape tool which is right here.
| | 04:48 | Again, notice now it does not have a
keyboard shortcut assigned to it, and I am
| | 04:51 | going to click right in this blank area
and I want to use the letter E because I
| | 04:55 | could think of the word reshape, so I
have that long E sound in there, so I am
| | 04:59 | going to use the E key as the
keyboard shortcut for the Reshape tool.
| | 05:04 | Now Illustrator already has the E
key assigned to another key called the
| | 05:07 | Free Transform tool.
| | 05:08 | However, we have a tremendous amount of
power, now that we know how to use the
| | 05:12 | Scale, the Rotate and the Reflect tool
by themselves, so we don't really need to
| | 05:17 | ever use the Free Transform tool.
| | 05:19 | I hardly ever use it at
all inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:21 | So now I am going to click OK and
you see it asked me to save this set.
| | 05:24 | I will give it a name. I will call this
one Drawing because that's my drawing
| | 05:27 | set of keyboard shortcuts.
| | 05:29 | Right now, I just created a line and I
now want to reshape that line, I am going
| | 05:33 | to hit the E key on my keyboard and
that brings me to the Reshape tool.
| | 05:37 | So now I can start by kind of
clicking over here and dragging out a line
| | 05:41 | right about over here.
| | 05:42 | Then I can click over here.
| | 05:44 | I just want to show you what happens if
you don't select just the path itself.
| | 05:47 | Notice now if I drag this and I move
this, the other anchor point over here
| | 05:51 | kind of moved down also.
| | 05:52 | It's not end of the world because I can
always just click on it and move it back
| | 05:55 | again, but I'm kind of doing like this
back-and-forth kind of motion which may
| | 05:59 | not be the most intuitive to work with.
| | 06:01 | So that's why many times what I'll do is
I will use the Direct Selection tool or
| | 06:05 | if that's the last tool that I have
used, right now I am clicking on the Direct
| | 06:09 | Selection tool, I can come back
to the Reshape tool and then simply
| | 06:12 | Command+Click off of the path, then
only click on this part of the path, so now
| | 06:17 | with the Reshape tool I am
only moving that part of the path.
| | 06:20 | Notice over here it looks kind of wonky.
| | 06:21 | I am not really perfect over here.
| | 06:23 | I am going to purposely leave the path
in this state over here because I'm going
| | 06:27 | to show you in the next movie that there
are other tools that we can use to help
| | 06:30 | smooth out these paths.
| | 06:32 | At this point you should now become
familiar with using the Reshape tool inside
| | 06:36 | of Illustrator. All you need to do is
start with a straight line and then simply
| | 06:40 | pull out the path to match the
curve that you're trying to create.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Smooth tool| 00:00 | In the previous movie, we saw how
we can use the Reshape tool inside of
| | 00:04 | Illustrator to turn straight
lines into beautiful curves.
| | 00:08 | However, sometimes we struggle with
getting our curves to look nice and clean.
| | 00:12 | In this movie, we are going to talk
about another tool inside of Illustrator
| | 00:15 | called the Smooth tool.
| | 00:16 | And this allows us to kind of paint
over paths and have those paths become
| | 00:21 | smooth curves as we do so.
| | 00:23 | So let's see how that works.
| | 00:24 | So I am going to kind of zoom in on Mister Zee
| | 00:25 | over here, on the back part of this
curve that we try to create before that
| | 00:29 | really doesn't look that smooth.
| | 00:31 | So zoom in just a little bit more over
here and kind of center it on my screen.
| | 00:34 | I am going to select the path,
underneath the Pencil tool. Right over here I see
| | 00:39 | and we are going to find the Smooth tool.
| | 00:41 | The Smooth tool basically works just
like the Pencil tool, meaning you click
| | 00:45 | and drag with it, but as you click
and drag over a path, Illustrator is now
| | 00:49 | going to go ahead and smooth that out.
| | 00:51 | Now it's important to realize that
smoothing does not mean making fewer anchor
| | 00:55 | points, sometimes when you make a
path more smooth Illustrator adds anchor
| | 01:00 | points, but again at this stage we don't
really care about anchor points at all.
| | 01:04 | So, kind of put that out of your mind,
and let's just focus on the actual shape
| | 01:08 | and smoothness of the path itself.
| | 01:10 | Now what I can do over here at this part
is simply kind of come over it and kind
| | 01:14 | of drag down, and we can see how
it's kind of smoothing out as I do so.
| | 01:17 | And if I push upwards over here, I also
have ways to kind of make sure that this
| | 01:21 | is going to start matching a curve.
| | 01:24 | Bring it down just a little bit more
and I can do a better job on kind of
| | 01:27 | bringing it in or pushing it outwards as well.
| | 01:30 | I can't be very precise with the Smooth
tool, but in many cases if I'm kind of
| | 01:35 | looking at a path and I just want to
smooth it out just a little bit, I can
| | 01:38 | start to use the Smooth tool to allow
me to take things that don't look so fine
| | 01:43 | or clean and kind of even
that out just a little bit.
| | 01:46 | When you're using a tool like the
Smooth tool and you are using the mouse, it's
| | 01:49 | kind of hard to do these
brush motions with the mouse.
| | 01:53 | And if you do have a pen tablet like a
Wacom tablet for example, kind of doing
| | 01:57 | it with the pen is a much more natural
motion and that you will find it easier
| | 02:01 | to control the Smooth tool.
| | 02:02 | In fact, that's why the Smooth tool and
the Pencil tool kind of work hand-in-hand.
| | 02:07 | But I'll also tell you that there are
another other uses for the Smooth tool.
| | 02:10 | In fact, if we kind of come down over
here to let's say the foot part of Mister Zee.
| | 02:14 | Let's kind of focus maybe
on this section right over here.
| | 02:17 | And I can actually start by creating
this by using a plain rectangle, and then
| | 02:21 | modifying it with various other tools.
| | 02:23 | I am going to start by selecting the
Rectangle tool and I am just going to click
| | 02:27 | and drag over here to make a rectangle
about this big, and I am going to hit the
| | 02:31 | R key to rotate it, set my origin point
here, and kind of rotate it down just a
| | 02:35 | little bit on an angle like this.
| | 02:36 | I am going to switch to my Direct
Selection tool here, deselect the path, and
| | 02:40 | only select just this top path over here,
because I can now use my Reshape tool
| | 02:45 | to click and drag and kind of bend
that curve down right over there.
| | 02:49 | But I still have like these rounded
parts in the bottom that I want to work with.
| | 02:52 | So I am now going to switch to my Smooth tool.
| | 02:54 | I am going to use the Smooth tool. You
can actually click and drag over a corner
| | 02:58 | and as you kind of mouse over the
corner and adjust it you see how it kind of
| | 03:01 | turns now into a curve.
| | 03:04 | And I can do the same down over here also.
| | 03:05 | So, now I am creating the bottom
parts of the shape that I want.
| | 03:10 | Now, of course, when I am using the
Smooth tool, because I don't have that much
| | 03:12 | control over my path, I may end up with
little wonky areas like this, but I can
| | 03:16 | of course use the Reshape tool to
bend that back to where it belongs.
| | 03:20 | But for now, I have the ability to use
my Smooth tool, not only to take existing
| | 03:25 | curves and kind of smooth them out like
we did at the top of the body, but I can
| | 03:29 | even take a regular rectangle and have
it have nice rounded corners to match to
| | 03:33 | shape that I going for.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Simplify to create smooth paths| 00:00 | So we know that we can use the Smooth
tool inside of Illustrator to kind of
| | 00:03 | paint or draw over a path
to kind of smooth it out.
| | 00:07 | However, like we said before also
it's not really the most efficient way if
| | 00:10 | you have a mouse and it can sometimes
introduce additional anchor points to your path.
| | 00:15 | Well, let's talk about a different method on
actually how we might be able to smooth paths.
| | 00:20 | More importantly, a way to smooth
paths and also reduce the number of
| | 00:24 | anchor points in your artwork, so that it's
more simple and easier to edit in the future.
| | 00:28 | There is a command inside of
Illustrator called Simply. Its main goal is to
| | 00:32 | take a path that has a lot of anchor
points and usually extraneous anchor
| | 00:36 | points, and reduce the number of
anchor points so the path will be more
| | 00:40 | simplified and will print faster.
| | 00:42 | However, when you sometimes reduce
the anchor points, you also need to kind
| | 00:47 | of smooth out the path, and simplify
actually works great for this kind of technique.
| | 00:52 | Let me zoom in over here on this file
here. It's called Sketch5.ai, and I am
| | 00:57 | going to zoom in right here on this
part of the back file and select this path.
| | 01:01 | Next, I am going to go over here to
the Object menu and I'll choose Path and
| | 01:05 | then I will choose Simplify.
| | 01:06 | Now, I am going to move over the
dialog here so we can actually see what's
| | 01:09 | happening to the path as
we apply these settings.
| | 01:12 | When I click on the Preview button and
you can see that Illustrator before the
| | 01:15 | path had 5 points. Now Illustrator
made it to only have 3 points.
| | 01:20 | So it reduced the number of anchor
points and it also made a really nice smooth
| | 01:23 | curve along the path itself.
| | 01:26 | We can adjust this Curve
Precision for our specific needs.
| | 01:30 | But I will tell you that I usually when
I am working inside of Illustrator use
| | 01:33 | two different settings. I use a Curve
Precision at 50% like I have here, when I
| | 01:38 | want to make large
wholesale adjustments to a path.
| | 01:41 | However, sometimes if I get a path
pretty close to where I want it to be, I just
| | 01:45 | want to clean up some extra anchor
points, I will use a Curve Precision of 95%.
| | 01:48 | I am going to give you
another example of that also.
| | 01:50 | I am going to click OK in this case,
and I have now a nice smooth path.
| | 01:54 | But let's take a look at this shape
that we created earlier for the hind leg.
| | 01:58 | If I click on this right now, it
looks pretty smooth, but it still has some
| | 02:02 | extra anchor points they
really don't need to be there.
| | 02:05 | And on top of that, I really want to make
sure that it's a smooth as it can be possibly be.
| | 02:09 | So I am going to go back to the Object
menu, choose Path, then I'll choose Simplify.
| | 02:15 | But this time I am going to use a
value of 95%, and you notice again we have
| | 02:19 | reduced the number of anchor points
and if I click OK, I'll see that it also
| | 02:23 | kind of really smoothed out the
path and gives me a beautiful result.
| | 02:27 | So I find that sometimes working
inside of Illustrator, when use the Reshape
| | 02:31 | tool, it does sometimes add extra
anchor points but I don't care, because I can
| | 02:35 | use the Simplify command very easily to
not only reduce the anchor points, but
| | 02:40 | to also get a really nice smooth result.
| | 02:42 | Of course, you could be asking yourself,
well I am going to be drawing a lot of
| | 02:45 | paths, I don't want to have to
constantly be drawing the path, bending the path
| | 02:50 | and then applying another
Simplify command on top of that.
| | 02:53 | Well, in the next movie we will explore
some ways to make you little bit easier
| | 02:57 | and faster to apply these
simplify functions to our paths.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recording an action for the Simplify command| 00:00 | So we saw in the previous movie that
I was able to use the Simplify command
| | 00:05 | to not only make my path little bit
more smoother, but also reduce any
| | 00:08 | extraneous anchor points.
| | 00:10 | Now, I am going to want to be able to
apply that quite often as I am drawing
| | 00:13 | inside of Illustrator, but I don't
always one have to go up to the menu,
| | 00:17 | choose Object, Path, Simplify, down to the
number that I want to work with and then apply it.
| | 00:22 | So what I'd like to do is make that feature
more accessible to me by turning it into an action.
| | 00:27 | I found that at least in the drawing
work that I've done, I usually use two
| | 00:30 | values when I apply a Simplify command.
| | 00:33 | I will use the value of 95% for small
adjustments, and then I will use a value
| | 00:38 | of 50% for larger adjustments.
| | 00:40 | So let's go ahead now and create an
action to allow us to quickly apply these
| | 00:44 | Simplify commands as we are drawing.
| | 00:46 | The first thing I am going to need
though is I am going to need some kind of
| | 00:49 | path selected, so that I can
now apply that Simplify command.
| | 00:53 | So I am just going to take the regular
Line tool here and click and drag and
| | 00:56 | draw a line that have a selection.
Really doesn't makes a difference what the path
| | 00:59 | is. We're soon going to delete it anyway.
| | 01:02 | Next, I am going to go to the Window menu.
| | 01:03 | I am going to choose open up my Actions panel.
| | 01:06 | Now Illustrator ships with a whole bunch of
default actions in a separate folder over here.
| | 01:10 | But I am going to create now a
separate folder for Actions specific to ones
| | 01:14 | that I will use for drawing.
| | 01:15 | So I am going to go down here to the
bottom of the Actions panel. I am going to
| | 01:18 | click on the little folder icon right here.
| | 01:20 | I am going to create a new
set of actions called Drawing.
| | 01:23 | Now again, you may decide that in the
future you may have other actions that
| | 01:26 | you want to record specifically for
drawing so you might want to organize them
| | 01:29 | into this set as well.
| | 01:31 | But for now I am going to click OK and
I've created now a new set called Drawing.
| | 01:35 | Now I'm ready to actually record an action.
| | 01:37 | I will start that by coming to the
bottom of the Actions panel and I will click
| | 01:40 | on this button here that says Create New Action.
| | 01:43 | When I do so, I am going to have the
ability to name my actions. I am going to
| | 01:46 | call this one Simplify A Lot.
| | 01:48 | I am going to leave it in the drawing
set. If I want I could apply a keyboard
| | 01:53 | shortcut or like function key like
maybe F2 for example and add the Shift key.
| | 01:57 | But I am actually going to turn my
actions into what's called the button mode,
| | 02:01 | so I can quickly apply
them directly from the screen.
| | 02:03 | So for now, I'm not going
to apply a keyboard shortcut.
| | 02:07 | In addition, I am going to give it a
color so that it can be easily found when I
| | 02:11 | am trying to look at it inside of the panel.
| | 02:13 | So I am going to click Record and now
Illustrator is watching what settings I am doing.
| | 02:17 | So I am going up to the Object menu,
I want to choose Path, and then I
| | 02:21 | will choose Simplify.
| | 02:22 | I am going to choose a large value now,
50%, because this is going to be the
| | 02:27 | settings that I want to use when I want
to make a large adjustment, so I want to
| | 02:30 | use a value here a 50%.
| | 02:32 | I am going to leave my Angle
Threshold set to 0, because I am going to be
| | 02:36 | dealing strictly here with the smooth path.
| | 02:38 | I don't have any corners in here anyway.
| | 02:40 | And I obviously do not want to use
straight lines and I don't really care to
| | 02:43 | see the original because when I apply
this as an action, it's just simply going
| | 02:46 | to happen instantly.
| | 02:47 | So when I click OK and notice that
Illustrator now recorded that, and I'm now
| | 02:51 | going to stop the recording.
| | 02:53 | So I've created my first action right
now and what I does like to do is create
| | 02:57 | another version of Simplify which
doesn't do such a radical change.
| | 03:01 | So, I am going to go back over
here and create a new action.
| | 03:04 | Let's start by clicking on
the Create New Action button.
| | 03:06 | Let's call this one Simplify A Little.
| | 03:09 | I will leave it in the Drawing Set here.
| | 03:12 | Again I won't apply keyboard shortcut
but I will give it a yellow color, so I
| | 03:15 | can quickly find it and I will click Record.
| | 03:18 | Now go back to the Object menu.
I will choose Path > Simplify.
| | 03:23 | This time I will dial in a value of
95%, just a small amount, click OK, and
| | 03:28 | notice that, that was recorded and
once again I will now stop the recording.
| | 03:31 | So now, I've created the actions
that I need inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:36 | I am actually going to come here. I
am going to deselect all my actions by
| | 03:39 | clicking at the bottom here.
| | 03:40 | I want to go to the flyout menu of the
Actions panel and turn on Button Mode.
| | 03:44 | This shows the all of my actions right
now as buttons, meaning I just click on
| | 03:49 | them once to apply them.
| | 03:50 | If I scroll to the bottom I see that I
have Simplify A Lot and Simplify A Little.
| | 03:54 | You may also go through a lot of these
and realize you will never use these and
| | 03:58 | in such a case you may want to delete
them just that you will have an easier
| | 04:01 | time navigating through this Actions panel.
| | 04:03 | So now let's see how I might use
this Inside of the Illustrator.
| | 04:05 | Let me go here and actually select this
path and delete it because I don't need it.
| | 04:09 | But let's zoom in a little bit more on Mister
| | 04:10 | Zee right over here and let's
focus on this path right over here.
| | 04:14 | We know that this is a large path, I
need to make a large adjustment on this one.
| | 04:18 | I want to simplify this one a lot, so
now that it's selected I will simply come
| | 04:21 | here and click on Simplify A Lot.
| | 04:23 | Notice now my path becomes
nice and clean and smooth.
| | 04:26 | Now for this shape right over here, I
just want to simplify it a little bit.
| | 04:30 | So I click over here and say Simplify A Little.
| | 04:32 | And that's loosed out
the path just a little bit.
| | 04:34 | By the way, there is nothing that
prevents you from just applying several
| | 04:38 | simplify commands on the same path.
| | 04:40 | So you may find a path that requires
just a little bit more work. You can click
| | 04:44 | on it and click on the Simplify A
Little action maybe two or three times and
| | 04:48 | see how it smoothes itself out.
| | 04:50 | But you can see how now, I can take
those simplify commands and use them as
| | 04:55 | almost like an auto smooth, to make sure
the paths that I create look wonderful,
| | 05:00 | clean, and professional.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Mirroring art for speed and accuracy| 00:00 | Earlier in this chapter, we spoke about
different kinds of transformations and
| | 00:04 | how they can help us work inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:07 | Well, let's focus on one technique
specifically which is actually reflecting or
| | 00:11 | mirroring your artwork.
| | 00:13 | And this could be great because when
you are trying to get precise artwork done
| | 00:17 | and you have a shape that you can
actually just draw one-half of, it's much
| | 00:21 | easier to simply copy or duplicate
that other half to complete your drawing.
| | 00:25 | For example, let's look at Mister Zee's head
| | 00:26 | right here. You have two eyes,
you have ears, you have stripes that
| | 00:31 | are on one side of his face, you have nostril,
right, you have the actual shape of his head.
| | 00:36 | So if we just draw one side of his head,
we can do half the work and then just
| | 00:41 | simply flip the other side and create
a mirror effect and complete the face.
| | 00:46 | So not only does it take us half the
time to draw the artwork, it also gives us
| | 00:50 | a much more precise version of artwork as well.
| | 00:53 | Now in the case the head here, let me share
one other thing, because you can see that Mister
| | 00:56 | Z is kind of leaning his head a
little bit side ways, and when we're using
| | 01:01 | Illustrator, we want to be able to use
basic tools and we want to be able to
| | 01:05 | constrain them very easily, so it could
be hard to draw the things on an angle.
| | 01:08 | Many times, I may find that I'll
actually take my sketch and I'll rotate
| | 01:12 | the sketch a little bit, so that I
can have an easier time drawing it
| | 01:15 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:16 | For example, on this file right here
I'm simply going to unlock my Sketch layer,
| | 01:21 | which will allow me to actually
click and select the image itself.
| | 01:24 | I'm going to zoom in just a little bit
more here towards his head and I'm going
| | 01:28 | to use the Rotate tool. I'm going to
press the R key on my keyboard and I want
| | 01:32 | to define an origin point.
| | 01:33 | Lets' say right at the top of
his head, right about over here.
| | 01:36 | That's going to be the point that
where just image is going to rotate around.
| | 01:39 | Next, I am going to grab the bottom
right here of his face, let's say this point
| | 01:43 | right here, and click and drag, and then
I'm going to rotate my cursor this way.
| | 01:47 | Notice over here that I now
straightened out his head a little bit so that when
| | 01:50 | I'm drawing I have an easier time to match that.
| | 01:53 | I may either copy it and paste this
into a different file or I may create a
| | 01:58 | separate artboard in this document and
maybe make his head in one location and
| | 02:01 | his body in other location and then
bring them together when I'm done, or I may
| | 02:05 | just do this just by using different
layers inside of Illustrator as well.
| | 02:09 | But now that I've made this rotation I
can go back and relock the Sketch layer,
| | 02:13 | and if I turn on the Artwork layer you
can see that I have already created one
| | 02:16 | half of his face right here.
| | 02:17 | So I've used the tools like the Arc
tool for example, and I've used other
| | 02:22 | tools that we had discussed until now to draw
the existing shapes that you see right here.
| | 02:27 | And notice that I've only
drawn one side of his face.
| | 02:30 | I now want to flip this to
now create the complete face.
| | 02:34 | So what I'll do is I'll take my regular
Selection tool and I'll select all this artwork.
| | 02:39 | And just as it is easier to see
what's happening here let's actually hide
| | 02:43 | from view the Sketch layer, so we can just
see the artwork that we're dealing with here.
| | 02:46 | The next thing I am going to do is I am
going to switch to my Reflect tool which
| | 02:49 | is the O key on my keyboard,
and I need to set my origin point.
| | 02:53 | I have to tell Illustrator where I want
this point to reflect from. By default
| | 02:58 | my origin point is in the center and
that's not going to make any sense at all.
| | 03:01 | So what I want to do is I want to find
the actual far edge of the artwork which
| | 03:06 | is going to be let's say right over here.
| | 03:08 | So I'm going to click on this anchor
point and now I'm going to move my cursor
| | 03:12 | about over here and I'm going to start dragging.
| | 03:14 | I can hold down my Shift key so this
way I know that I'm constraining it to
| | 03:18 | basically snap to angles that I need,
and I'm also going to hold down the Option
| | 03:22 | key because I don't want to just flip
it on its own because that will just
| | 03:26 | create the other half but
I'll lose the original half.
| | 03:28 | By holding down the Option key or if
again you're on Windows that will be
| | 03:31 | the Alt key, you can see I now have a double
cursor so I'm flipping a copy of my artwork.
| | 03:36 | Now I'm going to release the mouse and
then I'm going to release the keys of my
| | 03:39 | keyboard and now if I deselect, you
can see that I've now created all the
| | 03:43 | elements I need for the face.
It's perfectly symmetrical.
| | 03:46 | It took me half the time
to do it and it looks great.
| | 03:49 | Let's turn this Sketch layer back on
and now we can see how easy it is to use the
| | 03:53 | Reflect tool inside of illustrator to
not only save time but to create extremely
| | 03:57 | precise artwork as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Pathfinder: Drawing with MathDeconstructing the Pathfinder panel| 00:00 | We have already discussed this
concept called building artwork inside of
| | 00:04 | Illustrator and in reality this whole
concept of building artwork began when a
| | 00:08 | certain function was added to
Illustrator called Pathfinder.
| | 00:12 | Pathfinder was added way back in like
Illustrator 5 or 6, in that timeframe, and
| | 00:17 | when it first was added to
Illustrator, it was actually available as some
| | 00:20 | commands, available from a menu.
| | 00:22 | However, in time it was turned into
its own panel, which you can find by
| | 00:26 | going to the Window menu and now
scrolling down to the bottom here and
| | 00:29 | choosing Pathfinder.
| | 00:31 | So let's actually take a closer
look at the Pathfinder panel itself.
| | 00:34 | Let me drag it out over here onto the
artboard so we can focus on this a little bit more.
| | 00:37 | You will notice that off the bat the
Pathfinder panel is kind of split up into
| | 00:41 | two sections: something called Shape
Modes and something called Pathfinders.
| | 00:47 | Now again, this kind of happened
when Illustrator 10 came out because we
| | 00:51 | are going to discuss the differences between
something called Shape Modes and Pathfinders.
| | 00:55 | But most people refer to all the
functions found inside the Pathfinder panel as
| | 00:59 | Pathfinder functions.
| | 01:00 | In fact because people use these
functions in so many different ways, Adobe has
| | 01:05 | actually changed the behavior
with some of these things over time.
| | 01:08 | For example, as we discussed before
Pathfinders originally were available inside
| | 01:12 | of menus then they were turned into a
panel but they were all just performing
| | 01:16 | the same types of functions, basically
mathematical functions where you can add
| | 01:20 | and subtract multiple objects to
arrive at more complex objects.
| | 01:24 | But then in Illustrator 10 Adobe
kind of split these into two different
| | 01:27 | categories, something called Shape Modes
and Pathfinders, and they set it out in a
| | 01:31 | certain way, which they then
reversed when Illustrator CS4 came out.
| | 01:35 | Now that we find themselves inside of
Illustrator CS5, we can kind of take a
| | 01:39 | step back and understand the behavior of
these tools as they progressed over the years.
| | 01:44 | So in this chapter we are going to
learn all about drawing with math, how to
| | 01:48 | make all these Pathfinder options, both
Shape Modes and Pathfinders, work for us
| | 01:52 | and help us build the
art that we want to create.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Shape Modes functions| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to
specifically focus on these top four functions
| | 00:04 | here at the top part of the Pathfinder panel,
| | 00:07 | under this section
header called the Shape Modes.
| | 00:10 | In reality, what we are going to
discuss in this movie are not going to be
| | 00:13 | Shape Modes at all.
| | 00:15 | That's something we are actually
going to the discuss little bit later
| | 00:17 | inside this chapter.
| | 00:18 | But for now let's focus on what
these four buttons here actually do.
| | 00:22 | As I have said before, the whole
concept of Pathfinder is drawing with
| | 00:27 | math, meaning we take very basic
shapes and that we combine those shapes
| | 00:32 | using mathematical functions like
Add, Subtract and something called
| | 00:36 | Intersect and Exclude.
| | 00:38 | In fact, these have some different
words that also describe their use, for
| | 00:43 | example, instead of add, we could also
say the word Unite, meaning it brings
| | 00:48 | multiple objects together or we could
say Minus Front, meaning take the front
| | 00:53 | object and subtract it from the bottom object.
| | 00:56 | In fact, when we mouse over these
buttons right here we can see little tooltip
| | 00:59 | will pop-up and this one we will say it Unite.
| | 01:02 | But then it says use Option+Click to create
a compound shape and add to the shape area.
| | 01:07 | Again, we are going to focus on that
specific functionality a little bit later
| | 01:11 | inside of this chapter, but for now
let's just focus on Unite, Minus Front,
| | 01:16 | Intersect and Exclude.
| | 01:19 | So let's see what these four options
do and then we will actually apply it to
| | 01:22 | some of the artwork that
we've already drawn here for Mister Zee.
| | 01:25 | Now I am going to focus on these two
circles here. I am working on this file
| | 01:28 | called stripes.ai and I have two very
basic circles here. They both have a black
| | 01:33 | stroke on them. One is filled yellow
and one is filled red and the circle that
| | 01:37 | has the red fill is currently at the top
of the stacking order and again this is
| | 01:41 | going to be important as we discussed
exactly what each of the Shape Modes or
| | 01:44 | these Pathfinder functions do.
| | 01:46 | So I am going to start off by first
selecting artwork, because in order for any
| | 01:50 | of these pathfinders to work you must
first make a selection to let Illustrator
| | 01:54 | know, which pieces of art you want to
include in this mathematical function.
| | 01:59 | So I am going to select these two
circles here and it's important to note at
| | 02:03 | this point here that there are
sometimes when we can apply math to multiple
| | 02:07 | objects, but some of these
mathematical functions only work when you have
| | 02:11 | two objects selected.
| | 02:13 | So right now, I have just two circles
selected, but if I had maybe four or five
| | 02:17 | I would be able to apply
some of these functions.
| | 02:19 | And I am going to take a look right now
at this first option here called Unite.
| | 02:23 | And as we discussed Unite or Add takes
all the objects that I currently have
| | 02:28 | selected and unites them or adds them
to each other, so they now result in
| | 02:32 | one unified object.
| | 02:34 | Now, before I do this let's first with
look at the artwork that we are faced with.
| | 02:37 | I have two circles. Both have the same
weight of a black stroke and also both of
| | 02:42 | them have fill but they
have different fill colors.
| | 02:45 | So if I were to now combine this into
one new shape, I can have a single shape
| | 02:50 | that has two different fills
taking up different portions of it.
| | 02:53 | We already know that we do have the
ability using appearances to have multiple
| | 02:57 | fills in a single object, but those fills
are always taking up the entire area of the
| | 03:02 | object and are stacked on
top of each other in a Z order.
| | 03:05 | However, I can have maybe one half of
the object with one fill and one half of
| | 03:09 | the object with a different fill.
Which would be the case here because I can
| | 03:13 | see both yellow and red.
| | 03:14 | So when I combine these, something
is going to have to happen with the
| | 03:18 | attributes that are applied to this shape.
| | 03:20 | We will find out that when we actually
started working with different Pathfinder
| | 03:24 | functions or different shape modes,
that depending on the stacking order and
| | 03:27 | depending on a function that I
choose, I will see different behavior.
| | 03:32 | But now let's focus on just
this one here called Unite.
| | 03:35 | I am going to click on Unite and you
will see that right now I have a single
| | 03:39 | red object, so and now the yellow is
gone, but instead of having two circles I
| | 03:44 | now have one path that's been fused together to
give me the total area of those objects together.
| | 03:50 | Now, the reason why it's colored red is
because when I had my objects selected,
| | 03:55 | the red circle was at the
top of my stacking order.
| | 03:58 | So whenever I apply the Add or the
Unite shape mode inside of Illustrator,
| | 04:03 | Illustrator will take the topmost
object and use that object to style the rest
| | 04:08 | of the objects when it unites them altogether.
| | 04:10 | You press Undo for a moment here.
| | 04:12 | Let's focus on the next one here
called Minus Front. Another term for this is
| | 04:17 | also going to be Subtract as we will see.
| | 04:19 | Now this is going to take my topmost
object, which right now is the red circle,
| | 04:24 | and it's going to remove any area
that overlaps it from the yellow circle
| | 04:28 | beneath it. In other words what I
really want to remain here in my artwork is
| | 04:32 | the yellow circle, not the red one.
I want to use the red circle to basically
| | 04:36 | chip away or subtract or remove any
parts of the circle that appear beneath it.
| | 04:41 | So in this case here, I really don't
care about the red color. I care a lot
| | 04:45 | about the yellow color because that's
the shape that I want to end up with.
| | 04:48 | So when I'm using Minus Front,
Illustrator will take the topmost object and by
| | 04:53 | the way, this is one of the functions
that would require me to have just two
| | 04:57 | object selected. I can't use this
when I had three objects selected.
| | 05:00 | But if I choose now Minus Front,
Illustrator will leave me with the yellow
| | 05:04 | circle which was the bottommost object
in my stacking order, but it got rid of
| | 05:09 | the red circle and it basically chopped
away the part of yellow circle that was
| | 05:13 | being covered by the red circle.
| | 05:15 | So that's what Minus Front does
when I'm working inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:19 | Once again let's press
Command+Z and let's with press Undo.
| | 05:21 | Let's take a look now at the remaining
two Shape Mode functions here called
| | 05:25 | Intersect and Exclude.
| | 05:28 | Now Intersect would allow me to
basically focus on just the areas were my
| | 05:33 | objects actually overlap each other.
| | 05:35 | So right now, I have two circles. The
circles overlap in this area right here.
| | 05:41 | Now again, the red circle is my
topmost object, so I would probably want my
| | 05:46 | object to stay red because I can
see that overlapping area right now.
| | 05:50 | So if I were to choose now this option
called Intersect I am going to get this
| | 05:54 | result, an object that right now no
longer has the yellow or the other red
| | 05:59 | parts, but I am left now with just the
center area where these two circles had
| | 06:03 | overlapped and it's colored red.
| | 06:05 | I am going to press Undo.
| | 06:06 | The exact reverse applies, when
I am using the Exclude option.
| | 06:10 | Exclude will leave me with
objects that are anything other than the
| | 06:15 | overlapping areas, meaning I care more
about the areas over here and over here
| | 06:19 | and I don't care about the area in
the center, but if I choose that option,
| | 06:23 | you'll notice now again that everything
turns red, which is similar to what we
| | 06:27 | had before when using the Add.
| | 06:29 | Basically, Illustrator will force all
the objects now that had the same fill and
| | 06:34 | it will take the topmost object and
use that fill as the fill for all other
| | 06:38 | objects that are created now, by
applying this Exclude Pathfinder function.
| | 06:43 | So now we have a better understanding
of what each of these Shape Modes do.
| | 06:47 | We have the Unite function, we have
the Subtract function of the Minus Front
| | 06:51 | function, we have the Intersect
function, and we have the Exclude function.
| | 06:56 | Now there is a button over here called
Expand, which is grayed out, but again
| | 06:59 | ignore that for now because we are
going to cover that later on this chapter.
| | 07:03 | But let's take a look now at applying
what we have just learned to some of the
| | 07:07 | artwork that we have been creating here for Mister Zee.
| | 07:09 | So I am going to come over here
for a minute, I am just going to zoom in
| | 07:12 | on this part of Mister Zee over here.
| | 07:14 | And we overlapped these oval shapes in
order to start creating the stripes for Mister Zee.
| | 07:18 | So let's see how we might just to start
use Pathfinder functions to get at the
| | 07:23 | final shapes that we want, because
right now, we have a whole bunch of
| | 07:25 | overlapping ovals and we don't have stripes.
| | 07:28 | Sure, when we created these ovals, we
knew that there were going to be parts of
| | 07:31 | these, in this case right over here
an area that would be a stripe and this
| | 07:35 | area that would be a stripe.
| | 07:36 | But let's see if we can start use
Pathfinder to start to build those actual
| | 07:41 | shapes that we are going to use.
| | 07:43 | Now remember, when we are using the
Pathfinder functions we need to first
| | 07:46 | select the artwork that we want to use.
| | 07:48 | So I am going to start by selecting
these two ovals right here, which are going
| | 07:52 | to make up this part of the stripe right here.
| | 07:55 | Now, what I really care about
is this area right over here.
| | 07:58 | So what I would want to use in this
point here is the Exclude function because
| | 08:03 | I don't care about the overlapping area.
I care about the parts where they don't overlap.
| | 08:07 | So I am going to choose over here
by the Shape Modes, to click on this
| | 08:11 | option called Exclude.
| | 08:12 | Now when I do that, it doesn't really
look like anything has happened, but let's
| | 08:16 | actually double-click on this to
isolate it. Remember this now has become a
| | 08:20 | group. This is actually
something to be aware of.
| | 08:23 | Whenever you apply a Pathfinder
function the results could be multiple shapes.
| | 08:27 | Illustrator will always
group those shapes together.
| | 08:30 | So whenever you apply a Pathfinder,
you are also going to find that those
| | 08:33 | objects are now grouped together.
| | 08:35 | Since we're aware of what groups can
do-- and again, this is something that
| | 08:38 | we covered in detail way back in Illustrator
Insider Training:: Rethinking the Essentials--
| | 08:44 | we know that we can now take advantage
of other things like applying appearances
| | 08:47 | to groups and using something called
Isolation mode which we did right here.
| | 08:51 | We just double-clicked on it and
now we are inside the group.
| | 08:54 | Now that I am inside the group I am
using my regular Selection tool here, I am
| | 08:57 | actually going to click and
drag to select this section.
| | 09:00 | And you will notice that the rest of
this part does not become selected because
| | 09:03 | when we applied that Exclude Pathfinder,
Illustrator kind of chopped this up
| | 09:07 | into three overlapping pieces.
| | 09:09 | So I am going to hit Delete now to
get rid of that object and I will select
| | 09:12 | this part here also and delete that and all
I am left with right now is just this part.
| | 09:17 | So we have gotten rid of the ovals,
at least the parts of the ovals that we
| | 09:20 | don't really care about, and all we
are left right now with something that's
| | 09:24 | looking a lot closer to what our final
shape is going to be which is the stripe for Mister Zee.
| | 09:27 | I am going to double-click
just do it exit Isolation mode.
| | 09:31 | I am going to select now
these two ovals right here.
| | 09:34 | I'm once again going to click Exclude.
| | 09:37 | Now I am going to double-click to
isolate this group and I will select this area
| | 09:41 | and delete it and I will select
this area and I will see that oh,
| | 09:44 | you know what, this area wasn't
overlapping at all. I actually only had a
| | 09:48 | result of two shapes here in this case
and I don't want to delete this because
| | 09:51 | I still need this and again a little bit
later we will see that we can easily
| | 09:54 | remove those parts.
| | 09:56 | But I'm just going to leave this right
now as it is. I am going to hit Escape,
| | 09:59 | another way to exit Isolation mode.
| | 10:01 | And then I am going to select these
two ovals and once again, instead of
| | 10:05 | clicking on this option over here
called Exclude, which can be quite tedious,
| | 10:09 | I'm going to use a keyboard shortcut.
It's actually something that's a little bit
| | 10:12 | difficult to find because you can only
see it inside of the fly-out menu of the
| | 10:17 | Pathfinder panel. It's called
Repeat Exclude or Repeat Pathfinder.
| | 10:22 | Now what's interesting is that
Illustrator doesn't tell me that there's a
| | 10:25 | keyboard shortcut for this, but there is.
| | 10:28 | In fact, let me show that to you. I am
going to go over here to the Edit menu.
| | 10:30 | I am going to scroll down to the
bottom where it says keyboard shortcuts.
| | 10:34 | Now right now, I am looking at
keyboard shortcuts for all the tools inside of
| | 10:37 | Illustrator, but I could also choose to
view and set all the keyboard shortcuts
| | 10:41 | for all the menu commands that
appear inside of Illustrator.
| | 10:44 | So I am going to scroll down here to
the bottom, where I see a section here
| | 10:47 | called Other Object.
| | 10:48 | Now these aren't menu commands that
are found up on top of here like File
| | 10:51 | and Edit and Object.
| | 10:53 | I am going to click over here on this
little triangle to reveal the settings and
| | 10:56 | I'll see keyboard shortcuts here
and one here called Repeat Pathfinder.
| | 11:01 | The keyboard shortcut of this is
Command+4, I am on a Mac, but if you are on
| | 11:04 | Windows that would be the Ctrl+4,
and if I click OK and I have these two
| | 11:09 | objects selected and I now press
Command+4 on my keyboard, it will now repeat
| | 11:13 | the last Pathfinder that
I did which was Exclude.
| | 11:16 | So now if I go ahead and I double-
click on this to isolate it and I select
| | 11:19 | this area, I can see right now that
this has been chopped up into pieces as
| | 11:23 | well and I could even select this
area and see that there are other
| | 11:26 | overlapping areas as well.
| | 11:28 | In fact, let's go ahead and click
over here and see that those are actually
| | 11:31 | their own shapes as well.
| | 11:32 | So now I am left with just the parts of
the stripes that I am really interested in.
| | 11:35 | So we were able to use Exclude in these
cases to narrow our objects down. I am
| | 11:40 | actually going to hit Escape to exit by
Isolation mode here. And I've gotten my
| | 11:43 | striped sections into something that's
far more manageable and it's a lot closer
| | 11:47 | to what I am eventually going to get to.
| | 11:49 | Now, there are also some other
pathfinders we will need to use in order to
| | 11:53 | complete our shapes here, but by using
the Exclude function, we have been able
| | 11:58 | to take those ovals and turn them into
some that looks a lot closer to the final
| | 12:02 | stripes we are going to use.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Pathfinder functions| 00:00 | In the previous movie, we discussed the
options that appear towards the top part
| | 00:04 | of the Pathfinder panel.
| | 00:06 | Under this section here called Shape
Modes, we discussed things like this Add or
| | 00:11 | Unite, this Subtract or Minus Front
and then we have Intersect and Exclude.
| | 00:17 | In this movie, we are going to focus
on the items that appear inside the
| | 00:20 | Pathfinder grouping, which are these
right here, this one is called Divide and
| | 00:25 | we have one here called Trim, Merge,
Crop and we have Outline and Minus Back.
| | 00:31 | So let's see what these do here.
| | 00:33 | Now, in order to better describe this,
I have created a just a little bit of a
| | 00:37 | different type of piece of artwork
here, which are two overlapping yellow
| | 00:40 | circles and then one red rectangle that
kind of appears across all these and you
| | 00:45 | have everything just a single black
stroke that has a way to four points.
| | 00:50 | So now let's see what happens when we
start applying these Pathfinder functions
| | 00:55 | to this shape right here or actually
the combination of these shapes right here
| | 00:58 | and then once we understand what each
of these do, we'll see how we can apply
| | 01:02 | these to again working with the
stripes here across the belly of Mister Zee.
| | 01:06 | Now once again, I am going to start by
first selecting the artwork, in order
| | 01:09 | for us to apply any Pathfinder, we
first had to select the artwork that we want
| | 01:14 | to have these functions applied to,
I am actually going to zoom in just a
| | 01:16 | little bit here, kind of focus on just
this area right now, so we can better
| | 01:20 | see what's going to happen.
| | 01:21 | I am going to start by clicking
on this one here called Divide.
| | 01:24 | As we are going to find out Divide is
something that we are going to use quite
| | 01:27 | often, it's probably one of the most
useful of the Pathfinders and if I click on
| | 01:31 | it what it simply does is it takes all
the overlapping areas of all my shapes
| | 01:36 | and turns them into their own individual shapes.
| | 01:39 | So notice over here, I have three
objects inside of the selection, I have one
| | 01:42 | circle, another circle and this rectangle here.
| | 01:46 | But if I go ahead now and select these
three shapes and I click on Divide, I'm
| | 01:50 | going to get many more shapes.
| | 01:52 | Each of the overlapping areas have now
become their own shape and they all have
| | 01:55 | taken on the strokes as well.
| | 01:57 | So you can see that if I now double-
click on this to isolate this entire group,
| | 02:01 | I have one object here, one object here,
one object here, so on and so forth,
| | 02:07 | for all the areas that overlap each other.
| | 02:09 | So if I want to for example, take this
shape right here and kind of move them
| | 02:12 | out, you can see that Illustrator
went ahead now and turned each of these
| | 02:16 | overlapping areas into their own shapes,
I am going to press Undo a few times,
| | 02:21 | just to go back here, now I am no
longer in my Isolation mode, I am back to my
| | 02:24 | 3 shapes that I have right now selected,
so I can now apply a different Pathfinder.
| | 02:29 | But we can see that what Divide does, is
it takes my artwork and actually splits
| | 02:34 | them or breaks them apart, into
each of their individual sections.
| | 02:38 | Now let's take a look at the next
Pathfinder here, which is called Trim.
| | 02:42 | Now if I now have these three selected and I
choose the Trim option let's see what happened.
| | 02:47 | First of all notice that the strokes
themselves have now disappeared, when you
| | 02:51 | apply this particular Pathfinder, it takes
all stroke attributes and gets rid of them.
| | 02:56 | It then takes a look at your artwork
itself and it breaks them apart into
| | 03:01 | pieces, but it does not treat the
overlapping areas as their own pieces, it just
| | 03:06 | takes the final visual aspect of my
artwork and it gives me pieces for those.
| | 03:11 | So you can see over here, I don't
have pieces for the overlapping areas of
| | 03:14 | the circle because the circles themselves
overlapped and one was in front of the other.
| | 03:19 | So what I have now is if I double-click
on this to isolate it, I have one shape
| | 03:23 | here, one shape, here, here and here
and then I have this shape right now.
| | 03:27 | But I don't have all the regions
that were formed just because of the
| | 03:30 | overlapping paths themselves.
| | 03:32 | So really what this does is it kind of
takes a look at the overall appearance of
| | 03:36 | the artwork and it breaks into sections
based on how they look, not necessarily
| | 03:41 | on how the paths
themselves intersect each other.
| | 03:43 | I am going to press once again Command
+Z or Ctrl+Z a couple of times to hit
| | 03:47 | Undo, to go back to my original state.
| | 03:50 | So we've just seen right now the
trim function here in the Pathfinder.
| | 03:54 | But I'm now going to apply is the Merge
Pathfinder and when you see that I click
| | 03:59 | on it, it actually looks very
similar to what the Trim gave me.
| | 04:03 | I can see now that I have the yellow
areas on top and bottom and I have the red
| | 04:06 | area across the middle.
| | 04:08 | The only difference between
Trim and Merge is as follows.
| | 04:11 | When I now double-click to isolate this,
and I move this done, you can now see
| | 04:15 | that these two circles have
become merged together into one shape.
| | 04:18 | And these two tops of the
circles are merged into one shape.
| | 04:22 | Again, in this case here my object
was broken into pieces based on how they
| | 04:26 | appeared visually, but Illustrator went
a step further and it also took a look
| | 04:30 | at which objects were
filled with the same colors.
| | 04:33 | Now the two circles were
both filled with yellow.
| | 04:36 | So Illustrator merged
those into one united shape.
| | 04:39 | So it kind of did like a Pathfinder
Trim and the Unite all in one step.
| | 04:44 | It took a look at what objects were
filled with the same color at it combined
| | 04:47 | them one single shape.
| | 04:49 | Once again I am going to press Command+
Z or Ctrl+Z few times to go back to my
| | 04:52 | original piece of artwork, and now let's take
a look at this other option here called Crop.
| | 04:57 | Now Crop can be very useful, it allows
you to take a single object at the top of
| | 05:01 | your stacking order and use that as
almost like a mask for other objects that
| | 05:06 | appear beneath it, but instead of just
masking the artwork it actually clips and
| | 05:10 | cuts the artwork, so that all you're
left with is the piece of art that's
| | 05:14 | visible within the balance of that mask.
| | 05:15 | If that sounds little bit complicated,
let me kind of give you a better idea of
| | 05:19 | about what's going to happen right now.
| | 05:21 | I have two circles, they overlap
each other and then on top of that I had
| | 05:25 | this red rectangle.
| | 05:26 | Now, when I apply this Crop command
because my red rectangle is at the top of
| | 05:31 | my stacking order, Illustrator is going
to remove any parts of the circles that
| | 05:35 | appear outside the balance of the topmost
object, which is the red rectangle here.
| | 05:40 | All I am going to be left with is the
parts of the circles that now appear
| | 05:44 | within the boundary of this topmost object.
| | 05:47 | So let's see how that works.
| | 05:48 | When I go here right now to my
Pathfinder panel, click on Crop and you can see
| | 05:52 | that all I am left with right now
are the two overlapping circles, if I
| | 05:56 | double-click right now you
can see the two sections.
| | 05:59 | The part of the top here was
removed and the parts in the bottom were
| | 06:02 | removed and all I am left with is
any artwork that was left it in the
| | 06:05 | balance of that rectangular shape.
| | 06:08 | I am going to press Ctrl+Z to go back
here for a moment, it's important to
| | 06:12 | realize that the Crop command actually
gets rid of your strokes, you can see
| | 06:16 | that my black stroke disappeared.
| | 06:18 | That's because whenever I have a stroke,
the actual appearance of stroke may not
| | 06:23 | be able to match the balance my shape.
| | 06:25 | Right now I use the rectangle, but
you can see over here that if I have a
| | 06:28 | stroke, a stroke may not match the
exact angle that I have over here of my
| | 06:32 | particular area, on top of that the
part of the circle that goes across the top
| | 06:37 | here would be to get a stroke too.
| | 06:39 | So Illustrator will to go to my shapes,
it will actually look at the paths
| | 06:42 | themselves and we will use the
appearance meaning the fill the make it yellow as
| | 06:47 | far as being on the inside, but stroke
attributes or brush attributes, those
| | 06:51 | will all get lost when performing the
Crop command, if you want to get around
| | 06:54 | that and you really want to crop
something perfectly, either use a real mask or
| | 06:59 | before you apply this Crop command, go
ahead and take your artwork and either
| | 07:03 | expand it, if it has brushes applied to
it or go to the Object menu choose Path
| | 07:09 | and then choose Outline Stroke that will
turn the actual stroke, here attributes
| | 07:14 | will fill path and then you will get
the results that you are looking for, you
| | 07:17 | will not lose that stroke attribute.
| | 07:19 | So we have two more Pathfinders to look at.
| | 07:22 | This one here is called the Outline command.
| | 07:24 | I honestly don't know when you'd ever use this.
| | 07:27 | In fact many of these pathfinders are
really used in very specific situations,
| | 07:31 | but this one if I click on it at first
glance it looks like nothing actually
| | 07:35 | happened, but if I deselect my artwork
we can see what Illustrator did here.
| | 07:39 | It basically now took all the objects
themselves and got rid of the fills, but
| | 07:43 | applied a stroke to that.
| | 07:45 | And it went ahead and also applied the
color, which was my fill color and use
| | 07:49 | that fill color as the stroke color
for that object and if I basically
| | 07:53 | double-click here to isolate this, if I
click on each object you can see that it
| | 07:57 | basically turned the paths into
their own kind of individual sections.
| | 08:01 | So it's almost like a Pathfinder divide, but
for strokes instead of the fills themselves.
| | 08:06 | So it gives me more of kind of a break
down here, the objects and it turns by
| | 08:10 | fill colors and stroke colors, kind of
a weird kind of affect here, but if you
| | 08:14 | ever need it you will have this
outline command available to you.
| | 08:17 | I am going to press Command+Z to back
to my original shape and the last option
| | 08:21 | here is called Minus Back.
| | 08:23 | Now if we go back over here to the Shape
Modes we have an item here called Minus
| | 08:27 | Front or subtract and this would allow
us to take our topmost object and it's
| | 08:31 | attracted from the
objects that appear beneath it.
| | 08:34 | But sometimes we want to do reverse we
actually want to use the back most object
| | 08:38 | and we want to remove that
basically from the front.
| | 08:40 | So if I choose this option here called
Minus Back then you could see it takes
| | 08:44 | all the circles from the back of the
objects in the bottom of my stacking order
| | 08:48 | and removes them from the object that
appears at the top of my stacking order.
| | 08:52 | So that's an overview of exactly
what these pathfinders can do for you.
| | 08:56 | Let's see how we might to apply them in
the artwork that we're working on here,
| | 08:59 | which is drawing Mister Zee,
| | 09:00 | I am going to delete this artwork over here.
| | 09:02 | Let's kind of scroll down here to the bottom.
| | 09:05 | Let me actually zoom in just a bit
here and let's take a look at the pieces
| | 09:08 | of the artwork that we have, we've
already use the Exclude shape mode to
| | 09:11 | actually get a closer representation
of what we want with the stripes here,
| | 09:15 | across the belly of Mister Zee.
| | 09:17 | Now I also have this line that goes
across the belly itself here which
| | 09:21 | determines the outline.
| | 09:22 | And what I want to do is I want to now
take all of these shapes and combine them
| | 09:25 | together, to get at the final
shapes that I want to work with.
| | 09:29 | Before I do this, I am going to
actually perform another step here because
| | 09:33 | I want to be able to anticipate what's
going to happen, when I work with Pathfinder.
| | 09:37 | If I were to now select these three
shapes, and also the belly line over here,
| | 09:42 | because I am going to need to do that
to actually get at the actual shapes
| | 09:45 | themselves over here.
| | 09:47 | I am going to have a problem when I
apply my Pathfinder because whenever you
| | 09:51 | apply Pathfinder, it actually combines
all of your selected shapes and in some
| | 09:56 | areas I am going to end up removing
or destroying parts of those shapes.
| | 09:59 | So if I really at the end of the day
still want to always have a single line
| | 10:03 | here across the belly which I really
want to have for just the overall body
| | 10:06 | shape, by selecting it right now and
then using it in a Pathfinder function, I'm
| | 10:11 | going to lose that shape and I will no
longer had access to it, or no longer
| | 10:14 | continue to be that shape and I want it to be.
| | 10:17 | So many times that I am working with
Pathfinder and this actually, as we learn
| | 10:20 | more and more about building artwork
inside of Illustrator, it's probably one
| | 10:23 | of the negative aspects of using a
Pathfinder command, is that I always need to
| | 10:28 | make sure that I'm copying and pasting
artwork, so that I don't lose it later on.
| | 10:32 | So what I am going to do is I am simply
going to click on this path right here
| | 10:35 | select it, I am going to hit Command+C
or Ctrl+C to copy it and then I am going
| | 10:39 | to press Command+Shift+V or
Ctrl+Shift+V to paste in place.
| | 10:44 | That's by the way a new command found
inside of Illustrator CS5, another thing
| | 10:49 | you can do is you can press Command+F or
Ctrl+F for paste in front and that will
| | 10:53 | also paste it in exact same location.
| | 10:55 | Now when that object is still selected,
I am going to hit Command+2 or Ctrl+2
| | 11:00 | to lock that object.
| | 11:02 | So now if I click on this just to show
you when I move it away, you see I still
| | 11:06 | have another piece of artwork here this
line, which is going to remain untouched
| | 11:10 | because I have locked it.
| | 11:11 | So this way I preserve it in case I
want to be able to use that shape later on
| | 11:15 | and press Undo to move his object here.
| | 11:18 | And I am now going to take my regular
Selection tool here and click and drag to
| | 11:21 | Marquee select the three shapes here
that I created using the Exclude command
| | 11:26 | and this one of the shape here
across the bottom of the belly.
| | 11:29 | Now I am going to use the Divide
Pathfinder and that's going to basically turn
| | 11:34 | all of these shapes now into
individual objects or kind of chop them up into
| | 11:38 | pieces based on the geometry, right.
| | 11:40 | So now when I click on this, I'm now
gong to have all of my different areas, I
| | 11:45 | am going to double-click to isolate.
| | 11:46 | And now if I click down here I can hit
Delete, I can remove that shape, kind
| | 11:50 | of drag across here and delete these
shapes, delete these shapes as well in
| | 11:55 | the shape right here.
| | 11:56 | And you can now see that all I am left
with are the three shapes themselves.
| | 12:01 | Now I am going to double-click or
it Escape to exit Isolation mode.
| | 12:04 | I still have my original path over
here because I've locked that one, right.
| | 12:08 | in fact I can now choose Command+
Option+2 or Ctrl+Alt+2 on Windows.
| | 12:13 | So now I have the three stripes that I
am working with, which if I wanted to, I
| | 12:17 | can actually fill with a black color
because that's the color of the stripes and
| | 12:21 | I still have this line over
here which remains intact.
| | 12:24 | So that's another way, how I might
use Pathfinders inside of Illustrator,
| | 12:28 | especially in this case
using the Divide command.
| | 12:31 | That allows them to take multiple
overlapping areas, chop them into pieces.
| | 12:35 | So now by using a combination of for
example Exclude as we have done before and
| | 12:41 | now Divide, I get at the final stripes
that I want to create and notice by the
| | 12:45 | way how clean and crisp and perfectly
stripes are, they are just the way that I
| | 12:49 | need them for the
illustration that I am trying to create.
| | 12:52 | This in essence is what building
artwork is all about, by using Pathfinder to
| | 12:57 | actually combine or use multiple
objects, to get it the final shapes that I
| | 13:02 | want to create.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding how compound shapes work| 00:00 | Okay so up till this point, we've
explored what the Shape Modes are inside of
| | 00:04 | Illustrator and also the Pathfinders.
| | 00:07 | However, I have spoken before about
some additional functionality that exists
| | 00:11 | within these Shape Modes that are
right over here at the top of the panel.
| | 00:15 | On top of that you may have noticed
that there is a button here called Expand
| | 00:18 | which is grayed out and as you go
ahead and you select things, you click on
| | 00:21 | buttons, that continues to be grayed out.
| | 00:23 | So let's explore why that Expand button
is there and more importantly understand
| | 00:28 | what this whole concept of Shape Modes
actually are because, what we've done
| | 00:32 | here is you have actually
so far applied pathfinders.
| | 00:35 | These are listed as pathfinders, but
these four options that we have over
| | 00:39 | here, the Unite, the Minus Front, the
Intersect and Exclude are also really pathfinders.
| | 00:46 | The thing that you will notice that's
different about the Shape Modes themselves
| | 00:49 | that I mouse over them, in
parentheses after it says Unite, it says I can
| | 00:53 | Option+Click to create
something called the compound shape.
| | 00:57 | So let's understand exactly what a
compound shape is inside of Illustrator
| | 01:01 | and then we will begin to have a different
appreciation for what shape modes actually are.
| | 01:06 | Alright, so you will notice that right
now in this file called stripes3, I have
| | 01:10 | the same two circles here that we've
been dealing with before, I have a yellow
| | 01:13 | circle in the back, I have a red
circle on the front, they both have a black
| | 01:17 | stroke on them and right now they are
both selected which would allow me to
| | 01:21 | apply any of these Pathfinder functions,
but I am going to do something here a
| | 01:24 | little bit different.
| | 01:25 | I am actually going to come here to
the Unite button or the Add button and
| | 01:28 | rather than just simply click on it, I
am going to hold down the Option key on
| | 01:32 | my keyboard, I am on a Mac so that
would be Option, but if you are no a PC or
| | 01:36 | Windows machine that would be the Alt key.
| | 01:38 | And now with that button still pressed
out on your keyboard, now go ahead and
| | 01:42 | click on that same button here.
| | 01:44 | When I click on that, two things you
will notice that will happen, first of
| | 01:47 | all right now you'll see that the actual
pass themselves have become united together.
| | 01:52 | So now I have this one red object
that has this kind of black stroke that
| | 01:57 | appears around the perimeter of it,
when I have the object selected, you'll see
| | 02:01 | that this Expand button is now is lit up.
| | 02:04 | More importantly, if you take a closer
look at the actual art itself, you'll see
| | 02:08 | that the individual circle paths still do exist.
| | 02:12 | I didn't lose these internal areas
here, whereas before those were kind of
| | 02:16 | merged and fused together into one shape,
it still looks like when I select this
| | 02:21 | that I have two individual circles.
| | 02:23 | And in reality, I still do have two
circles, if I hit Command+Y in my keyboard
| | 02:28 | or Ctrl+Y on PC, you'll see now that I
have two circles that haven't lost the
| | 02:32 | paths on the inside.
| | 02:34 | Let me hit Command+Y to back
to this regular artwork mode.
| | 02:37 | I am actually going to switch now to my
white arrow, my Direct Selection tool.
| | 02:41 | I am going to deselect the art, but now
I am just going to click on one circle
| | 02:44 | right here and you will see that I can
actually move that circle around and as I
| | 02:49 | move it, Illustrator just updates the
outline, so Illustrator is treating them,
| | 02:53 | as if they're one single fused
object from an appearance perspective, but
| | 02:57 | underlying the vector aspect of this
still treats this as two circles, that I
| | 03:02 | can continue to modify.
| | 03:04 | So if I want to take this circle and
kind of nudge a little bit closer, I can
| | 03:07 | actually change what this shape looks
like, just by moving the shapes around.
| | 03:11 | When I was working with Pathfinder
before, and I used the Unite function.
| | 03:15 | The Unite function physically
changed the vectors of the path.
| | 03:19 | However, when I use this Add Shape
Mode by holding down the Option of the
| | 03:23 | Alt key, when I choose that same option, it
turns to some kind of live editable state.
| | 03:28 | In fact, what I've just created now
is something called a Compound shape.
| | 03:33 | In fact when I go ahead now and I my
regular selection tool to select this
| | 03:36 | object, you can see over here that
Illustrator identifies this as a compound
| | 03:41 | shape likewise in the Appearance panel as well.
| | 03:44 | Now in this live state, I have the
ability to still treat the two circles
| | 03:48 | individually, but visually
they fuse into one shape.
| | 03:52 | If I ever want to kind of make this
permanent and no longer edit it as the some
| | 03:55 | kind of a live shape or
what we call a compound shape.
| | 03:58 | I can now click on the Expand button
and you can see now that I no longer have
| | 04:03 | the ability to edit these shapes
anymore, it now has made this a permanent
| | 04:06 | option and now if I go into Outline
mode, I can see that those paths have now
| | 04:11 | been combined into one.
| | 04:13 | So let's actually back up a few steps,
I am going to press Command+Z to go back
| | 04:16 | to one of my shapes were two individual circles.
| | 04:19 | And let's see how this might apply
to some of the other Shape Modes.
| | 04:22 | I adjusted that with the Add Shape
mode, but again, if I come here, I hold
| | 04:25 | down the Option or Alt key in my
keyboard and I now click on the Minus Front
| | 04:29 | button, but really when I hold the Option
button down, it changes it to be a Subtract option.
| | 04:34 | If I click on this, it looks like the
red circle kind of bit away at the yellow
| | 04:39 | circle beneath it, but if I go into
Outline mode, I still see the red circle
| | 04:43 | path is still there and I have the
ability to use my white arrow to click on
| | 04:48 | that path, I am holding down to the
Option key by the way, so I get the Group
| | 04:51 | Selection tool, so I can select the
entire path and all of its anchor points.
| | 04:55 | And I can still move this
around and adjust the shape.
| | 04:58 | So this kind of gives me almost, what
we might call a live Pathfinder type of
| | 05:03 | an effect, and I can do the same
thing with these remaining two modes of
| | 05:07 | Intersect and Exclude.
| | 05:08 | Again, as long as I hold down the
Option or the Alt key, before I apply that, I
| | 05:14 | have the ability now to create this
effect where the vectors are live and
| | 05:17 | editable, but the result is an
appearance that looks like the paths have been
| | 05:21 | the actually applied with
the mathematical functions.
| | 05:25 | Now again, the reason why this might be
useful is that, even after I've got at
| | 05:29 | the shape that I want to create, if I
decide later on, I want to make some small
| | 05:32 | edits, I have the ability to do so, I
haven't created something permanent that I
| | 05:37 | can no longer modify or change.
| | 05:38 | Let's take a look at how we might apply
this to some of the artwork that we've
| | 05:41 | been creating for Mister Zee.
| | 05:43 | I am going to delete the shape right
here because we don't need it right now.
| | 05:46 | And I am going to zoom in on this part
of the body right here where we have been
| | 05:49 | working on the stripes and the belly of Mister Zee.
| | 05:52 | Now what I have here in this
document is three shapes that already exist.
| | 05:55 | I have one oval over here and one oval
over here which we've created before.
| | 05:59 | But I have also added yet another shape
over here which we will see in a minute
| | 06:03 | why that's going to come in to play.
| | 06:04 | So the first thing I am going to do is
I am actually going to apply some colors
| | 06:07 | to this because I want you to better
understand what's happening when we start
| | 06:10 | applying the Shape Modes.
| | 06:11 | I am going to leave all of these objects
with a stroke basically black, but I am
| | 06:15 | going to take this circle right here
and give this one a fill of yellow and may
| | 06:18 | be I will take this circle over here
and give this is one a fill of red and may
| | 06:22 | be I will take this shape over
here and give this one a fill of blue.
| | 06:25 | And again I'm doing this because I want
you to be able to understand, how these
| | 06:29 | shapes are going to interact with each other.
| | 06:30 | I am going to begin by selecting
these two oval shapes right here.
| | 06:34 | Now these two shapes actually overlap
each other and the rules that we have
| | 06:38 | been using so far for Pathfinder apply
here as well, meaning only to pieces of
| | 06:42 | art that I have selected are the ones to which
these mathematical functions are going to apply.
| | 06:47 | So if I now realize that all I want
to see is just this yellow strip here
| | 06:51 | because that's what his stripe is going
to be, I don't need the entire red area,
| | 06:55 | since the entire red oval kind of
blocks or covers that yellow circle, I can
| | 07:00 | basically subtract it from the
one that's beneath that over here.
| | 07:03 | So with these two circles currently
selected, I'm going to hold down my
| | 07:07 | Option key or the Alt key on Windows and I
am going to click now on the Subtract button.
| | 07:13 | Now, all I'm left with is just
this part of the stripe right here.
| | 07:17 | I can't see any of the parts of the
red circle now because I have subtracted
| | 07:21 | that from the yellow circle.
| | 07:22 | But again, if we go into Outline mode,
you will see that the circle is still there.
| | 07:26 | Let me hit Command+Y again.
| | 07:28 | It's important to realize that with
Shape Modes, I can actually create a
| | 07:31 | situation where I have
something called nested compound shapes.
| | 07:35 | We just now created a compound shape by
taking two ovals and applying the shape
| | 07:40 | mode called Subtract.
| | 07:42 | I know it's a compound shape because I
can see here and here that it's listed
| | 07:47 | as a compound shape.
| | 07:48 | But now I have this blue area over
here on the top, if I actually move the
| | 07:51 | blue area away, I can see that the yellow
parts still kind of extends beneath the belly.
| | 07:56 | But I want the stripe to end right over here.
| | 07:58 | So I've created this blue shape and
if I now select a blue shape which is a
| | 08:02 | single regular vector object and I
also select this compound shape and now I
| | 08:08 | hold down my Option key because I now
want to create yet another compound shape.
| | 08:11 | And I now choose a Subtract, what I've
done now is I've taken the blue shape
| | 08:17 | that I created here and I have subtracted
that from the compound shape that was beneath it.
| | 08:22 | So now I have what we call a nested
compound shape, I have one compound shape
| | 08:26 | that I created, which created
just the yellow stripe here.
| | 08:29 | Then by using another blue shape here I
am subtracting it from the yellow shape,
| | 08:34 | I have now subtracted another portion of it.
| | 08:36 | So if I deselect this right now, I have
the final shape that I want to work with.
| | 08:41 | In fact if I click on it right now
select it and simply change its color from a
| | 08:45 | yellow fill here to may be a black fill.
| | 08:47 | So now I am getting the actual shape of
the stripe that I want, but I've built
| | 08:52 | this using live editable shapes.
| | 08:54 | So if my client later on tells me or
even as an artist I decide I want to make
| | 08:57 | some kind of adjustment to the stripe.
| | 08:59 | I can use the white arrow here to
come over here and basically hold down my
| | 09:04 | Option key so I get the Group Selection tool.
| | 09:06 | I kind of click on the path right here
and I can adjust it by using the arrow
| | 09:10 | key in my keyboard by moving it around.
| | 09:11 | So you can see I can still adjust
what I'm working with here because that
| | 09:16 | circle still exists, it's just being
subtracted in a live states in something
| | 09:21 | called the compound shape.
| | 09:23 | Once I am done and I know I don't
need to edit this anymore, I can now take
| | 09:27 | this artwork, select all of it and
choose the Expand button and in doing so it
| | 09:32 | will be flattened and now all I am left with
is just this piece of non-editable artwork.
| | 09:36 | I am going to press undo for a second,
because I want to show you that I also
| | 09:40 | have the ability to go to fly-out menu
of the Pathfinder panel and choose this
| | 09:44 | option called Release Compound Shape
and if I do that then Illustrator just
| | 09:49 | simply undoes the shape, it keeps the
artwork that's there, but it releases that
| | 09:53 | compound shapes on back
to editing the path itself.
| | 09:56 | Now what I can simply do is take this
piece of artwork and select it and release
| | 10:00 | that one as well and now I have
my original artwork still intact.
| | 10:04 | But remember, I'm only able to get this
function out inside of Illustrator, when
| | 10:08 | I hold out my Option key and then
choose any of these Shape Modes and that's
| | 10:12 | really what sets these Shape Modes
apart from Pathfinders because these
| | 10:16 | Pathfinders don't have any ability to
create compound shapes or these editable
| | 10:20 | live shapes that I am working with.
| | 10:22 | However, these four Shape Modes are
special because they have the ability to
| | 10:27 | create these live compound shapes.
| | 10:29 | Now here's the funny thing
about Illustrator's history.
| | 10:32 | When this concept of compound shapes was
added which was back in Illustrator 10,
| | 10:37 | Adobe made it so that whenever I have
two pieces of artwork selected and I click
| | 10:41 | on one of the Shape Modes, it
actually creates a compound shape by default.
| | 10:45 | And then if I wanted to flatten that
object, I would now need to expand it.
| | 10:50 | However, after many years of
Illustrator, and people becoming frustrated by
| | 10:54 | creating these live shapes and not
knowing why they existed, Adobe decided to
| | 10:57 | reverse the behavior and give people
what they wanted which was the ability to
| | 11:01 | actually create a flattened
shape right at the beginning.
| | 11:04 | That is why, when I now take my regular
let's say Minus Front option, I click on it.
| | 11:09 | It's automatically a flattened shape
that's no longer editable, if I want to
| | 11:12 | specifically create one of these
editable compound shapes, I would need to do so
| | 11:17 | deliberately and again Adobe made that
change as if Illustrator CS4 and now in
| | 11:21 | CS5, or if I want to create the
editable compound shape I would need to hold on
| | 11:25 | my Option key and also
click on the button to do so.
| | 11:28 | So now we know the difference between
Shape Modes inside of Illustrator and
| | 11:33 | Pathfinders inside of Illustrator.
| | 11:34 | I guess you can ask yourself why did
Adobe even go ahead and create these Shape
| | 11:39 | Modes, what was the real purpose for it?
| | 11:40 | Well, that's something that we are
going to discuss in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding why compound shapes exist| 00:00 | In the previous movie we learned the
true meaning of something called the Shape
| | 00:04 | Mode inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:06 | We learned that we can create
something called the compound shape inside of
| | 00:09 | Illustrator which acts as some kind
of a live Pathfinder object that I can
| | 00:14 | consider to modify even after I
perform mathematical functions like add,
| | 00:18 | subtract, intersect and exclude.
| | 00:20 | Now you may ask yourself, I kind of see
the benefit of maybe having live objects
| | 00:25 | but most of the times that I am drawing
artwork, I pretty much know what I want
| | 00:29 | to draw as I am working on it.
| | 00:30 | So I usually want my artwork to be
expanded and to create the shapes that I want
| | 00:35 | to work on right now, I don't really
worry about what I am going to need to
| | 00:38 | change later on in the future.
| | 00:40 | Well, the reason why this feature
exists is because it allows a situation to
| | 00:45 | exist between Illustrator and its
sister application called Photoshop.
| | 00:50 | You see Photoshop also has the
ability on some level to work with vector
| | 00:55 | graphics and it does so using
something called shape layers.
| | 00:59 | When illustrator added Shape Modes,
Adobe made Shape Modes and shape layers
| | 01:04 | consistent and actually it
could be compatible with each other.
| | 01:08 | In fact, it's the same underlying
technology that makes both of those features
| | 01:12 | work and that allows us as users to move
vector objects freely between Photoshop
| | 01:18 | and Illustrator using the
Shape Modes and shape layers.
| | 01:22 | Let me show you exactly how that works.
| | 01:24 | See right now here I am inside of
Illustrator and I have my Pathfinder panel
| | 01:28 | opened, you can see that I have my
Shape Modes, something here called Add,
| | 01:32 | Subtract, Intersect and Exclude.
| | 01:35 | Let's hop over to Photoshop for just a
second here and you can see that when
| | 01:39 | I have Photoshop opened, I can choose
some of these different Shape tools,
| | 01:43 | for example this Ellipse tool which is very
similar as the Illustrator's Ellipse tool.
| | 01:47 | When I click and drag to create a shape,
I am going to hold down the Shift key
| | 01:51 | so I get a perfect circle.
| | 01:52 | There's no such thing really as a
vector shape inside of Photoshop but I can
| | 01:57 | have vector paths that
act as like a clipping path.
| | 02:01 | So what I have now inside of
Photoshop is something called a shape layer.
| | 02:05 | You can notice over here that by
creating the shape of my art board, it looks
| | 02:08 | like I have a black circle but if I
look over here in my Layers panel I have
| | 02:12 | created something called Shape 1 which
basically is a vector mask that has black
| | 02:18 | pixels inside of it.
| | 02:19 | If I kind of focus on the tool Options
bar here at the top of the screen, you
| | 02:24 | can see that this tool has
different modes inside of it.
| | 02:27 | The Regular mode over here allows me
to Create a new shape layer every time
| | 02:31 | I draw a new shape.
| | 02:33 | However, I can also choose between four
other options and don't these look familiar.
| | 02:38 | Add, Subtract, Intersect and Exclude, the
same options that I found inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:46 | Now let's see what happens when I
actually choose the Subtract mode.
| | 02:49 | Now I still have my Ellipse tool
selected, I am gong to hold my Shift key down
| | 02:54 | and click and drag to draw another
circle, but you can see that my result
| | 02:57 | actually subtracts this
shape from the previous one.
| | 03:02 | What I have done here is I've
actually created a single mask that has these
| | 03:06 | interlocking or overlapping vector
paths and based on the modes that I am
| | 03:10 | choosing, the pixels only fill
certain parts of those overlapping paths.
| | 03:15 | That's really what a shape
layer is inside of Photoshop.
| | 03:18 | It's simply a way for me to create
these vector clipping paths and fill them
| | 03:22 | with pixels and do so in a way defined
by the different modes that I choose over
| | 03:27 | here which are the Add,
Subtract, Intersect and Exclude.
| | 03:32 | Now the real cool thing about the way
that Adobe implemented this is that I have
| | 03:36 | the ability to move these shapes
back and forth between the applications.
| | 03:39 | It's important to realize again that the
concept of a fill and a stroke does not
| | 03:45 | really apply to Photoshop.
| | 03:46 | All I have here is some kind of a
clipping path and I have pixels inside of it,
| | 03:51 | but that's not really a fill attribute.
| | 03:53 | So the one thing that I cannot move
between Photoshop and Illustrator are the
| | 03:57 | actual fill or stroke attributes.
| | 04:00 | However, what I can move between the
two applications are the actual vector
| | 04:04 | paths themselves with the shape modes intact.
| | 04:07 | So if I take the Arrow tool or the
Selection tool here inside of Photoshop and I
| | 04:11 | click over here to select this path
and I hold down the Shift key now and I
| | 04:15 | select this one as well, so now I have
both of these paths within this single
| | 04:18 | shape layer selected and I press Command+
C or Ctrl+C. Now let's switch over back
| | 04:24 | to Illustrator and I hit Command+V or
Ctrl+V to paste, I now get this thing that
| | 04:29 | says Paste Options and I can choose to
paste this as a Compound Shape, which is
| | 04:34 | fully editable because it's now going
to be converted to a shape mode inside of
| | 04:38 | Illustrator or I could choose to paste
it as a Compound path, which means all I
| | 04:42 | am going to see is just a crescent shape,
I won't see both full intact circles.
| | 04:47 | But just to see how this works I am
going to choose the Compound Shape option, I
| | 04:50 | am going to click OK and notice now
that both of those circles have come in.
| | 04:54 | If I change the Fill color because
remember there was no fill on this object, it
| | 04:58 | was simply a mask for black pixels,
and now I choose a color like red for
| | 05:02 | example, I can see that only this part
of the shape is being filled in because
| | 05:07 | these two shapes have a Subtract
Mode inherently inside of them.
| | 05:10 | Now likewise I can do the reverse, I can
create a Shape mode here inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:16 | in fact, just to start from scratch I
am going to delete these two circles.
| | 05:19 | Let's take maybe a Rectangle tool here
and click and drag and then click and
| | 05:23 | drag to create another shape, select
both of these and I'll come here to the
| | 05:27 | Shape Modes and I'll hold down the Option or
Alt key and now choose the Subtract button.
| | 05:31 | So now I have created a compound shape.
| | 05:33 | Notice by the way I do not use a
Stroke attribute here because I would not be
| | 05:36 | able to transfer that
stroke attribute to Photoshop.
| | 05:39 | I am now going to press Command+C or
Ctrl+C to copy from Illustrator, now I'll
| | 05:44 | switch over to Photoshop and
hit Command+V or Ctrl+V to paste.
| | 05:48 | Notice that here I have the ability to
paste it either as a Smart Object, as
| | 05:52 | Pixels, as the path itself or as a shape layer,
which I am going to choose here and click OK.
| | 05:58 | And now I have brought these
two shapes here on its own layer.
| | 06:02 | In fact, if I hide now Shape 1 over here,
you can see that I can click on these
| | 06:06 | two shapes here and continue to still
move these shapes around here inside of
| | 06:10 | Photoshop, so they come in as fully
editable vector shapes here inside of
| | 06:14 | Photoshop as shape layers and if I
knew I was working on some kind of
| | 06:18 | illustration inside of Illustrator and I
wanted to bring it into Photoshop and I
| | 06:22 | wanted to maintain some kind of
editability inside of Photoshop, meaning I still
| | 06:25 | want to scale it up in size or make
modifications, I can do so using these Shape
| | 06:30 | Modes inside of Illustrator and bring
them into Photoshop as the shape layers.
| | 06:35 | So in reality if we kind of take a step
back, this is the whole reason for why
| | 06:39 | the Shape Modes exists inside of Illustrator.
| | 06:42 | They're not really there as much for us
to work inside of Illustrator, although
| | 06:45 | they are really beneficial because they
tend to keep things live, but they are
| | 06:49 | also really here to allow us to be able
to move vector content between Photoshop
| | 06:54 | and Illustrator without any loss in editability.
| | 06:57 | Now, let me go back here to
Illustrator for just a moment and yes, there
| | 07:01 | are some times when having this
Live Pathfinder might be useful to you
| | 07:05 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 07:06 | But it's not so easy to work with
within the realm of the world of Pathfinder
| | 07:10 | and that's why we're going to find out
that in the next chapter, we're going
| | 07:13 | to deal with something called Live
Paint which is going to give us the ability
| | 07:17 | to work in a live state without the
consequences of losing the editability of our artwork.
| | 07:23 | But for now, we have a much better
understanding of not only what Pathfinder
| | 07:27 | does inside of Illustrator but the
nuances that exist within the panel itself.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring additional Pathfinder options| 00:00 | So we've learned a lot about
Pathfinder inside of this chapter and before we
| | 00:04 | move on to the next chapter, I just
want to go over a few additional options
| | 00:08 | that are available when
using the Pathfinder commands.
| | 00:12 | If you take a look at the
Pathfinder panel itself, and you go to the
| | 00:15 | fly-out menu of the Pathfinder panel,
you'll see an option here called
| | 00:19 | Pathfinder Options.
| | 00:21 | If you choose that, a dialog box opens
up offering you some additional settings
| | 00:25 | for how the Pathfinder functions will behave.
| | 00:28 | The first setting here is
something called Precision.
| | 00:31 | Now, this is something that's
important if you are dealing with work that you
| | 00:34 | want to make sure that
everything kind of stays exactly the same.
| | 00:37 | Let me explain a little bit what I mean by that.
| | 00:40 | Sometimes because Illustrator needs to
perform math and it's combining multiple
| | 00:44 | objects into newer objects, sometimes
parts of those paths or curves may adjust
| | 00:49 | just a little bit, and you may find
that when you apply a Pathfinder command,
| | 00:53 | your nice path actually shifts over
just a little bit, and if you want to avoid
| | 00:57 | that from happening, you might want to
come here, and adjust Precision value to
| | 01:01 | make it a lower value.
| | 01:03 | Obviously, the lower value you have
here inside of the Precision setting, will
| | 01:07 | make Illustrator work a little bit
harder and it may result also in additional
| | 01:11 | anchor points being created to
kind of keep your path the same.
| | 01:15 | So what happens to be that for most
of the artwork that you are going to be
| | 01:18 | creating, the default setting of 0.
028 is probably going to be just fine.
| | 01:24 | But if you find yourself in a
situation where your path is adjusting in a
| | 01:27 | way that you don't like, you might want to
come here and kind of mess with the Precision.
| | 01:31 | Going in the complete reverse
direction, if you have really, really complex
| | 01:35 | artwork and performing Pathfinder
functions on them takes just a really,
| | 01:39 | really long time, you may come here and
increase the value of Precision just a
| | 01:44 | little bit to speed things up especially if
you don't mind the path moving just a little bit.
| | 01:49 | Now, there is another option
here called Remove Redundant Points.
| | 01:52 | Let me explain what that does.
| | 01:54 | I am going to click on the Cancel button here.
| | 01:55 | I am just going to leave
that option unchecked for now.
| | 01:57 | I am going to take my Rectangle tool and
click-and-drag to draw a rectangle, and
| | 02:01 | once again I am going to click-and-
drag again to draw another rectangle.
| | 02:05 | But these two rectangles touch each other.
| | 02:06 | In fact, if I select both of these, I
can see that there are anchor points here
| | 02:11 | and anchor points here.
| | 02:12 | They both kind of overlap each other here.
| | 02:14 | So if I were to now just simply do a
regular unite, I will still see that even
| | 02:19 | though my rectangle really only needs
corner anchor points in just the four
| | 02:23 | corners of the new shape, I still have
anchor points here because those existed
| | 02:27 | in those two overlapping areas.
| | 02:29 | If I really wanted to be careful about
my anchor points, and I wanted to make
| | 02:33 | sure I didn't have anything extra,
what I could do is let me press Undo, so I
| | 02:36 | still have my two individual rectangles here.
| | 02:39 | Let me go to the Pathfinder panel fly-
out menu, choose Pathfinder Options, and
| | 02:44 | check this box called Remove
Redundant Points and then click OK.
| | 02:49 | Now, if I choose Unite, you will notice
that I no longer have anchor points here
| | 02:53 | in the middle of the artwork
because those are redundant.
| | 02:56 | There were two overlapping points and
wherever the points are overlapping,
| | 02:59 | Illustrator will go ahead now and
remove it and almost it's kind of like a
| | 03:02 | Simplify, together with the
Pathfinder to give you a better result.
| | 03:07 | But again, that's an option that you can
choose by going to that little fly-out menu.
| | 03:11 | Now, there is another option here as
well called Divide and Outline Will Remove
| | 03:15 | Unpainted Artwork and again, this is
just adjusting the behavior of the Divide
| | 03:20 | Pathfinder which you find over
here and also the Outline one.
| | 03:24 | So this checkbox will actually go ahead,
and remove physically from your artwork
| | 03:29 | any area that has no fill
or no stroke applied to it.
| | 03:32 | The only downside by the way to leaving
Remove Redundant Points on all the time
| | 03:36 | is that if you're working with curved
paths a lot of times, you may find that by
| | 03:40 | removing the redundant points, it may
cause your paths to adjust or remove just
| | 03:44 | a little bit after you apply the
Pathfinder functions and that's the reason why
| | 03:48 | it's turned off by default.
| | 03:50 | So those are a few additional options
that you might find useful when working
| | 03:54 | with Pathfinder inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Live Paint: Changing the RulesWhy Live Paint was created| 00:00 | So we've been talking about this
concept of building artwork inside of
| | 00:04 | Illustrator instead of drawing
artwork inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:08 | And in the previous chapter we
learned about something called Pathfinder, a
| | 00:12 | group of functions that allow us to
create these mathematical types of functions
| | 00:17 | on the paths that we created inside of
Illustrator to turn basic shapes like
| | 00:21 | ovals and circles and
rectangles into far more complex shapes.
| | 00:26 | However, as Adobe continued to do more
research and find out how people were
| | 00:30 | using Illustrator and in their effort
to make things easier for people who are
| | 00:34 | new to Illustrator, they found that
many designers never even came across the
| | 00:39 | Pathfinder functions.
| | 00:41 | In fact, many classes kind of jump
right in and teach how to use the Pen tool
| | 00:46 | and they don't really go into a
discussion about how to take basic shapes and
| | 00:50 | use Pathfinder functions to
combine them into more complex ones.
| | 00:54 | And even if you were tinkering within
Illustrator, you might not know that
| | 00:57 | Pathfinder would actually
be used to build artwork.
| | 01:01 | So Adobe set out to create a new type of
function inside of Illustrator and they
| | 01:05 | created something called Live Paint.
| | 01:07 | Now let's talk about what Live Paint is.
| | 01:10 | It happens to add a tremendous
amount of benefits and gives us a level of
| | 01:13 | freedom inside of Illustrator that
maybe we have only dreamed about before.
| | 01:18 | So let's first understand exactly what
the problem was inside of Illustrator
| | 01:22 | that Adobe set out to solve with Live Paint.
| | 01:25 | Then we'll dive right into the feature
and we'll find that how to explore all of
| | 01:29 | its power for our own needs.
| | 01:30 | So let me start out here in this
blank document, I'm just going to take two
| | 01:35 | rectangles right here.
| | 01:36 | I'm going to click and drag right over here.
| | 01:37 | I'm going to actually going to
fill this rectangle with None.
| | 01:40 | But I'll leave it with a Black stroke
and I'll draw another rectangle that
| | 01:42 | overlaps this rectangle right here.
| | 01:44 | So now I have two shapes
that overlap each other.
| | 01:47 | And if I were a new user to Adobe
Illustrator and I've just drawn these two
| | 01:51 | shapes here, I may decide that I want
to fill some color into these shapes and
| | 01:55 | I may want to put one color in this
region over here, another color in this
| | 01:59 | region, but a third color in this
region over here where these two shapes
| | 02:04 | overlap each other.
| | 02:05 | We've already learned inside of
Illustrator and we've established that we have
| | 02:09 | the ability to apply attributes
like fills and strokes to objects.
| | 02:13 | However, we can't apply fills and
strokes to arbitrary areas on our screen.
| | 02:19 | They have to be applied to distinct objects.
| | 02:22 | So what I have right now
inside of my document are two paths.
| | 02:25 | If I look in my Layers panel here,
I see I have Layer 1 and I have two
| | 02:29 | paths that I've created.
| | 02:30 | I can now apply two fill attributes and two
stroke attributes because I have two objects.
| | 02:35 | However, if I wanted to now add a third
fill attribute to this area right over
| | 02:40 | here, I would need to create a distinct
shape that matches this size right over here.
| | 02:46 | In other words, I would really need to
have three objects inside of my document
| | 02:50 | in order to accomplish that.
| | 02:52 | But for a moment, if you imagine
you're inside of a program like Photoshop,
| | 02:55 | a pixel-based application, and you
were to create some kind of pixels on
| | 02:59 | your screen that looked just like
this right here, you would be able to use
| | 03:02 | like a Paint Bucket tool to fill color
inside of this region, inside of this
| | 03:07 | region, and inside of this region
because they all appear to be closed by
| | 03:12 | these black borders.
| | 03:14 | The Paint Bucket tool allows you to
flood fill an area with pixels and a person
| | 03:19 | might assume that they can do the
same thing here inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:22 | However because we're in an object-
based workflow, we can only apply these fill
| | 03:26 | attributes to objects and I only have
two objects in my file here, not three.
| | 03:31 | Now we have just spent an entire chapter
learning about something called Pathfinder.
| | 03:36 | Pathfinder has a function called Divide.
| | 03:39 | So really if I were a person using
Illustrator and I wanted to fill these three
| | 03:44 | different areas with color, what I
would do is I would select my two shapes
| | 03:48 | right here, I would go to
Pathfinder, and choose my Divide option.
| | 03:53 | Now that creates a group, but inside of
that group I now have three paths, not two.
| | 03:58 | I have one path here, one path
here, and one path in the middle.
| | 04:02 | And this allows me now to apply a fill
color to these three distinct objects,
| | 04:07 | not regions, but objects.
| | 04:09 | I'm going to hit undo over here,
Command+Z, just to go back to what we were
| | 04:13 | working with before, and I'll
introduce you to this world of Live Paint.
| | 04:17 | The whole concept of Live Paint is to
allow us to focus on the appearance of
| | 04:23 | artwork instead of the structure of the artwork.
| | 04:26 | If we think back to another title that
you have here in the Lynda.com Online
| | 04:30 | Training Library called Adobe
Illustrator Insider Training:
| | 04:34 | Rethinking the Essentials, we spent a
lot of time talking about something inside
| | 04:38 | of Illustrator called the structure of
my artwork, which are the actual anchor
| | 04:42 | points and paths versus the appearance
of our artwork, which is the fills and
| | 04:47 | the strokes, what we see when we
actually print out our document.
| | 04:51 | Well, if we're focused so much on
the anchor points and the paths, we're
| | 04:55 | focusing a lot on the structure.
| | 04:57 | So if I told you that you need to have
three distinct objects in order to fill
| | 05:02 | three different areas, I need to start
focusing on anchor points and paths and
| | 05:06 | that's where Pathfinder comes to the play.
| | 05:08 | It's actually modifying the
underlying vector objects in my document.
| | 05:13 | However, if I want to focus on just the
pure visual aesthetics of my document, I
| | 05:17 | want to look at my document and well,
to me, my artwork looks like it has three
| | 05:22 | different regions, I want to be able
to paint three different colors within
| | 05:26 | those three different regions.
| | 05:27 | That's something that I'm focused on
my appearance and that's where Live
| | 05:31 | Paint allows me to be.
| | 05:32 | It allows me to live in an environment
inside of Illustrator where on one step
| | 05:37 | we moved from my paths and my anchor
points and I care much more about the
| | 05:41 | actual visual aspects of my file instead.
| | 05:44 | So let me just show you
exactly what I mean by that.
| | 05:46 | I'm going to go to my Tools panel
here, I'm going to click on my Shape
| | 05:50 | Builder tool, we'll actually talk a lot
about the Shape Builder tool in the next chapter.
| | 05:54 | But here I'm going to see that
there's an option here or a tool called the
| | 05:57 | Live Paint Bucket tool.
| | 05:59 | I'm going to choose that option and
because the two rectangles that I had right
| | 06:03 | now are selected in my document, when
I mouse over these two rectangles right
| | 06:08 | now, you see that they get highlighted in red.
| | 06:10 | And in addition to that, a little
sentence appears here that says Click to
| | 06:14 | make a Live Paint Group.
| | 06:16 | We'll actually go into extreme detail
about how this works in the next movie.
| | 06:20 | But if I just click here once, what
I've done is I've now created a new kind of
| | 06:24 | object inside of
Illustrator called a Live Paint Group.
| | 06:27 | In fact, if you look over here in my
Appearance panel, I now have a Live Paint
| | 06:31 | Group and if I look in my Layers panel here,
I see that I now have a Live Paint Group.
| | 06:35 | But it's important to realize that inside
of that group, all I have are two rectangles.
| | 06:41 | I've not chopped up my two
rectangles to now three shapes.
| | 06:45 | I still have two intact rectangles, but
I've put them into a special kind of a
| | 06:49 | group called a Live Paint Group.
| | 06:51 | Now you'll notice that if I take that
same Live Paint Bucket tool and I simply
| | 06:56 | mouse it over my document, you can
see that these visual regions start
| | 07:01 | highlighting in red.
| | 07:02 | And those red outlines indicate to me
that I'm able to fill those areas with color.
| | 07:08 | So for example, I'm going to come here
right now to my Swatches panel and I'll
| | 07:12 | choose yellow and I'll put a yellow
color here, and maybe I'll choose a
| | 07:16 | gradient to put a gradient here in
the middle and maybe I'll choose the
| | 07:19 | pattern, I'll put a pattern here.
| | 07:20 | So I have three different fills and I
was able to apply those three different
| | 07:24 | fills to my artwork here inside of
Illustrator, even though I only have two
| | 07:29 | objects in my document.
| | 07:31 | Now the reason why this is called Live
Paint is because if I now switch to my
| | 07:35 | White Arrow or my Direct Selection tool,
I'm just going to click over here to
| | 07:38 | deselect my artwork.
| | 07:39 | But now I'll click just here in this
yellow region, you can see that I have my
| | 07:44 | entire rectangle selected, but if I
move it around, that overlapping area will
| | 07:48 | adjust itself to now contain
the gradients inside of it.
| | 07:52 | So because the fill attribute is
updating as I move my artwork, it's kind of in
| | 07:57 | this live editable state.
| | 07:59 | And that's why what I'm dealing with
here is something called a Live Paint Group.
| | 08:03 | It's two objects that have been put
into a group and I can move them around and
| | 08:07 | I can apply fill colors or really any
attribute based on how it looks on the
| | 08:12 | screen, not based on the
underlying vector paths themselves.
| | 08:16 | Because it looks like I have three areas,
I can apply three fill attributes even
| | 08:21 | though, I only have two paths
from a structure point of view.
| | 08:26 | Now there are a couple of things to
note about working with Live Paint.
| | 08:29 | Live Paint first of all
requires my use of groups.
| | 08:32 | If I don't create this group to
begin with, then this whole magic of Live
| | 08:35 | Paint does not appear.
| | 08:37 | So I need to be working with
groups in order to make Live Paint work.
| | 08:40 | Again, many people maybe who are
starting out with Illustrator, who may not be
| | 08:44 | familiar with the power of what
groups really represent, may have trouble
| | 08:49 | adapting to this kind of feature.
| | 08:51 | Next, we have to understand that the
way that Live Paint works prevents me from
| | 08:57 | using brushes or variable with strokes.
| | 09:00 | So Live Paint itself does not support
brushes or strokes with variable widths.
| | 09:07 | And we'll talk more about this as we go
through the features within this chapter.
| | 09:11 | But keeping all these things in mind,
it's important to realize why Live Paint
| | 09:15 | was created inside of Illustrator.
| | 09:17 | It was created to allow people to work
inside of Illustrator without having to
| | 09:23 | use the Pathfinder command.
| | 09:26 | Instead of worrying about taking my
simple objects and then using Divide for
| | 09:30 | example in my Pathfinder panel to create
multiple shapes, so I can add different
| | 09:34 | attributes, I could simply take my basic
shapes and apply the attributes without
| | 09:39 | having to ever look at Pathfinder.
| | 09:42 | However, as we're going to find out
throughout this chapter, what makes this
| | 09:46 | work is really the underlying power
for Live Paint because I highly doubt
| | 09:51 | you'll be worried about creating
overlapping rectangles and giving them
| | 09:54 | different fill colors.
| | 09:55 | After all you already know how to use
Pathfinder to do simple tasks like that.
| | 10:00 | But soon throughout this chapter, we
will find a tremendous amount of power
| | 10:04 | hidden inside of Live Paint that allow
to take this to new levels and create
| | 10:09 | very, very complex artwork in a way
that even Pathfinder can do for us.
| | 10:14 | In fact, perhaps the most
interesting part about Live Paint is because it
| | 10:18 | focuses so much on the visual aspects
or the appearance of my artwork rather
| | 10:23 | than the underlying structure.
| | 10:25 | It almost changes the rules for how
vector artwork actually is drawn inside
| | 10:29 | of Illustrator at all.
| | 10:31 | Things like anchor points and paths not
only fade into the background, but our
| | 10:36 | ability to focus on the visual
aspects of artwork will allow us to take an
| | 10:40 | entirely new approach to how we
draw artwork inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a Live Paint group| 00:00 | So we know that Live Paint allows us to
focus more on the visual aspects of our
| | 00:05 | artwork instead of the
underlying paths and anchor points.
| | 00:09 | So let's learn how to create Live Paint
Groups and that will get us started to
| | 00:13 | learning how to use and kind of
tap the power of this feature.
| | 00:17 | I am going to start with this document
here called mane.ai, We're actually going
| | 00:21 | to be focusing on creating the mane Mister Zee
| | 00:23 | at the top of his head, so that we
get a good understanding for how to create
| | 00:27 | Live Paint Groups and then we'll
apply it to the artwork over here for Mister Zee.
| | 00:31 | So let's focus on these shapes here.
| | 00:34 | Again, I've two circles and a rectangle
very, very basic constructs, and we're
| | 00:38 | going to turn this into a Live Paint Group.
| | 00:41 | Remember when dealing with Live Paint,
everything comes down to working with
| | 00:45 | Groups that's would kind of
is the heart of the feature.
| | 00:49 | If you don't use Groups then the
entire concept of Live Paint does not apply
| | 00:53 | inside of Illustrator, so we've to
understand that in order for us to work in
| | 00:57 | this magical world of Live Paint if
that's what we want to call it, we've to
| | 01:02 | first define a Group for our artwork.
| | 01:05 | Now we can just create a regular Group,
so if I take these three pieces of
| | 01:08 | artwork right now and I select them
and I now have three different pieces of
| | 01:12 | artwork selected, I can't just go to
the Object menu and choose Group, because
| | 01:17 | that creates a regular Group, but we need to
deal with something called the Live Paint Group.
| | 01:21 | Now one way to do that is to
actually select the Live Paint Bucket tool
| | 01:25 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:27 | The keyboard shortcut for that
tool is the K key on your keyboard.
| | 01:30 | When you've some artwork selected and
you now take the Live Paint Bucket tool
| | 01:35 | and you click anywhere on the bounding
area of your selected artwork, just by
| | 01:40 | clicking performs the act of turning
this now into a Live Paint Group, so it's
| | 01:46 | not a regular group it is special
group called a Live Paint Group.
| | 01:50 | In fact, if you've your bounding box
option turned on and you select a Live
| | 01:55 | Paint Group with your Regular Selection
tool you'll notice that inside of little
| | 01:58 | handles that that appear around the
perimeter of your bounding box, you'll see
| | 02:02 | little stars that appear inside of
those little bounding boxes and that's
| | 02:06 | because Live Paint Groups
are special, so they get stars.
| | 02:11 | But it's a real easy way when you
select any artwork inside of your document to
| | 02:14 | know what you're dealing.
| | 02:16 | This is very helpful by the way when
you are dealing with files that other
| | 02:20 | people have created in case you want
to find out if any Live Paint Groups
| | 02:24 | exists inside of the documents, simply
make a selection with your bounding box
| | 02:27 | turned on and you'll be able to see
and identify right away which objects are
| | 02:32 | indeed a Live Paint Group.
| | 02:35 | Now I am actually going to press
undo or Command+Z for a moment here.
| | 02:37 | Let's go back to regular paths,
because I want to show you another method for
| | 02:42 | creating a Live Paint Group.
| | 02:43 | If we go up to Object menu you can
scroll down over here where it says Live
| | 02:48 | Paint and then choose this option called Make.
| | 02:51 | The keyboard shortcut by the way is
Command+Option+X that's if you are on Mac,
| | 02:55 | that would be Ctrl+Alt+X if you are on windows.
| | 02:58 | I am going to choose a Live Paint>Make
and that is also going to now turn these
| | 03:03 | three objects into a special
group called the Live Paint Group.
| | 03:08 | Now once I've created this Live Paint
Group I've the ability to treat it in the
| | 03:13 | visual fashion, meaning I can
apply paint or I can apply attributes.
| | 03:18 | Meaning fills and strokes based on
the areas that way that I see it.
| | 03:23 | For example, if I want to apply a fill just to
this area right here and I'd be able to do so.
| | 03:28 | Note I do not have to use Pathfinder.
| | 03:30 | In fact, let's kind of put Pathfinder away
for now, because we're not going to be using it.
| | 03:34 | And now we're going to be exploring this
Live Paint feature and see how we might
| | 03:37 | be able to accomplish similar tasks.
| | 03:40 | So now that we know how to create a Live Paint Group
let's see how we might do that for Mister Zee over here.
| | 03:46 | I am actually going to go ahead and
zoom in on this part of his head so we can
| | 03:49 | get a better look at this.
| | 03:50 | I'm going to click and drag, so now
I've all these elements selected and I am
| | 03:55 | going to use the keyboard shortcut
Command+Option+X or Ctrl+Alt+X and now
| | 04:00 | I've turned all these path, which are
just basically some ovals in a regular
| | 04:04 | path which is part of the top of the head,
and I've now turn this into a Live Paint Group.
| | 04:11 | At this point I'm ready to start going
to the next step using the Live Paint
| | 04:15 | Bucket tool just start to color in the
regions that I want, we'll do that in
| | 04:20 | the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Live Paint Bucket tool| 00:00 | I am here now in this file called
mane2 and we've gotten to this point now we
| | 00:05 | already have our shapes created and on
top of that we've turned all these shapes
| | 00:10 | into something called a Live Paint group.
| | 00:13 | In fact, if I use my selection tool
and then I click on this, because I've
| | 00:16 | my bounding box turned on I can now
see that there is a little star at each
| | 00:21 | of a little handles here indicating that I
currently now have a Live Paint group selected.
| | 00:26 | Of course, we can always look at the
Appearance panel and it will identify to us
| | 00:30 | that we've a Live Paint group selected as well.
| | 00:33 | Other than the fact that is now a Life
Paint group in our minds, we can just
| | 00:37 | think of this as a regular group and
a little bit later on inside of this
| | 00:40 | chapter we'll see why that it can
add so much more power to this feature.
| | 00:44 | But for now we want to focus on
using the Live Paint Bucket tool to start
| | 00:50 | applying some attributes to this shape.
| | 00:52 | Now if we think about the shape itself,
all we really care about are these
| | 00:57 | boundaries right over here
that make up the actual mane.
| | 01:00 | So you can see over here at this
region over here and just to the top of the
| | 01:03 | head right over here all of these other
areas are extraneous and they were just
| | 01:08 | created, because they are parts of the
ovals that we use, but we don't need them
| | 01:12 | for our artwork at all.
| | 01:13 | In fact, just to kind to show you how
different this concept of working with
| | 01:18 | Live Paint is I am actually going to
come here to my Stroke settings turn all of
| | 01:23 | my Stroke settings to None.
| | 01:25 | So now I just simply have these paths
in my document, but they don't have any
| | 01:29 | fill apply to them and they
don't have any strokes as well.
| | 01:32 | Let's go a step further.
| | 01:34 | I am actually going to deselect
this by clicking on a blank area.
| | 01:38 | So I don't even see anything
at all inside of my document.
| | 01:41 | I know if I go into Outline mode by
pressing Command+Y or Ctrl+Y that I can
| | 01:45 | see that all those shapes are there,
but normally right now in my Preview mode
| | 01:49 | I don't see any of the shapes, because they
don't have an appearance applied to them just yet.
| | 01:53 | So now I am going to switch to my
Paint Bucket tool, and again my Live Paint
| | 01:57 | Bucket tool, the keyboard shortcut
is the K key on my keyboard and you'll
| | 02:02 | notice that just above the Paint Bucket
tool right now I've these three little
| | 02:06 | squares or the three boxes.
| | 02:08 | If you don't see them then just go ahead
now and double-click on the tool itself
| | 02:12 | and make sure that the Cursor
Swatch Preview setting is checked.
| | 02:16 | I am going to click OK and I have
these little setting here and you'll notice
| | 02:19 | that as I move the Paint Bucket tool
over this artwork even though that my Live
| | 02:25 | Paint group is not selected these areas
are highlighting in Red indicated that
| | 02:30 | they can be filled with the fill color.
| | 02:33 | This is actually a very interesting
behavior that exists within the world of
| | 02:36 | Live Paint, because Live Paint is
a special kind of object or more
| | 02:42 | specifically a special kind of a
group, Illustrator will automatically
| | 02:46 | highlight these paintable regions.
| | 02:47 | Meaning, I can actually apply attributes,
meaning fills and strokes to artwork
| | 02:53 | without having to select it at all.
| | 02:55 | Like I said, the whole concept that
Live Paint kind of breaks the rules of the
| | 03:00 | way that we think about
working with vector graphics.
| | 03:03 | As long as I first turned it into a
Live Paint group it now has this whole new
| | 03:07 | set of rules that apply to it.
| | 03:09 | One of them is that I now have the
ability to apply paint to this object
| | 03:13 | or apply fills to these areas or these
regions even though the artwork is not selected.
| | 03:19 | The way that I would normally do this
is I would first need to put some kind of
| | 03:22 | a color or load some kind of color into
my paint bucket so what I am going to do
| | 03:27 | is I am go to my Swatches panel and
I'll click on let's say just Red now.
| | 03:31 | Let's say I want to make his mane Red.
| | 03:32 | So I am choosing this option here called
CMYK Red a regular plain process swatch
| | 03:37 | and when I move over here to this area
I'm going to just click once and that's
| | 03:41 | now going to fill that region with a color.
| | 03:43 | Now another way to use the Live Paint
Bucket tool is to click and then drag and
| | 03:49 | as I drag across any region those
regions will automatically get filled.
| | 03:53 | So I can click over here.
| | 03:54 | Let's fill that little region up over here.
| | 03:56 | Let's click here, here, and here and
I've now applied to fill to the part of the
| | 04:02 | mane that I would like to have
inside of this piece of artwork.
| | 04:05 | So just like that even though right now
if I go in to Outline mode there are all
| | 04:10 | of these circles and
paths that exist in my file.
| | 04:12 | I'm not really focused on that, I am
focused on the visual aspect of my file,
| | 04:17 | which right now is exactly the
way that appears in my document.
| | 04:20 | I just see that nice little spiky kind of
mane that I have for the top of his head.
| | 04:26 | So when I said it earlier before that
the whole concept of Live Paint is really
| | 04:30 | focusing on the visual aspects of
my file is that I don't really care
| | 04:34 | necessarily about the underlying paths.
| | 04:36 | They're there and they provide structure
for me, but I don't need to be actively
| | 04:40 | thinking about that structure when I
want to define the appearance that artwork.
| | 04:44 | Now let's take a closer look at
the actual Paint Bucket tool itself.
| | 04:48 | As we discussed right on top of
the paint bucket I have three boxes.
| | 04:52 | I've big box that appears directly on
top of the icon and then just to the left
| | 04:57 | of it I've a Black box and just to
the right of it I've a Yellow box.
| | 05:02 | So let's once again just
memorize the order here.
| | 05:04 | I've a Red box in the center, I've a Black
box to the left, and a Yellow box to the right.
| | 05:09 | Let take a closer look at the Swatches panel.
| | 05:12 | Right now my selected swatch is Red and
then just to the left of it it's Black
| | 05:17 | and just to the right of it is Yellow.
| | 05:19 | What I am actually seeing here on top
of my Paint Bucket tool is a miniature
| | 05:24 | snapshot of my Swatches panel and I
can actually change colors or fill my
| | 05:31 | paint bucket with a different color paint
simply by using the Arrow keys on my keyboard.
| | 05:37 | So if I tap the Right arrow on my
keyboard just once you can now see the color
| | 05:42 | that is filled inside of the big box
that appears on top of my icon for the Live
| | 05:46 | Paint Bucket tool is now filled with Yellow.
| | 05:49 | That means if I now click on a region
it's going to paint that region with Yellow.
| | 05:54 | If I hit the Left arrow I go back to
Red and if I hit the Left arrow again now
| | 05:59 | Black is my Fill color.
| | 06:01 | If I now click-and-drag inside of my
Live Paint group with this option right now
| | 06:06 | I'll be filling my areas with Black.
| | 06:09 | The whole purpose of this is that I can
actually keep my Swatches panel closed
| | 06:13 | and as I'm working with this piece of
artwork if I decide I want to Fill this
| | 06:16 | with Yellow I can just tab two times
right now on the right arrow, move over to
| | 06:21 | Yellow and now click-and-drag and start
to add these colors and fill this with
| | 06:26 | Yellow instead of filling it with Red.
| | 06:29 | The benefit here is that again I'm not
focused on selecting any artwork because
| | 06:33 | only the areas that show up as
highlighted in Red are the regions that are
| | 06:37 | going to be painted and on top of
that I have the ability to quickly switch
| | 06:42 | between different colors.
| | 06:43 | Now by the way if you also want to
apply colors to the strokes not only fills,
| | 06:48 | you can now click on that Live Paint
Bucket tool in the Tools panel and you
| | 06:52 | can choose this option here called
Paint Strokes, but for now we're going to
| | 06:55 | leave this turned off.
| | 06:56 | We are simply going to click OK with
the options that we've here and we can
| | 07:00 | start to see how much fun we might
actually have using the Live Paint Bucket
| | 07:04 | tool with Live Paint
groups inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Live Paint with open paths| 00:00 | So we're starting to get a better idea of
what makes Live Paint work and how we can use it.
| | 00:05 | We know that we can take all of these
shapes and we can kind of overlap them and
| | 00:08 | instead of using Pathfinder turn them
into a group, a special kind of a group
| | 00:13 | called the Live Paint Group.
| | 00:15 | And then use the Live Paint Bucket
tool to be able to apply fill colors to
| | 00:20 | regions that are visually apparent,
but maybe the underlying path themselves
| | 00:25 | aren't actual physical objects, but
I'll be honest with you my background is in
| | 00:29 | art production and I care very much
about building files that I know that are
| | 00:33 | always going to print correctly, and
then it going to live on and have other
| | 00:37 | people work on them and kind of
not cause any problems down the line.
| | 00:40 | So when I first start to taking a look
at what Live Paint was doing I was very
| | 00:44 | concern, because I'll even have an
object that I can click on to select that
| | 00:48 | might have this fill colors applied to it.
| | 00:50 | These are just fill colors that are
applied to regions that are visual
| | 00:54 | aspects of my document.
| | 00:56 | So kind of approaching it from the
technical side of things which is what I
| | 01:00 | maybe used to doing inside of
Illustrative because I'm usually so focused on
| | 01:03 | paths and anchor points.
| | 01:05 | I may have some trouble
accepting all these things.
| | 01:07 | To be honest with you I care very much
about what makes all this work, how does
| | 01:11 | this happen inside of Illustrator,
what rules allow this to occur?
| | 01:16 | We'll actually get to the bottom of
all that throughout the rest of this
| | 01:19 | chapter, but for now, I'll tell you
that when I first started looking at this
| | 01:23 | feature and I kind of saw those two
overlapping rectangles like we had discussed
| | 01:26 | earlier, even here in this case
where the mane is made up of all these
| | 01:30 | overlapping oval shapes.
| | 01:32 | I was able to start understanding that maybe
Adobe is kind of pulled some kind of magic in.
| | 01:36 | They were doing like a smoke and
mirrors thing where, you know what there's
| | 01:40 | probably some kind of Live Pathfinder Effect
going on in the background that I just don't see.
| | 01:45 | And I am able to apply fills because
somehow there is a divide that's happening
| | 01:49 | just out of my sight.
| | 01:50 | However, when I started using more
and more of this Live Paint feature, I
| | 01:54 | realize that it goes
beyond just overlapping objects.
| | 01:58 | Take this ear of Mister Zee for example.
| | 02:01 | It's made up right now of individual open paths.
| | 02:04 | If I click on this shape right here,
this is one path, if I click on this shape
| | 02:08 | this is another path here.
| | 02:09 | This is its own path right here as
well, and then I have another path for
| | 02:12 | this part of the head.
| | 02:13 | So these are four individual paths.
| | 02:16 | There is no closed shape in theory at
all right now inside of my document, at
| | 02:21 | least not in this part of the ear
that I would be able to apply a fill to.
| | 02:25 | Illustrator allows me to
apply fills to closed objects.
| | 02:28 | Now I could apply a fill to a shape and
Illustrator will kind of automatically
| | 02:33 | kind of connect the two paths and make
it appear as if there is a fill there.
| | 02:37 | But in reality I've open paths, we don't
really assign fill colors to open paths
| | 02:42 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:43 | So I was wondering can I actually use
Live Paint when I'm working with these
| | 02:48 | paths as well, the answer is absolutely.
| | 02:51 | In fact, there is a tremendous amount of
depth to what we can do with Live Paint
| | 02:55 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:56 | So I'm going to start off by first
selecting all these four individual paths and
| | 03:00 | then going to the Object menu and
choosing Live Paints>Make, so I've just turned
| | 03:05 | those areas now into a Live Paint Group.
| | 03:08 | If I look here at my artwork and I see
that I've a Live Paint Group this one
| | 03:12 | right now is the Live Paint Group
that makes up the mane which is currently
| | 03:16 | locked, so I just don't accidentally
selected it or gets in the way, but I've
| | 03:20 | now another Live Paint Group that I
just selected that contains the four paths
| | 03:24 | that make up the shapes for this ear.
| | 03:26 | Now I don't even have any shapes that
have any kind of a fill, so even if I kind
| | 03:31 | of extrapolated my head that there's
some kind of Live Pathfinder kind of
| | 03:35 | happening in the background here with
some kind of smoke and mirrors trick.
| | 03:38 | I don't even have filled paths that I
might want to be able to apply a fill
| | 03:41 | attribute to, to begin with.
| | 03:43 | I just have four open paths which
just happen to intersect each other, but
| | 03:48 | because I've turned them now into a
Live Paint Group they kind of get brought
| | 03:51 | into this world and you'll notice now
if I do use my Live Paint Bucket tool and
| | 03:56 | again I'll press the K key
on my keyboard to select it.
| | 03:58 | When I mouse over these regions you
can see that they do highlight in red,
| | 04:02 | meaning I can fill those areas,
but I'll tell you something else.
| | 04:06 | If we take a closer look now towards the
bottom this area isn't even visually closed.
| | 04:11 | You can see over here that it's open
yet when I use my Live Paint Bucket tool,
| | 04:16 | Illustrator allows me to
fill those areas with color.
| | 04:19 | Now we just spent some time talking
about how we've the ability with Live
| | 04:23 | Paint to treat artwork based on its visual
aspects not on its underlying vector aspects.
| | 04:30 | In other words, it kind of matches
somewhat like we were familiar with inside of
| | 04:33 | Photoshop where I can actually takes
some areas and flood fill them with paint,
| | 04:37 | but we also know if we've ever done that
inside of Photoshop, if I flood fill an
| | 04:41 | area but there's a gap somewhere then
that paint actually escapes through that
| | 04:45 | area and fills up my entire document.
| | 04:47 | So how was it possible that I'm able to
apply fill colors to these open regions
| | 04:53 | without even the regions being visually closed?
| | 04:56 | Well, that's a great mystery.
| | 04:59 | It's actually one of the most
powerful parts about working with Live Paint
| | 05:02 | Groups and we'll discover it in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Detecting gaps in Live Paint groups| 00:00 | In the previous movie we saw how we're
able to actually take open paths and put
| | 00:05 | them into a Live Paint Group and still
be able to fill regions, but in the case
| | 00:11 | here of this ear of Mister Zee
| | 00:12 | we notice that there were certain
areas that did not even touch each other,
| | 00:16 | they seem to be open.
| | 00:18 | Meaning there were gaps in my artwork
yet I'm still able to apply fill colors to
| | 00:22 | those areas as if they were closed.
| | 00:25 | So what allows that to happen
inside of this world of Live Paint?
| | 00:29 | Because if we kind of take a step
back for a moment, we can almost start to
| | 00:33 | define some set of loose
rules for working with Live Paint.
| | 00:37 | As we discussed Live Paint allows us to
focus more on the visual aspects of artwork.
| | 00:43 | So in others words, we might be able
to say that forget about the underlying
| | 00:46 | anchor points and paths, if artwork
looks a certain way, if it looks like
| | 00:50 | it's closed then we have the
ability to assign a fill color or a fill
| | 00:54 | attribute to that region.
| | 00:57 | But now we see that there are certain
areas that are not closed, they're almost
| | 01:01 | close so we can kind of modify that
by saying maybe the rule inside of
| | 01:05 | Illustrator is that when dealing with
Live Paint we can fill areas that are
| | 01:10 | almost kind of closed you
know they're just about there.
| | 01:13 | But again, this is always kind of
been a problem for me to kind of digest
| | 01:17 | inside of Illustrator, because I've always
viewed Illustrator as an application that's perfect.
| | 01:22 | We've these beautiful crisp
lines inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:26 | Everything inside of Illustrator
is perfect even maybe to a fault.
| | 01:29 | We've found that sometimes when you want
to create certain types of artwork like
| | 01:33 | grunge or children's artwork where
you want to make it look like even that
| | 01:36 | Illustrator kind of drew outside the lines.
| | 01:39 | There is no way for Illustrator to
draw outside the lines, because the fill
| | 01:43 | always meets the stroke, it's always perfect.
| | 01:46 | So how can we get into some kind of
situation inside of Illustrator where
| | 01:50 | obviously something is not perfect
yet I'm still able to fill that area?
| | 01:55 | The answer is that within the realm of Live
Paint we've something called Gap Detection.
| | 02:01 | I'm actually going to select this Live
Paint Group just by clicking on it right
| | 02:05 | over here, notice it's now selected and
if I go to the Object menu, I can go to
| | 02:10 | Live Paint and choose
something here called Gap Options.
| | 02:13 | This brings up a dialog box where I
see something called Gap Detection.
| | 02:18 | This is an incredibly powerful
feature found within Live Paint.
| | 02:22 | It allows me to make believe that
certain areas if they're small are actually
| | 02:28 | closed even though they might really be open.
| | 02:31 | So we can see over here that Paint stops at:
| | 02:34 | Small Gaps and I can actually choose
whether that paint stops at Small, Medium
| | 02:38 | or a Large Gaps or perhaps even more
precisely I can specify my own Custom value
| | 02:44 | for what I would consider a closed area.
| | 02:47 | I just want to show you by the way if I
turned Gap Detection off and I'm turning
| | 02:51 | it off by the way for this Live Paint
Group right now, because I've this Live
| | 02:55 | Paint Group selected, but if I were to
make this change without any Live Paint
| | 02:59 | Group selected then this would
apply to all the Live Paint Groups.
| | 03:03 | But if I click OK right now, notice
I've turned off The Gap Detection, if I
| | 03:06 | use my Live Paint Bucket tool, you notice that
right now I've just one large fillable region.
| | 03:12 | I don't have the two separate regions here.
| | 03:14 | because I don't have Gap
Detection turned on is ignored.
| | 03:17 | So Illustrator sees that area as open,
so I only have one visually close region
| | 03:23 | that I can apply a fill to, so
let's go back here to the Object menu.
| | 03:27 | Let's go to Live Paint choose Gap
Options and turn Gap Detection back on.
| | 03:32 | Now when I click OK, I can apply
separate colors to each of these regions even
| | 03:38 | though a visual gap appears inside my artwork.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding paths to a Live Paint group| 00:00 | In this movie I want to focus on the
concept that Live Paint groups are actually
| | 00:05 | groups inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:07 | Let's take a look over here at the ear.
| | 00:09 | If I click on this right now I see
that I have four paths that I've actually
| | 00:13 | combined together into a single group,
in this case a Live Paint group, so that
| | 00:18 | I can apply fill attributes to the areas.
| | 00:20 | If I look over here in my Layers panel
I see that I have my Live Paint Group
| | 00:24 | currently selected and I have four
paths that appear inside of that group.
| | 00:30 | Now I also went ahead and added yet path here.
| | 00:32 | this is the fifth, because maybe I
want to add some kind an area here for
| | 00:36 | shading and I wanted to create yet another area.
| | 00:39 | So all I did is after I've already created
my Live Paint group I now drew another path.
| | 00:45 | So if I now take my Live Paint Bucket
tool I want to be able to fill that area
| | 00:49 | and shade it, but you can see that
even though the line is here and it
| | 00:53 | completely goes across over here I'm
not detecting any kind of paintable region
| | 00:57 | here, and the reason why that's
happening is because this path that I created
| | 01:02 | is not a part of the Live Paint group for the
rest of these objects that makes up the ear.
| | 01:08 | So you can see over here with this
path selected this path currently lives
| | 01:13 | outside of the Live Paint group.
| | 01:15 | In order for me to have that be a
paintable region it must live along with the
| | 01:20 | other paths inside of that group.
| | 01:23 | So in this movie I want to focus on a
few ways that we can actually do that.
| | 01:27 | All we have to realize is that a
Live Paint group is a regular group.
| | 01:32 | it just has some special attributes
that when I use the Live Paint Bucket tool
| | 01:36 | with it I can apply paint
to these visible regions.
| | 01:39 | However, it acts like any
other group inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:43 | So for example, if I have my Layers
panel open, let's say I even deselect this
| | 01:47 | piece of artwork right now, I
know that path is right here.
| | 01:51 | If I simply take this path and drag it
so that now it becomes a part of the Live
| | 01:55 | Paint group simply by hitting the K key
on my keyboard to activate my Live Paint
| | 02:01 | Bucket tool, I'll see that I can now
apply paint to that region, because now
| | 02:06 | that path is a part of that group.
| | 02:08 | Press undo though, because I want to
show yet another method that we can do this.
| | 02:12 | Again, just focusing on the aspects and
the knowledge that a Live Paint group is
| | 02:17 | really just a group, I am going to
take this path as it is right now and
| | 02:21 | Command+X or Ctrl+X to put it onto my clipboard.
| | 02:25 | Next, I am going to double-click on
this path right here to put me into
| | 02:30 | Isolation mode, because
right now I am inside the group.
| | 02:33 | You can even see now in my Layers
panel that everything else is isolated.
| | 02:37 | I am now inside of the Live Paint group.
| | 02:39 | If I now choose Edit and I choose Paste
in Place, I am now pasting this path but
| | 02:46 | I am inside the group so the
path now gets pasted into the group.
| | 02:50 | So it automatically now
becomes a part of the group.
| | 02:53 | So now again if I use my Live Paint
Bucket tool I will be able to paint
| | 02:56 | that individual region. Why?
| | 02:59 | Because I took that path and I pasted it
into the group using the Isolation mode feature.
| | 03:04 | Let me go ahead and press Command+Z or a
Ctrl+Z to undo that and press Escape to
| | 03:09 | go back here and once again I am going
to hit Command+Shift+V or Ctrl+Shift+V to
| | 03:14 | paste that piece of artwork or that
path right where it was before, but again
| | 03:18 | it's outside the group so it's now not
part of that Live Paint group at all.
| | 03:22 | Let me show you yet another way that
we can add this into the group itself.
| | 03:26 | If I take both the group and my path
and I select them both at the same time.
| | 03:31 | So now I have both my Live
Paint group and my path selected.
| | 03:36 | You'll notice that inside of the
control panel there is now a button that
| | 03:40 | says Merge Live Paint.
| | 03:42 | This button will appear anytime that you
have a Live Paint group selected inside
| | 03:47 | of Illustrator along with either
another Live Paint group or other paths.
| | 03:52 | By simply clicking on this button the
Illustrator will now incorporate all loose
| | 03:57 | paths that are outside the group into
the Live Paint group so that now I could
| | 04:01 | use my Live Paint Bucket tool to now
modify the fill attributes of anything
| | 04:06 | inside of that group.
| | 04:08 | Now let's just talk about using Isolation
mode once again, but in a different way.
| | 04:13 | If I knew that I wanted to draw a new
path to create some kind of a shading here
| | 04:17 | what I might do is something as follows.
| | 04:19 | Let me actually take this path.
| | 04:20 | I use my white selection tool here and
just Option+Click on that or Alt+Click on
| | 04:25 | it to select the entire path
and then just simply delete it.
| | 04:28 | If I decide that I want to put a new
path there I can start off by first
| | 04:32 | double-clicking and isolating this group.
| | 04:34 | Now that I'm in the group any path
that I go ahead now and start to draw.
| | 04:39 | let's say right about over here and maybe
I'll use my Reshape tool by hitting the E key.
| | 04:43 | Remember, we remapped that keyboard shortcut.
| | 04:46 | And maybe I can now draw
some kind of shape here.
| | 04:49 | This is yet another way that I might
go ahead and create additional shapes,
| | 04:53 | because by isolating my group first and
then drawing the shape I am drawing the
| | 04:58 | shape directly into that group.
| | 05:00 | Now when I hit Escape to exit Isolation mode
that piece of artwork is already in the group.
| | 05:06 | So if I use my Live Paint Bucket tool I'll
now see that I can add through those areas.
| | 05:11 | So as long as we remain focused on the
concept that Live Paint has to do with
| | 05:16 | the groups, we could take advantage of
everything that we ready know about how
| | 05:19 | groups work using Isolation mode, using
Copy/Paste or using the Merge Live Paint
| | 05:26 | command to take regular paths and
integrate them or assimilate them into
| | 05:31 | existing Live Paint groups.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Live Paint Selection tool| 00:00 | Until this point our discussion around
using the Live Paint groups has revolved
| | 00:04 | around this tool called
the Live Paint Bucket tool.
| | 00:08 | It allows us to simply apply fills to
visible regions within a Live Paint group.
| | 00:14 | However, I can't really see using that
so often inside of Illustrator, because
| | 00:19 | many times when I want to work with
building artwork I am focusing more on the
| | 00:23 | actual structure of the paths.
| | 00:25 | Yes, I want to be able to forget about
anchor points and paths, but I care about
| | 00:30 | the shapes that I'm building.
| | 00:31 | So I want to focus on those shapes.
| | 00:34 | Well, it happens to be that there's
another part of Live Paint, which I feel
| | 00:38 | is perhaps the most powerful part
about Live Paint and unfortunately just
| | 00:43 | because of the way that it works it's also one
of the most overlooked features about Live Paint.
| | 00:48 | For example, let's take a look at this
file that we have right here on the screen.
| | 00:51 | I am working in a file called mane6.
| | 00:54 | And if I click on this ear region
over here, I have all of these elements
| | 00:57 | right over here that make up a Live Paint
group, all these are made up by individual paths.
| | 01:03 | They don't have any fill regions, but
these are open paths and you can see that
| | 01:07 | an obviously in many cases the path
goes beyond where I need it to go.
| | 01:12 | Now if all I am really focused on is on
the fill itself, I could simply set my
| | 01:15 | Stroke to none like what I've done with this
part of the mane and simply give it a fill.
| | 01:22 | But if I also want to apply some
kind of appearance to the stroke itself,
| | 01:25 | how might I do that?
| | 01:26 | And more importantly how would I cut off
the parts of the paths that I don't need?
| | 01:31 | We really want to get away from
thinking about anchor points and we want to
| | 01:34 | get away from all of the things that bog us
down around there, rules of vector graphics.
| | 01:39 | One of the really nice things about
working with Live Paint is that it allowed
| | 01:42 | us to live in this all most fantasy
world inside of Illustrator where we can
| | 01:46 | just go by the way things look, not
necessarily by the way that they're built.
| | 01:51 | Wouldn't it be great if there was some
kind of way for us to be able to actually
| | 01:54 | do that with paths themselves?
| | 01:56 | It turns out there actually is.
| | 01:59 | Using another tool inside of the Tools
panel not called the Live Paint Bucket
| | 02:04 | tool which works with filling regions
inside of Live Paint groups, but instead
| | 02:10 | using a tool called the
Live Paint Selection tool.
| | 02:13 | This is a fabulous tool that
allows us to make selections inside of
| | 02:18 | Illustrator not based on the regular
rules of vector artwork meaning what
| | 02:22 | paths and anchor points are.
| | 02:24 | Instead, this selection tool allows you
to select things inside of Illustrator
| | 02:29 | based on their visual
appearance. It's fabulous.
| | 02:32 | Let's take a look at it.
| | 02:33 | I am going to go to my Tools panel I am
going to click-and-hold my mouse button
| | 02:36 | down on the Live Paint Bucket tool to
reveal the Live Paint Selection tool.
| | 02:41 | I'll be honest with you, when you took
a look at Illustrator there are so many
| | 02:44 | different selection tools.
| | 02:45 | We have the Black arrow, we have the
White Arrow, we have the White Arrow with
| | 02:48 | the plus sign next to it.
| | 02:49 | Then we have the Magic
Wand tool and the Lasso tool.
| | 02:53 | Do we really need another Selection tool?
| | 02:55 | Well, when we're working with Live Paint,
this selection tool is simply great.
| | 02:59 | Watch what happens when I take my Live
Paint Selection tool and I simply mouse
| | 03:04 | it over to this part of the path right here.
| | 03:06 | Do you see how only this
bottom part of the path highlights?
| | 03:09 | Let me switch to my regular
Selection tool for a second here.
| | 03:12 | I am just going to click
just this path right here.
| | 03:15 | This path is made up of two anchor points:
| | 03:18 | one all the way over here
and one all the way over here.
| | 03:21 | There are no anchor points in these
areas over here even though I do have the
| | 03:25 | ability to fill these
regions here with the color.
| | 03:28 | All I have is one anchor point, another
anchor point, and a path that connects them.
| | 03:33 | Yet if I use my Live Paint Selection
tool I have the ability to just select this
| | 03:40 | one region or part of that path and
watch what happens now if I press Delete to
| | 03:45 | remove that, it's simply deletes that part.
| | 03:48 | I didn't need to erase the path, I
didn't need to use my Scissor tool to cut the
| | 03:52 | path, I didn't need to zoom in really
close and make sure that I cut it in the
| | 03:56 | right spot, because the path has been
severed exactly by the point where the
| | 04:01 | other path comes across from it.
| | 04:03 | That's because the Live Paint Selection
tool allows me to make selections based
| | 04:07 | on how things look, not on how the
underlying anchor points actually are.
| | 04:13 | It's a great way to work inside of
Illustrator, because if I want to get rid of
| | 04:16 | a few more elements, I could simply
click-and-drag to create a marquee, select
| | 04:21 | both of these areas, and with
one action delete those areas.
| | 04:25 | It's also a way where I can actually
select regions to be able to fill them with
| | 04:30 | color if I don't want to use
the Live Paint Bucket tool.
| | 04:33 | So for example if I now click on this
region over here, this region has now
| | 04:37 | becomes selected and I can give
it a fill color anyway that I want.
| | 04:41 | Likewise if I click this area I can do so.
| | 04:44 | What's really cool about working with
the Live Paint Selection tool is that if I
| | 04:47 | just really wanted to get out that
shape, I can select this region, which is
| | 04:51 | purely a visible region.
| | 04:53 | there is no shape here that
exists of that yellow area.
| | 04:57 | But if I press Command+C or Ctrl+C to
copy and then press Command+V or Ctrl+V to
| | 05:02 | paste, I now get a physical
shape based on that visual region.
| | 05:07 | If you want to think about in this way
it can steal the shape just by taking
| | 05:11 | something that looks like it's a
shape and turn it into a real one.
| | 05:14 | Let me press Delete here to delete that
shape that's there, and we start to see
| | 05:19 | a tremendous feature that is now part
of Live Paint almost to the point where I
| | 05:23 | think that Live Paint is somewhat
deceiving as a name of the feature, because
| | 05:28 | I'll use the Live Paint Selection tool
far more often for editing paths than I
| | 05:33 | would ever think about painting paths,
because even if I take a step back and I
| | 05:38 | think about it for a moment, do I
really paint inside of Illustrator? I don't.
| | 05:42 | I mean I draw inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:44 | I build art inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:46 | So why would I ever want to use a
Live Paint tool inside of Illustrator?
| | 05:50 | However, when I use the Live Paint
Selection tool I really have a tremendous
| | 05:54 | amount of power over all my vector artwork.
| | 05:57 | It's really a great way to work.
| | 05:58 | The only caveat is I need to first
create a Live Paint group in order to be able
| | 06:03 | to take advantage of the
functionality of the Live Paint Selection tool.
| | 06:08 | You know a little later in this chapter
we are going to discuss a few other ways
| | 06:11 | how we can use this Live Paint Selection
tool to really have control over all of
| | 06:16 | our artwork and be able to focus more
on the visual aspects to the art that we
| | 06:20 | want to create instead of spending
hours and hours of time worrying about
| | 06:24 | underlying the anchor points and paths.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Releasing and expanding Live Paint groups| 00:00 | As we've seen so far working with Live
Paint groups allows me to continuously
| | 00:05 | make changes to artwork,
because after all it's live.
| | 00:08 | However, there maybe times when I want
to spend my Live Paint group, because
| | 00:13 | I'm done editing it.
| | 00:14 | Alternatively, I may choose
to release my Live Paint group.
| | 00:18 | Let's exactly see what both of these options do.
| | 00:21 | Now in this file here called mane7 I've
unlocked this top part of the mane here.
| | 00:26 | I want to show you the two options
you'll have when working with Live Paint.
| | 00:30 | Notice I have all the original
ovals here so that if I wanted to I can
| | 00:33 | double-click to isolate for example
and just choose one of these ovals and
| | 00:37 | adjust them and that changes
how that overall shape looks.
| | 00:40 | I am going to press Undo a few times here.
| | 00:42 | And I'm now going to exit Isolation
mode by hitting Escape and I'll select my
| | 00:48 | Live Paint group and I'll
click on the Expand button.
| | 00:51 | Notice what happens now.
| | 00:53 | Only the visual areas meaning the parts
that have some kind of appearance apply
| | 00:57 | to them, in this case
fills are now available to me.
| | 01:01 | All of the other parts of my objects have been
deleted and it's no longer a Live Paint group.
| | 01:06 | It's now a regular group with all of
these different paths inside of it.
| | 01:10 | If I go into Outline view you can
now see the makeup of my artwork.
| | 01:14 | In this case here since I still have
some objects here and I really want to
| | 01:17 | combine this all into one shape I might
now choose pathfinder Unite to turn all
| | 01:22 | of these into a one solid object.
| | 01:24 | I am going to press Undo though to go
back to my Live Paint group and I want to
| | 01:28 | show yet another option.
| | 01:30 | If I go to the Object menu and I choose
Live Paint>Release this will now ungroup
| | 01:36 | the artwork and in doing so I'm going
to lose the appearance that I've applied
| | 01:40 | to it and in this case those fills and
it returns my artwork back to the way
| | 01:44 | that it was before I turn
this into a Live Paint group.
| | 01:48 | So in this case now all of these
objects have now no fill, but they have a
| | 01:52 | half-point stroke applied to it.
| | 01:54 | Now of course as you're working you could
always leave your Live Paint groups together.
| | 01:59 | You can leave them intact.
| | 02:00 | That allows you to go back to your
files even months down the line and continue
| | 02:05 | to make adjustments and changes as necessary.
| | 02:08 | However, I do find that sometimes when
sending files out to other people purely
| | 02:12 | for the production purposes you might
want to go ahead and expand your Live
| | 02:16 | Paint groups just in case the people
who are going to be working on your files
| | 02:19 | are not familiar with this feature.
| | 02:22 | In this way might avoid unfortunate
accidents from happening sometime down the line.
| | 02:27 | However, I find that when I'm working
and I'm building my own artwork on my
| | 02:31 | own servers and on my own computers,
personally I always keep my Live Paint
| | 02:36 | groups intact and all of the files that I hold
onto just in case I ever want to make changes.
| | 02:41 | However, when I create a file and I'm
going to send to somebody else at that
| | 02:44 | time I may choose to expand my Live
Paint groups if I feel that will make things
| | 02:49 | a little bit easier and more simpler.
| | 02:52 | However, just keep in mind that you
always have the ability to release your Live
| | 02:55 | Paint groups as well and get
back to your original paths.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding how Live Paint works| 00:00 | So we've seen how Live Paint can
allow us to create artwork inside of
| | 00:04 | Illustrator purely from a visual
perspective and allow us to build artwork in a
| | 00:10 | far more intuitive manner.
| | 00:12 | We can use tools like the Live Paint
Bucket tool, and also the Live Paint
| | 00:16 | Selection tool to help us as we work
within this Live Paint Group structure.
| | 00:21 | However, I wanted to kind of wipe this
slate clean here for a moment and really
| | 00:26 | focus on what makes Live
Paint tick, how does it work?
| | 00:30 | How can I make sure that when
I use it, I use it correctly?
| | 00:33 | Well, let me share with you a few insider tips
on how Live Paint works inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:39 | More importantly, we'll also discover
why things like brushes or variable width
| | 00:44 | strokes can't work with Live Paint, and
in this case, we'll kind of get a better
| | 00:49 | idea of when you can use Live Paint and
when it might not be such a good idea.
| | 00:53 | I'm going to start off by just creating
a couple of lines here on my artboard,
| | 00:57 | maybe like make like a tic-tac-toe board.
| | 01:00 | So I have these four paths.
| | 01:02 | Again, the paths right now are open
paths, they aren't closed, but because they
| | 01:06 | all happen to crisscross each other, at
some point it creates this visual region
| | 01:11 | here in the middle that looks like it's closed.
| | 01:13 | So I might be able to
fill that area with a color.
| | 01:17 | Again, if I take my Selection tool and
I select all four pieces of art and I
| | 01:21 | press Command+Option+X on the Mac, or
Ctrl+Alt+X on a PC, I've now combined
| | 01:27 | these four shapes into a Live Paint group.
| | 01:31 | That allows me to use my Live Paint
Bucket tool which I'll choose over here to
| | 01:36 | fill this area with color, and I'll
just go ahead and use my right-arrow to go
| | 01:39 | over say to yellow which just happens
to be my favorite color, and I'll fill
| | 01:43 | that middle area with color.
| | 01:44 | Because this is a Live Paint Group, I
have the ability to take these paths
| | 01:48 | individually with my Direct Selection
tool and modify the paths and the area
| | 01:54 | simply updates along as I make these edits.
| | 01:58 | So what makes this work?
| | 01:59 | Well, we know that when we work with
Illustrator, in the world of vectors, we
| | 02:04 | had something called an Object Stacking Order.
| | 02:06 | That means that when I create one
rectangle, then I draw another rectangle.
| | 02:11 | That rectangle is on top of the
previous rectangle, and I can always send
| | 02:15 | rectangles to the back or to the front
and adjust their Object Stacking Order.
| | 02:19 | However, we also know that when I
create a group, the group itself has its own
| | 02:25 | stacking order inside of it and if we
take a look at the group as an entire
| | 02:29 | container, all the objects within the
group are kind of fused together and there
| | 02:33 | really is one level of stacking order
for all the elements inside the group and
| | 02:39 | that's kind of how the magic
happens inside of a Live Paint Group.
| | 02:43 | A Live Paint Group takes all the
objects inside the group and puts them all on
| | 02:48 | the same level from an
Object Stacking Order perspective.
| | 02:51 | So all the pieces of art now
suddenly have this ability to kind of fuse
| | 02:55 | together and make a shape.
| | 02:58 | Any area within all these objects that
have now been fused together, that appear
| | 03:03 | visually closed or even somewhat
visually closed if we have Gap Detection turned
| | 03:08 | on, is what enables me to use the
Live Paint Bucket tool, or the Live Paint
| | 03:12 | Selection tool to work within these
realms of Live Paint where I work more in a
| | 03:17 | visual way than on how the
underlying paths and anchor points are built.
| | 03:22 | So because all these elements right
here are kind of fused together almost as
| | 03:26 | if they were like a Pathfinder unite
all together, I don't really have a way to
| | 03:31 | identify a path that I can put for example a
variable width stroke on or a brush stroke on.
| | 03:39 | In fact, if I select this path right
here, and I go to my Brushes panel, and I
| | 03:43 | try to put this brush on it,
you can see that nothing happens.
| | 03:47 | It's only once I expand my Live Paint
Group, and then it turns into regular
| | 03:50 | paths, and at that point by the way,
you'll notice that in this path here where
| | 03:54 | I have only one anchor point here, and
one anchor point here, when I choose to
| | 03:59 | expand all this by clicking on the
Expand button here, I now have anchor points
| | 04:04 | here that actually create a
physical object right here.
| | 04:07 | So this does allow me to now select
let's say one of these segments and apply a
| | 04:12 | brush attribute to it.
| | 04:14 | But as long as I'm inside a live, Live
Paint Group, I don't have the ability to
| | 04:19 | put brushes on my paths.
| | 04:22 | So hopefully, this provides just a little bit
more insight onto how Live Paint Groups work.
| | 04:27 | While it does sound like a limitation
that I cannot apply brushstrokes in this
| | 04:31 | way, I guess it is based on a
perspective of how you look on it and more
| | 04:35 | importantly on the type of art that
you need to create because there are
| | 04:38 | certain things that Live Paint Groups can do
obviously that we can't do with regular shapes.
| | 04:43 | I'm going to hit Command+A or
Ctrl+A, and just delete all this.
| | 04:46 | I'm just going to draw
two paths for a moment here.
| | 04:48 | one this way, and one this way.
| | 04:49 | I'm going to take the two and press
Command+Option+X or Ctrl+Alt+X to create
| | 04:53 | a Live Paint Group.
| | 04:55 | Next, I'm going to use my Live Paint
Selection tool to just simply select this
| | 05:00 | part of my path and change its
stroke way to like maybe 5 points.
| | 05:05 | Next, I'll select this part of the
path and I'll change its color to blue and
| | 05:10 | maybe I'll even turn on the Dashed Line setting.
| | 05:13 | Next, I'm going to switch here to
my Direct Selection tool and simply
| | 05:16 | deselect this artwork.
| | 05:17 | Notice if I click on this right now,
I have one anchor point here and one
| | 05:21 | anchor point here, yet, along the same
exact path, I now have two completely
| | 05:27 | different stroke attributes.
| | 05:29 | That's happening because I'm living
inside of a Live Paint Group, and there
| | 05:33 | happens to be another path that kind
of crosses over this path to create some
| | 05:37 | kind of separation between them.
| | 05:38 | As I move this path back-and-forth, that's
going to adjust where these changes happen.
| | 05:44 | More importantly, I am going to press
the Option key and click on this path, if
| | 05:47 | you are on a Windows machine, you
would press the Alt key, and that lets me
| | 05:50 | select the entire path including the
anchor points and I'll change the stroke
| | 05:54 | here to actually none.
| | 05:57 | So I can't even see the path right
now, yet that path, because it's here,
| | 06:01 | determines where one
attribute ends and where one begins.
| | 06:05 | When I'm finished working, I have the
ability to select this entire Live Paint
| | 06:09 | Group and expand it, and all I'm
left with now are two individual paths.
| | 06:14 | So we see that there are
benefits to both sides over here.
| | 06:17 | working with Live Paint Groups lets
me do things that are incredible like
| | 06:20 | this, yet, when I work with Live
Paint Groups, I cannot apply brushes or
| | 06:25 | variable width strokes.
| | 06:26 | So before you sit down to create
your artwork, basically when you're in
| | 06:30 | the sketch stage, you have the ability now
to take a look at your artwork and observe it.
| | 06:34 | Think about what tools
you're going to use to build it.
| | 06:37 | Should you be using Pathfinder?
| | 06:38 | Maybe you can use Live Paint to help
out, or maybe you can use another tool
| | 06:43 | called the Shape Builder tool and
that's something that the next chapter is
| | 06:47 | all about.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Shape Builder: Building ArtworkWhy the Shape Builder tool was created| 00:00 | Up until this point we discuss two
main ways to think about building artwork
| | 00:05 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:07 | The first one is using a set of
functions called Pathfinder. We discussed
| | 00:11 | different things like shape modes,
compound shapes and also Pathfinder
| | 00:15 | functions themselves.
| | 00:17 | Then we discussed this world of Live Paint.
| | 00:21 | Live Paint allows us to look at our art
work visually. We can lay down our path
| | 00:25 | anywhere that we want, but we can
decide to actually fill those paths or apply
| | 00:30 | attributes like strokes based
on how we see them on the screen.
| | 00:34 | In this chapter, we're going to focus
on a third way to build artwork inside
| | 00:39 | of Illustrator using a new feature,
| | 00:41 | it's actually a new tool that
was added in Illustrator CS5.
| | 00:45 | It's called the Shape Builder tool.
| | 00:48 | But before we discuss the tool itself
which by the way it's found right here
| | 00:51 | inside the Tools panel the Shape
Builder tool. Keyboard shortcut for that is
| | 00:54 | Shift+M. Don't ask me why, but
that's I guess one that was available.
| | 00:59 | So the question really is
why was this tool added?
| | 01:02 | If we already have Pathfinder
and we already have Live Paint,
| | 01:06 | what is the use for adding yet
another way to build artwork using this
| | 01:10 | Shape Builder tool?
| | 01:11 | So let's discuss a couple of
things about Illustrator itself.
| | 01:14 | We're going to draw two rectangles
here just to use as an example. I have two
| | 01:19 | overlapping rectangles.
| | 01:20 | We already know that if you want to
start performing different building
| | 01:23 | functions like Add and Subtract, we
can use Pathfinder. But first of all the
| | 01:28 | word pathfinder doesn't
really denote building artwork.
| | 01:32 | So many people who are new to
Illustrator never knew to look for Pathfinder.
| | 01:37 | Or even if they found Pathfinder,
they couldn't really understand exactly
| | 01:40 | what it might be used for.
| | 01:42 | On top of that, the Pathfinder
functions themselves, if I take a look at the
| | 01:46 | panel right over here, is just a whole
bunch of buttons and the buttons have all
| | 01:50 | these names like Add and Subtract or
Unite and Minus Front or these like Trim
| | 01:55 | and Merge and Crop for example.
| | 01:57 | So it may be difficult to
understand what each of these functions do.
| | 02:01 | So I found that even people who are
experienced inside of Illustrator very often
| | 02:06 | use Pathfinder in the following way:
they'll select some artwork and then
| | 02:11 | they'll click one button and they go, "oh
no wait that wasn't what I wanted to do"
| | 02:14 | and they will press Command+Z or Ctrl+Z
to Undo, then they'll click on the next
| | 02:17 | one Undo, click on the next one until
they go "oh yeah that's the shape that I
| | 02:21 | was trying to get at."
| | 02:23 | So very often, the Pathfinder
functions are there, but they're not very
| | 02:27 | intuitive and it's hard for us to
memorize exactly what each of them do and it's
| | 02:31 | also hard for us to know exactly
when we want to use each of them for any
| | 02:35 | particular design task.
| | 02:37 | So Adobe wanted to provide a better way.
Or I should say a more intuitive way for
| | 02:42 | us to work with Pathfinder.
| | 02:44 | Now yes Live Paint came along in
Illustrator CS 2, but the problem with Live
| | 02:49 | Paint is that first of all again the name.
| | 02:51 | It's says Live Paint and we don't always
think about painting inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:56 | So for editing paths and for creating
artwork I may not think to use Live Paint
| | 03:01 | for that kind of work.
| | 03:03 | On top of that, as we've already
discussed in the previous chapter, Live Paint
| | 03:07 | requires the use of creating groups.
| | 03:10 | If we don't create the groups we don't
get the benefit of using Live Paint and
| | 03:14 | because many designers don't necessarily
know about the benefits of working with
| | 03:18 | groups or they're not careful enough
when they structure their artwork to create
| | 03:22 | these distinct groups, it may be very
difficult for them to learn how to not only
| | 03:27 | use but also take advantage
of working with Live Paint.
| | 03:31 | So because of the existing issues with
both Pathfinder and also with Live Paint,
| | 03:35 | Adobe kind of took a step back and
said "We want to get the benefits of
| | 03:39 | Pathfinder, but we wanted to be as
intuitive to use and is wonderful from a
| | 03:44 | visual expression as the Live Paint
feature is, so let's kind of take both of
| | 03:49 | these and create a new tool
called the Shape Builder tool."
| | 03:53 | Not only is it named in the way that I can
now understand what I'm trying to do with it,
| | 03:56 | it obviously helps me build shapes, but
we'll soon see that it combines the best
| | 04:01 | of what Pathfinder offers and
the best of what Live Paint offers.
| | 04:05 | So throughout this chapter we're
going to dive into this world of the Shape
| | 04:09 | Builder tool and we'll see how easy it
is and more importantly how fast it is
| | 04:13 | for us to build artwork
intuitively inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Focusing on the big three: Add, Subtract, and Divide| 00:00 | So we've already established that when
Adobe set out to create the Shape Builder tool,
| | 00:05 | they want to take the best of
what Pathfinder had to offer and also take
| | 00:10 | the intuitive aspects of Live Paint.
| | 00:13 | Well let's take a closer look for a
moment that the most important Pathfinder
| | 00:16 | functions that we use.
| | 00:18 | If I open up the Pathfinder panel here
I'll see that for the most part for the
| | 00:22 | artwork that we create on a day-to-day basis,
| | 00:24 | when we do use Pathfinder, we really
only focus on three of the functions.
| | 00:28 | We don't use all these functions that are
here on a constant basis, so let's talk
| | 00:32 | about the three that we use most often.
| | 00:34 | If I select these two circles right here
and I want to combine them together, I
| | 00:39 | very often use this first function right
here called the Unite Shape mode or Add
| | 00:43 | Shape mode that take two shapes.
| | 00:46 | It takes the top most object and it
creates now the two shapes fused together
| | 00:51 | and it colors them and uses the
attributes at the topmost object.
| | 00:56 | If I select some artwork here and I
choose this option, which is the second-most
| | 01:00 | often used, this in here Minus Front or
Subtract, that takes the back-most shape
| | 01:06 | and it uses the styling of that back-
most shape, but it modifies that shape by
| | 01:11 | removing any part of the
shapes that are on top of it.
| | 01:15 | The third one that we use most often
is actually not the shape modes, but one
| | 01:18 | of the Pathfinders called Divide and
that's where I takes multiple shapes that
| | 01:22 | overlap each other and by dividing them
they all get chopped up into individual pieces.
| | 01:27 | So if I double-click to isolate this,
I'll see that I can now have three shapes
| | 01:31 | and not just two. So I'll hit Escape
to exist Isolation mode here and overall
| | 01:36 | these are the three different
Pathfinders that we use on a day-to-day basis.
| | 01:41 | They're the most often used, the Add
or the Unite, the Subtract or the Minus
| | 01:46 | Front and the Divide function.
| | 01:48 | What we're going to find out is that
when Adobe set out to build the Shape
| | 01:51 | Builder tool, they took these three
functions and built these three functions
| | 01:56 | into the tool itself.
| | 01:58 | We are now going to take the
Pathfinder functions that we use most often and
| | 02:01 | we are going to have a far more intuitive and
easier way to apply these functions as well.
| | 02:06 | So Pathfinder hasn't gone away.
Live Paint hasn't gone away.
| | 02:11 | However, we have a new tool which
allows us to apply the most often used
| | 02:15 | Pathfinder commands in the type of
intuitive environment that Live Paint can offer us.
| | 02:21 | How does that work?
| | 02:23 | That's something we're going to
begin to discover in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Shape Builder tool to add and subtract artwork| 00:00 | Now that we understand what Adobe set
out to accomplish with the Shape Builder
| | 00:04 | tool, let's learn how it works.
| | 00:06 | More importantly let's use it on some
of the shapes that we've already seen so
| | 00:09 | far throughout this course so we can
get a better idea for its benefits.
| | 00:13 | The first thing I am actually going to
do is I am going to close the Pathfinder
| | 00:16 | panel because we are not
going to need that anymore.
| | 00:19 | Next, I am going to come over here to
my toolbar and I want to show you where
| | 00:22 | the Shape Builder tool is.
| | 00:23 | It's this icon right over here and the
keyboard shortcut for it is Shift+M.I
| | 00:28 | want you to memorize that keyboard shortcut
because I think that you'll find it very useful.
| | 00:32 | In fact, on my own I have kind of
decided that the Shape Builder tool has become
| | 00:37 | the sleeper feature of Illustrator CS5.
| | 00:39 | When I first saw it I didn't think it
was that exciting because I am already
| | 00:42 | familiar with Pathfinder, but now I am
finding that I use Shape Builder so often
| | 00:47 | and the keyboard shortcut really helps
me access the tool whenever I need it.
| | 00:50 | There is another thing to note about the
Shape Builder tool as we are about to find out.
| | 00:54 | It only works on artwork that you have
selected which is pretty much the same of
| | 00:58 | the rules that we've used
when working with Pathfinder.
| | 01:01 | So anytime I want to be able to use the
Shape Builder tool I am first going to
| | 01:04 | have to make a selection, which
means I'm always kind of jumping back and
| | 01:08 | forth between tools.
| | 01:10 | So let's go back to one of our most
important keyboard shortcuts that we learned
| | 01:13 | way back in the beginning of this
course, the Command key on the Mac and the
| | 01:17 | Ctrl key on Windows.
| | 01:18 | Remember that no matter what tool
you're using by pressing the Command key it
| | 01:22 | will take you back to the
last used selection tool.
| | 01:25 | So right now if the last used selection
tool is my Regular Selection tool, the
| | 01:28 | black arrow, if I now switch to my Shape
Builder tool by pressing Shift+M on my keyboard.
| | 01:35 | Now I realize I have to make a
selection in order to use this tool.
| | 01:38 | I am simply going to press Command or
Ctrl on Windows and I am now going to
| | 01:42 | marquee select these two shapes and
now that they're selected by releasing
| | 01:47 | the Command key or the Ctrl key I am
now in a state where I could start to
| | 01:50 | use the Shape Builder tool.
| | 01:52 | I find that as I'm working I am going to
be constantly selecting and deselecting
| | 01:56 | artwork, so I am always going to be
using that Command key to help me get back
| | 02:00 | to that selection tool.
| | 02:01 | Let's first understand exactly
what the Shape Builder tool does.
| | 02:05 | We discussed that there were three main
functions that we use in the world of Pathfinder.
| | 02:09 | Add, Subtract and Divide.
| | 02:12 | For now in this movie, let's focus
on the first two, Add and Subtract.
| | 02:17 | In fact, you'll see that right now I
have two circles currently selected and my
| | 02:21 | icon has the little Plus
sign that appears next to it.
| | 02:24 | This Plus sign indicates that right
now with the Shape Builder tool I am
| | 02:28 | currently in Add Mode.
| | 02:30 | It means that when I use the
function right now it's going to act as the
| | 02:34 | Pathfinder Add function or the Unite function.
| | 02:36 | So let's see how that works.
| | 02:38 | I am actually going to move this
cursor now over my shape and you will notice
| | 02:41 | that as soon as I highlight my cursor
over the shapes the regions will highlight
| | 02:46 | and that's similar to what
we've seen in Live Paint.
| | 02:49 | Live Paint didn't really
care about the underlying paths.
| | 02:52 | it just automatically identified
which areas were individual regions.
| | 02:56 | Same thing here applies
to the Shape Builder tool.
| | 02:58 | So it's identifying to me right now
the different regions that are inside of
| | 03:03 | my selected artwork. Here is the thing.
| | 03:05 | If I start clicking and then dragging
my mouse any region that I start touching
| | 03:10 | now becomes highlighted and when I
release the mouse then my entire object or
| | 03:16 | any of the objects that are
highlighted now gets fused or united together.
| | 03:20 | So it is if I use the Pathfinder Unite
function, although I didn't have to now
| | 03:24 | open up my Pathfinder panel and
figure out which button to click on, I just
| | 03:27 | clicked and dragged over the shapes.
| | 03:30 | Notice something interesting here
because when we use Pathfinder Add before
| | 03:34 | the entire shape became red when I use the Add
function, because that was the topmost object.
| | 03:40 | However, in this case the yellow was
the backmost object and yet when I now
| | 03:45 | united them altogether everything turned yellow.
| | 03:47 | The reason why that happened is
because the Shape Builder tool allows you to
| | 03:52 | choose which color you want to
use for the eventual final shape.
| | 03:55 | I am going to press Undo for a
second here and let's say I start clicking
| | 03:59 | and dragging from the red shape first and
then I go now and I touch the yellow shape.
| | 04:04 | Notice that now it turns red.
| | 04:05 | I am going to press Undo
to go back to this shape.
| | 04:08 | So we'll see that not only is it more
intuitive because I am able to apply this
| | 04:12 | Pathfinder function called Unite in a
more visual sense, kind of like what we
| | 04:16 | were doing with Live Paint but it also
gives me more control over what I want my
| | 04:21 | eventual piece of artwork to look like.
| | 04:23 | We'll actually explore this part of
using Shape Builder a little bit later
| | 04:26 | inside of the chapter, but for now I
want to focus on the other function that we
| | 04:30 | were talking about, which is Subtract
or Minus Front . Right now I have two
| | 04:35 | shapes that overlap each other and if
you look at my cursor it has a little Plus
| | 04:39 | sign next to it, but if I were to hold
down the Option key on my keyboard and if
| | 04:43 | you are on Windows that will be the
Alt key, you will see that the + sign now
| | 04:46 | changes to a Minus sign . That indicates
that right now my Shape Builder tool is
| | 04:51 | in a Subtract mode or a Minus Front mode
and if I now click and drag over shapes
| | 04:57 | any shape that is highlighted now gets
removed from my artwork, and all I am
| | 05:01 | left with is remaining areas.
| | 05:04 | So I will release the Option key or the
Alt key and now you will see that I am
| | 05:07 | left with this shape similar to what I
might have gotten with the Subtract or
| | 05:11 | the Minus Front function in Pathfinder.
| | 05:13 | Again the difference here though is
that because the yellow shape was in the
| | 05:17 | back of the stacking order, I really
have no easy way to do this using the Minus
| | 05:23 | Front option, I'd really need
to use the Minus Back option.
| | 05:26 | But then again I'd be undoing all
those buttons inside of Pathfinder just to
| | 05:29 | figure it out whereas here with the
Shape Builder tool I can simply drag across
| | 05:34 | the objects and far more intuitively
build the shape that I am looking for.
| | 05:38 | So again, when using this Shape
Builder tool all I need to do is simply take
| | 05:42 | some artwork, select it and that's a
very important part, we need to make a
| | 05:46 | selection and then simply
drag across that artwork.
| | 05:50 | If we just use the tool on its own its
going to be in the Add mode so it will
| | 05:53 | fuse objects together and if I hold down
my Option key on the Mac or the Alt key
| | 05:58 | on Windows as I drag across shapes it's
going to subtract or remove those pieces
| | 06:02 | of artwork from my document.
| | 06:05 | Now that we see how that works let's
apply to our project here of drawing Mister Zee.
| | 06:09 | I am actually going to hit Command
again to get back to my Selection tool and
| | 06:13 | then just simply hit Delete to delete
that object and come down here to the
| | 06:17 | bottom of the screen, let me zoom in
just a little bit here. much better.
| | 06:21 | And I am going to make a selection.
| | 06:22 | Hold down my Command key, again Ctrl
key on Windows, click and drag and select
| | 06:26 | just these two ovals.
| | 06:28 | It's important to realize that when
I'm using the Shape Builder tool it only
| | 06:32 | affects objects that are selected.
| | 06:33 | So notice over here if I move let's say
to these little ovals that I have here
| | 06:38 | they don't become highlighted at all.
| | 06:39 | If you remember when we were using
Live Paint, Live Paint, once you create a
| | 06:43 | Live Paint group you don't have to
have that group selected, anything will
| | 06:47 | automatically become highlighted, but
when dealing with the Shape Builder tool I
| | 06:50 | must first make a selection.
| | 06:53 | That actually can be a benefit
sometimes because when we have a lot of
| | 06:56 | overlapping artwork like I have right
here I'll know that when I am using the
| | 06:59 | Shape Builder tool I won't accidentally
remove or delete or adjust any objects
| | 07:04 | that are not becoming selected.
| | 07:06 | So it's almost as if the other
objects right now are locked.
| | 07:09 | I don't even need to isolate this piece
of artwork here to work with it because
| | 07:13 | as long as it's not selected the Shape
Builder tool ignores it or it acts as if
| | 07:17 | those objects are not even there.
| | 07:18 | So right now all I really want to be
left with is just this stripe right over
| | 07:22 | here at the bottom part of the belly of Mister Zee.
| | 07:24 | So what I can do is if I wanted to
remove these areas, these three distinct
| | 07:29 | areas right here I can simply come over
here, hold down my Option key so that I
| | 07:34 | am now in my Subtract Mode and
just simply click and drag across.
| | 07:37 | Notice by the way that
I'm drawing a straight line.
| | 07:40 | Any region that is now touched as I go
across these objects become highlighted,
| | 07:45 | when I release the mouse they simply disappear.
| | 07:48 | It's so much easier to work in this way
because it's visual, meaning it matches
| | 07:52 | what I used to see in Live Paint.
| | 07:53 | But I don't have to worry about
making groups and because these are regular
| | 07:58 | shapes right now I can apply things
like Variable Widths and also Brushes which
| | 08:02 | we will see a little bit later,
maybe in the next chapter.
| | 08:05 | Let's try this now for the remaining two shapes.
| | 08:07 | I am going to press Command and then
click and drag across these, again that
| | 08:11 | would be Ctrl on Windows and now if I kind
of highlight the area here I see what exists.
| | 08:15 | I see that I just want to kind of
get rid of these two areas right here.
| | 08:18 | And I just want to show you
one other keyboard shortcut here.
| | 08:21 | If I hold down the Option key I am
going to be in Subtract Mode, so I can click
| | 08:24 | and drag across these two areas.
| | 08:26 | But if I know I have a lot of area to kind
of work with I can also add the Shift key.
| | 08:32 | When I click on the Shift key
instead of getting a straight line I get a
| | 08:36 | rectangular marquee and any region
that falls into the boundary of that
| | 08:40 | marquee becomes deleted.
| | 08:42 | By the way if I am just in the Add Mode
I can hold down the Shift key and get a
| | 08:46 | rectangular marquee there as well.
| | 08:48 | So now once again I am going to hold
down the Command key or again Ctrl key on
| | 08:52 | Windows, click and drag to select
these two ovals and then simply Option+Drag
| | 08:55 | across these two areas and you can see
how quick it was for me to just simply
| | 09:00 | make just the adjustments that I want
to get the stripes so that I can now get
| | 09:04 | to the next step of kind of filling them in.
| | 09:06 | In fact, since I already have this
line here at the bottom I can now press
| | 09:10 | Command to switch to my Selection tool,
drag across all of these including
| | 09:14 | that line across the belly and now
let's simply Option+Drag across these lines
| | 09:19 | right here like this just to kind of
clean up the artwork that I need, maybe I
| | 09:22 | will hold down the Shift key here to
get a marquee and then just remove all
| | 09:27 | the remaining areas.
| | 09:29 | Now all I am left with is these three
stripes just the way that I want them.
| | 09:34 | So we can see that by kind of drawing
very simple primitive shapes, which in
| | 09:38 | this case were just ovals, and now using
the Shape Builder tool to either add or
| | 09:42 | subtract regions it's really simple to
create very complex shapes without ever
| | 09:48 | once thinking about the Pen tool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Shape Builder to divide artwork| 00:00 | So we see how the Shape Builder tool
allows us to apply both the Add and the
| | 00:05 | Subtract Pathfinder Functions in a
visual way by simply dragging across artwork.
| | 00:11 | However, we also discussed that many
people often use the Divide function which
| | 00:16 | is also a Pathfinder function.
| | 00:18 | Let's see how we can use the Shape
Builder tool to also help us apply the Divide
| | 00:23 | function again in the same visual manner.
| | 00:25 | So I'm working in this document here
called Stripes5 and I have my Shape
| | 00:30 | Builder tool selected.
| | 00:31 | I'm going to press my Command key, I'm
on a Mac, but if you're on Windows, that
| | 00:34 | will be the Ctrl key, and click-and-
drag to select these two shapes right here.
| | 00:38 | I already know that if I click across
these two objects and drag across them,
| | 00:43 | because I'm holding down no keys I just
have to shape other tool here, I would
| | 00:47 | now combine or unite all those shapes together.
| | 00:51 | I also know that if I were to hold
down the Option key or the Alt key and I
| | 00:54 | would drag, then I would remove
shapes or these regions from my artwork.
| | 00:59 | However, I see that even if I don't hold
any keys down, but I simply position my
| | 01:03 | cursor over these shapes, the Shape
Builder tool will highlight any areas that
| | 01:08 | are these distinct regions that are
created by the overlapping objects.
| | 01:12 | If I were to simply position my cursor
over any region, let's say this middle
| | 01:16 | one right here, and then
simply click and release the mouse.
| | 01:19 | So I have it actually drag with the mouse,
but I just clicked and released, then
| | 01:23 | what Illustrator does is it
performs the Divide function.
| | 01:26 | Just to show you by the way, if I now
switch to my Direct Selection tool, and
| | 01:30 | I'm going to deselect my artwork, but
I'm now just going to select this shape
| | 01:33 | and this shape, and this shape, you
can see that now just by clicking once in
| | 01:37 | that region, I've now divided that
shape into the individual regions.
| | 01:42 | In other words, if I want to add, I
simply click-and-drag with the Shape Builder
| | 01:46 | tool, if I want to subtract, I Option
or Alt+Drag with the Shape Builder tool,
| | 01:52 | and if I want to divide, I simply click
on a region and that will now go ahead
| | 01:56 | and divide the artwork into individual objects.
| | 02:00 | So now that we see how that works,
let's again focus here on the bottom of Mister Zee
| | 02:04 | and see how we might use that as well.
| | 02:06 | So I'm going to zoom in over
here just part right down here.
| | 02:08 | I'm actually going to select all of
these elements right here, so all the ovals,
| | 02:14 | and also the line here because I
want you to see how this works.
| | 02:17 | I'm now going to switch to my Shape
Builder tool, and if I just click once right
| | 02:21 | over here, then you can see that if I
switch to my Direct Selection tool, and
| | 02:25 | I'm just going to Option+Click or Alt+
Click right over here, you can see that
| | 02:29 | now that got turned into its own shape.
| | 02:31 | The other parts of the shapes here
have not been divided because I didn't
| | 02:35 | ask for it to do that.
| | 02:36 | But I was able to just click in one
region, and I'm telling Illustrator, you
| | 02:40 | know what, I really need right
now this region to be its own shape.
| | 02:43 | So simply by clicking on that region
with my Shape Builder tool, I'm able to
| | 02:47 | perform a divide locally to that area that's
right there, and turn it into its own shape.
| | 02:53 | So now we're really starting to see
how the Shape Builder tool is taking the
| | 02:58 | most common use Pathfinder functions
and allowing us to apply them in a far
| | 03:03 | more intuitive manner.
| | 03:04 | In fact, I've heard some people
refer to the Shape Builder tool as the
| | 03:07 | Pathfinder Brush, because it allows
us to quickly apply these Pathfinder
| | 03:11 | functions but in a visual way just by clicking
or dragging across the artwork on the screen.
| | 03:16 | We discussed also that the Shape
Builder tool also combines some functions that
| | 03:21 | came from Live Paint.
| | 03:22 | The most obvious is that I'm able to
actually apply these functions in a far
| | 03:27 | more visual manner, so my focus is not
really on the underlying anchor points or
| | 03:31 | paths, my focus is on the
art that I'm trying to create.
| | 03:34 | However, there were other things that
Live Paint allowed us to do like even
| | 03:38 | coloring objects using the Paint Bucket tool.
| | 03:40 | Is that functionality found
inside the Shape Builder tool as well?
| | 03:44 | The answer is yes, and we'll
cover it in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building and coloring artwork at the same time| 00:00 | When we were talking about the Live
Paint feature inside of Illustrator, one of
| | 00:04 | the primary tools we were using was the
Live Paint Bucket tool, that allowed us
| | 00:08 | to once we've defined or created a Live
Paint group, we would be able to apply
| | 00:13 | fill attributes to individual regions.
| | 00:16 | When using the Shape Builder tool, we
also have the ability to control the color
| | 00:20 | of the artwork as we're
performing these functions.
| | 00:23 | For example, I'm going to start by
taking a look at these two circles right here.
| | 00:27 | I am going to select both of them
and I'll press Shift+M to select my
| | 00:31 | Shape Builder tool.
| | 00:32 | Now, we already discussed that when
we start clicking-and-dragging on a
| | 00:35 | particular object, then Illustrator
uses that color for the final artwork.
| | 00:40 | So if I click on the red shape here and
I drag across towards the yellow shape,
| | 00:44 | my final united shape is going
to be red. Let me press Undo.
| | 00:48 | If I start dragging on the yellow shape,
and then I drag over to the red shape,
| | 00:52 | I now see that my shape is turned yellow.
| | 00:54 | Let me press Undo again.
| | 00:56 | If I start dragging from outside the
shape and I drag across, in this case,
| | 01:01 | Illustrator defaults to the
behavior of the Pathfinder functions.
| | 01:05 | Meaning, it now uses the topmost
object as the final colored object.
| | 01:10 | So since here in this case, the red
circle is at the top of my stacking order,
| | 01:14 | when I release the mouse, I'll
see that my entire object turns red.
| | 01:18 | The only reason why all this is
happening is because if I double-click on the
| | 01:22 | Shape Builder tool inside of my Tools
panel, this brings up the Shape Builder
| | 01:26 | tool Options dialog box and I'll see
that there is an option here that says Pick
| | 01:30 | Color From and it's currently set to Artwork.
| | 01:33 | However, if I change this to say Color
Swatches instead, I can also choose this
| | 01:39 | option here called Cursor Swatch Preview.
| | 01:42 | If I click OK now, I'll see that at
the top of my cursor for the Shape
| | 01:46 | Builder tool, I now have these three
boxes that represent the swatches inside
| | 01:50 | of my Swatches panel.
| | 01:52 | Again, this is exactly the same as those
three boxes that appeared on top of the
| | 01:56 | Live Paint Bucket tool when
I was working in Live Paint.
| | 01:59 | So now if I use the right or the left
-arrows on my keyboard, I can toggle
| | 02:04 | between the different color swatches
that appear inside of my Swatches panel.
| | 02:08 | So if I choose Blue for example, and I click
in this shape over here, it paints it blue.
| | 02:14 | So let's actually apply this to
some of the artwork here for Mister Zee.
| | 02:17 | I'm going to press Command+Spacebar,
Ctrl+Spacebar and zoom in on the bottom
| | 02:21 | part here of this file, and now I'll
press Command or Ctrl and drag across these
| | 02:25 | shapes to select them.
| | 02:27 | Now, I know I want to fill
certain areas here with color.
| | 02:29 | So what I can do is very quickly just
toggle over to black because I want my
| | 02:33 | stripes to be black, and then I'll just
simply click here once, click-and-drag
| | 02:38 | across these three shapes here, and then
click here once, and I now have created
| | 02:42 | those shapes that I need.
| | 02:43 | I don't need the other parts of the artwork.
| | 02:45 | So I'll Option+Drag across
these areas to remove them.
| | 02:49 | I can also hold down Option+Shift so
that I can marquee larger areas like this,
| | 02:54 | kind of delete them all at once, and
very quickly with just a few kind of
| | 02:58 | strokes of the mouse over here, as I
kind of go through these shapes, I'm able
| | 03:02 | to get at the final stripes
that I want for my artwork.
| | 03:05 | Not only was I able to modify the path
themselves by using a combination of add and subtract.
| | 03:10 | In fact I see I have one little piece
over here left over, Option+Drag over
| | 03:15 | the line and it's gone.
| | 03:16 | So now I have my three stripes here,
and I was able to use the combination of
| | 03:20 | add, subtract, and also the divide,
but at the same time, also color in the
| | 03:26 | shapes, all using the Shape Builder tool.
| | 03:28 | So you can see how easy and fast it is.
| | 03:31 | I've actually now combined the
benefits of Live Paint and a Pathfinder in a
| | 03:36 | visual and intuitive fashion.
| | 03:37 | The Shape Builder tool in my opinion like I
said earlier is the sleeper feature of CS5.
| | 03:43 | You should definitely become familiar
with it because I think it will save you
| | 03:46 | so much time in your work using Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Gap Detection with the Shape Builder tool| 00:00 | So we can see that the Shape Builder
tool is really a combination of both
| | 00:04 | Pathfinder and of Live Paint.
| | 00:06 | However, there was an aspect of
Live Paint that we haven't seen yet.
| | 00:10 | Live Paint had this really
cool feature called Gap Detection.
| | 00:13 | It allowed us to define regions in
our artwork, even though the regions
| | 00:17 | themselves were not completely closed,
and in fact, if we take a look at this
| | 00:21 | ear over here of Mister Zee and I select this area.
If I want to use my Shape Builder tool to apply
| | 00:27 | different colors to maybe the ear and
also some shading over here, you can see
| | 00:31 | that the Shape Builder sees these as one
region and that's because there's a gap
| | 00:35 | over here, and the gap
identifies this as one single shape.
| | 00:39 | So I have one shape here,
but only one shape here.
| | 00:43 | Wouldn't it be cool if I could have
Gap Detection when using the Shape
| | 00:46 | Builder tool as well? Well, guess what?
| | 00:49 | It's there, although it's turned off by default.
| | 00:52 | The main reason why is because Gap
Detection does take a little bit extra
| | 00:56 | memory or kind of more processing
power for Illustrator to use when it's
| | 01:00 | analyzing your artwork.
| | 01:01 | If you can imagine a really large piece
of artwork with many paths, having Gap
| | 01:06 | Detection turned on, could
slow things down a little bit.
| | 01:10 | However, in this case here, really
we're going to be using things kind of one
| | 01:13 | off as we're building artwork, so
it's okay to have this feature turned on.
| | 01:17 | I'm going to come over here to the Tools
panel and double-click once again on my
| | 01:20 | Shape Builder tool and that brings up
the Shape Builder tool Options dialog box,
| | 01:24 | where I'll see at the top an
option called Gap Detection.
| | 01:27 | Like I said, by default,
this option is turned off.
| | 01:30 | But I'm going to turn it on and once
again just as with Live Paint, I'm able
| | 01:34 | to determine how large of a gap I can allow
and I can also specify a custom value as well.
| | 01:40 | I'm going to leave it set to Small and click OK.
| | 01:43 | Now you'll notice that when I mouse
over these areas, they are identified as
| | 01:47 | their own individual regions.
| | 01:48 | So because I have the ability now to
color my artwork also, I'm going to use
| | 01:52 | the arrow keys on my keyboard to
toggle to the black color, click once over
| | 01:56 | here to actually color this part
black, and let's actually get a few gray
| | 02:00 | colors as well, maybe kind of add a little
bit of a gray color there just for some shading.
| | 02:04 | I just want to show you by
the way what happened here.
| | 02:07 | When Illustrator now had to create a
close filled shape in order to apply the
| | 02:11 | color, Illustrator simply found that
gap and just closed it off with a path.
| | 02:17 | So if I kind of pull these
shapes apart here, you can see what
| | 02:20 | Illustrator created here.
| | 02:21 | It's not that perfect.
| | 02:22 | So I may want to kind of go in
and clean that up a little bit.
| | 02:26 | However, if I have really small gaps,
I may not even care about it, I may
| | 02:29 | not even notice it, but I can still
close and fill those areas using the
| | 02:34 | Shape Builder tool.
| | 02:35 | So now we come full circle.
| | 02:37 | We see that the Shape Builder tool
gives us the power that Pathfinder brings to
| | 02:42 | us but the intuitive nature and the
really cool features of Live Paint.
| | 02:46 | It doesn't mean that you can use the
Shape Builder tool, and forget about
| | 02:49 | Live Paint, and forget about Pathfinder,
I think that on a day-to-day basis,
| | 02:53 | the Shape Builder tool is going to be really
powerful and very useful for the work that you do.
| | 02:57 | However, there will always be times
where you might want to use Live Paint and
| | 03:00 | might want to use the benefits of a
live structure, especially when you
| | 03:04 | understand the benefits of working
with groups, and there are many times when
| | 03:07 | you'd really just want to have a quick
one-off Pathfinder, especially if you're
| | 03:11 | already familiar with it.
| | 03:12 | Perhaps most importantly, you now
have mastery over three ways of building
| | 03:17 | artwork inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:19 | Pathfinder, Live Paint, and Shape Builder.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Adding Expression: Variable WidthsUnderstanding how variable widths work| 00:00 | Perhaps one of the coolest tools to appear
inside of Illustrator over time is the Width tool.
| | 00:06 | This was added in Illustrator CS5 and
you'll find it right over here right
| | 00:10 | directly above the Shape Builder tool.
| | 00:12 | This looks like a little seahorse
over here or something like that.
| | 00:15 | And if you click on it, you'll see that
you get this little funny icon, but it
| | 00:19 | doesn't do anything unless you have some
paths or some strokes specifically that
| | 00:25 | exist inside of your document.
| | 00:26 | Now before we actually use the tool, let's
understand what the tool can be used for.
| | 00:31 | Normally, inside of Illustrator, a stroke
has a constant width along the entire path.
| | 00:36 | So just to give you an example, if I
take my Line Segment tool and I click and
| | 00:40 | drag here to create a line, and right now it's
set to be let's say 10 points in stroke weight.
| | 00:46 | That means that the entire path, I've
one anchor point here and one anchor point
| | 00:50 | here, but the entire length of the path
now has a width of 10 points or a stroke
| | 00:56 | weight of 10 points.
| | 00:57 | And as we also discussed, the stroke
weight is always distributed along the
| | 01:02 | centerline of the path.
| | 01:04 | So that means that I have five points
of stroke weight on one side of the path
| | 01:07 | and five points of stroke weight on the
other side of the path. And it's constant.
| | 01:12 | I can have one part of the path
be thicker or thinner than another.
| | 01:16 | That change when we now have the
Width tool inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:19 | The Width tool allows me to take
strokes and to stretch them or make them
| | 01:24 | thinner, so that I can have variable
widths along the length of the path.
| | 01:29 | It's important to realize that it's not
called the Stroke Width tool because it
| | 01:34 | works on not just strokes, but
also on certain types of brushes.
| | 01:38 | So if I have Art Brushes or Pattern
Brushes inside of Illustrator, I can also
| | 01:43 | vary the widths of those as well.
| | 01:45 | But for now, we're going to focus on
varying the widths of just a stroke
| | 01:50 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:51 | Now let's understand how these widths
actually work when applied to strokes.
| | 01:56 | Again, I have now a single path.
If I go into Outline mode by pressing
| | 02:00 | Command+Y or Ctrl+Y, I see that I have
one anchor point on the left here, one
| | 02:05 | anchor point on the right, and those
anchor points are connected by a straight
| | 02:09 | line right here, by a path.
| | 02:11 | That is the structure of this artwork.
| | 02:14 | If I go into Outline mode, I can see
that I've applied an Appearance of 10
| | 02:19 | points, a 10-point black stroke on this path.
| | 02:24 | Now I'm going to switch to the Width
tool and I'm just going to move my mouse
| | 02:28 | over this and you can see that a
little different kind of shaped point
| | 02:31 | appears along the path.
| | 02:33 | Now I haven't clicked or dragged with
the mouse. I'm just moving my cursor
| | 02:37 | around on top of this path and I can
see right now that little white icon that
| | 02:42 | appears there as well.
| | 02:43 | It almost looks like it's an
anchor point, but it's not.
| | 02:46 | It's actually called a width point.
| | 02:49 | The thing though is that I haven't
applied the width point to the path.
| | 02:51 | If I move my cursor off the path, it disappears.
| | 02:55 | That's because right now Illustrator is
highlighting to me where a Width point
| | 02:59 | is going to go, should I decide now
to click and drag with the Width tool.
| | 03:03 | You can even see a little plus sign
that appears right next to my cursor.
| | 03:07 | When I move it off the path, that plus sign
changes to a little squiggly line or a tilde icon.
| | 03:12 | And that means the right now I cannot
apply anything because I don't have a path
| | 03:16 | that I can apply a width point to.
| | 03:18 | But if I move it now over this, that
little icon indicates that if I click and
| | 03:22 | drag, I'll now be adding something
called the width point to my path.
| | 03:27 | It's important to realize that a
width point is not an anchor point.
| | 03:31 | A width point does not control
the structure of my document.
| | 03:35 | A width point controls the appearance of
the artwork, meaning that now I have a stroke.
| | 03:41 | If I were to add a width point, you
can almost think of a width point as some
| | 03:45 | kind of an anchor point that only
applies specifically to the appearance, not to
| | 03:50 | the underlying vector structure of my artwork.
| | 03:53 | To be honest, if we turn on one of the
Smart Guides features, we'll even get
| | 03:57 | additional functionality here as well.
| | 03:59 | So I'm going to press Command+K or
Ctrl+K on my keyboard to open up my
| | 04:03 | Preferences dialog box.
| | 04:04 | And from the pop-up menu here,
I'm going to choose Smart Guides.
| | 04:08 | Now we turned off Measurement Labels way
back in the beginning of this training,
| | 04:12 | but I'm going to turn it on right now
just because I want you to see what it
| | 04:15 | does when working with the Width tool.
| | 04:17 | I'm going to click OK and now when I
move my cursor over the path, not only do I
| | 04:22 | see the little plus sign and
additionally the width point that's there, but a
| | 04:26 | little window appears and it lets me
know that right now the width of my path at
| | 04:30 | this exact point is 10 points.
| | 04:33 | I also see values for Side 1 and Side 2.
As we discussed, the width of a stroke
| | 04:39 | is always distributed on both sides of my path.
| | 04:41 | So I have 5 points of weight on Side
1 and 5 points of weight on Side 2.
| | 04:47 | Now you may ask yourself, "I can do the
math, I know how to split 10 in half, I
| | 04:51 | can figure out there's 5 points on
one side and 5 points on the other."
| | 04:54 | But as we'll soon see one of the most
powerful aspects of working with the Width
| | 04:58 | tool inside of Illustrator is that
I can actually move the weight to be
| | 05:03 | distributed along different
sides of the path as well.
| | 05:07 | So I may have a width that may add up
to 10 points in weight, but I could have
| | 05:11 | 2 points of width on one side of the path and 8
points of width on the other side of the path.
| | 05:17 | How do we do that?
| | 05:18 | Well, let's actually create a width point here.
| | 05:20 | With my Width tool right now I'm just
going to click right here on the path and
| | 05:24 | I'm going to drag down.
| | 05:25 | In doing so now, I'm dragging out,
we can almost think of them as control
| | 05:29 | handles for this width point.
| | 05:31 | But again remember, what I just created
right now is something specific to the
| | 05:36 | appearance of my path.
| | 05:38 | It has nothing to do with
the underlying structure.
| | 05:40 | If I go now and press Command+Y or Ctrl+
Y to go into my Outline view and I click
| | 05:45 | on let's say my regular Selection tool,
I do not see any anchor point here.
| | 05:50 | In fact, I'm going to use my Direct
Selection tool here. I see an anchor point
| | 05:53 | here, I see an anchor point here,
but I do not see any other points.
| | 05:58 | The width point only applies to the
appearance of my artwork, not to the
| | 06:02 | underlying structure of my artwork.
| | 06:04 | So let's go back now to my Width tool,
and I'll turn the Preview mode back on.
| | 06:09 | And now when I mouse over this path, you
can see that right over here, the width
| | 06:13 | of my path is 33.028 points.
| | 06:16 | And again, it tells me what
Side 1 and Side 2 are as well.
| | 06:20 | If I were to mouse over now to this
point itself and you'll see now that it kind
| | 06:23 | of snaps to it, I can see exactly
the width for this part of the path.
| | 06:29 | Now let's actually take a look at this
for a moment, because suddenly I have a
| | 06:32 | path inside of Illustrator that
does not have a consistent weight.
| | 06:36 | In fact, if I just take my regular
Selection tool and I select this path
| | 06:40 | right now, it may look like it has a brush or
something else applied to it, but it doesn't.
| | 06:44 | It's just a regular path with a stroke on it.
| | 06:47 | And if I look in my Stroke setting
over here and my value for the width, it
| | 06:50 | tells me the width right now is 41.759.
| | 06:53 | But there are obviously different
values along the entire part of the path.
| | 06:57 | So it's important to realize that
the value displayed over here in the
| | 07:01 | Stroke setting and in addition also
in the Stroke panel itself represents
| | 07:06 | the widest point of the path.
| | 07:09 | Remember, when I first created this
path, I gave it a stroke weight of 10
| | 07:12 | points, so in reality the
end parts here are 10 points.
| | 07:16 | However, the widest point to this path
is always going to be shown here inside
| | 07:20 | of the Stroke panel, so I can
better understand that value.
| | 07:23 | Let me click over here just to select
the path and we also know that many times
| | 07:28 | as we always want to look at the
Appearance panel because that ultimately tells
| | 07:32 | us everything there is to know
about the appearance of our artwork.
| | 07:34 | So if I click now let's say on the
word Path, just so I can target the entire
| | 07:38 | object over here, I can see that I
have a stroke that's colored black, that
| | 07:42 | has a weight of 41.759.
| | 07:44 | Again, that represents the widest
point of the stroke along that path.
| | 07:48 | However, you'll see that there
is an asterisk over here as well.
| | 07:53 | That asterisk is very important
because strokes with variable widths appear
| | 07:57 | with an asterisk in the Appearance panel to
indicate that that stroke has a variable width.
| | 08:02 | In fact, as you're using Illustrator,
it's probably the only way that you'll
| | 08:06 | know that there's a
variable width applied to a stroke.
| | 08:09 | This can be especially helpful when you
receive files that other people have worked on.
| | 08:13 | Now that we understand this concept of
width points inside of Illustrator and
| | 08:17 | we know how to use the Width tool, we can
start to apply these concepts to real artwork.
| | 08:21 | Let's start doing that in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modifying width points along a path| 00:00 | So we know that the Width tool
creates something called width points which
| | 00:04 | control the appearance of the
stroke that's been applied to a path.
| | 00:08 | Now that we understand that let's
actually have some fun applying it to real
| | 00:12 | artwork and more importantly in the
process we will learn about some of the
| | 00:15 | other ways that we can
control these width points as well.
| | 00:18 | I am going to zoom in over here and let's
start off with just the back over here of the zebra.
| | 00:23 | In fact, let's kind of come down
over here to this line over here that
| | 00:26 | shapes his hind leg.
| | 00:27 | Let's see how we might be able to use
the Width tool to get a nicer looking
| | 00:30 | appearance, add some more expression
to the artwork that we have over here.
| | 00:34 | The way that we want the artwork to
kind of go here is we want it to be thicker
| | 00:38 | at the bottom over here and then get
more narrow as it gets towards the top.
| | 00:42 | Now one thing that's important to note
about working with the Width tool is that
| | 00:45 | you don't need to select artwork first.
| | 00:47 | You can actually just go to
town straight by using it.
| | 00:50 | So I am going to switch
over here to the Width tool.
| | 00:51 | I am going to move over here to this
part of the path right here and again
| | 00:54 | because I have Smart Guides turned on,
it tells me that my path right now has a
| | 00:58 | stroke width of 1 point.
| | 01:00 | Again, if you don't want that you can
actually just hit Command+K or Ctrl+K.
| | 01:04 | In fact, let's do that now because we
don't really care very much right now about
| | 01:07 | actual sizes; we care about the
visual appearance of our artwork.
| | 01:11 | A little bit later on in this movie
though we will find out that if we need
| | 01:14 | to we can always be as precise as we want to
be even without the Smart Guides turned on.
| | 01:18 | So let's go here and let's go to Smart Guides.
| | 01:21 | I am going to turn
Measurement Labels off and click OK.
| | 01:23 | We will zoom in actually a little bit
closer here to this piece of artwork. Very good!
| | 01:27 | So now I am going to move my cursor
over the path here and I can see that I am
| | 01:31 | able to add a width point.
| | 01:32 | I want it to be a little bit
thicker here towards the bottom.
| | 01:35 | So I am going to click and drag
to make it a little bit wider.
| | 01:37 | I can drag out to the right or if you
drag to the left you will notice that
| | 01:41 | nothing is added because that's the
gesture that we would always use to
| | 01:44 | make your path narrower.
| | 01:46 | So that would actually reduce it.
| | 01:47 | It does not look like anything is happening.
| | 01:50 | What I'm doing right now is
actually setting my stroke weight to 0.
| | 01:52 | So let's bring it out a little bit
heavier over here, just about this.
| | 01:56 | Again, we are doing things by eye right now.
| | 01:58 | And you notice that Illustrator
automatically kind of figures out how to taper
| | 02:03 | this line very nicely along the path.
| | 02:05 | It actually ends over here with 1
point over here, and if you zoom in just a
| | 02:09 | little bit closer here, it
would be easier to see it.
| | 02:11 | When I click on this point here there
are actually these two anchor points.
| | 02:13 | There is a half of point of width here.
| | 02:15 | I could just drag these two little
points here and drag them in so the path
| | 02:19 | goes completely to 0.
| | 02:20 | So now you can see it tapers out
really nice to be thin that way.
| | 02:25 | That's one way to do it.
| | 02:26 | I am actually going to press Undo and
zoom a little bit closer here because I
| | 02:29 | want to show you yet another way to make
the appearance of strokes look really nice.
| | 02:33 | So if I right now take a look at this path,
| | 02:35 | I am using my regular Selection tool
because I just want you to be able to see
| | 02:38 | the end of it over here.
| | 02:39 | So it kind of ends abruptly here, which
is the way that strokes normally do end.
| | 02:43 | However, if I go now to my Stroke
panel here and I specify a Round Cap ending
| | 02:48 | instead of a Butt Cap ending then I
kind of get a nice rounded edge over there
| | 02:52 | which really kind of looks
nice in this piece of artwork.
| | 02:55 | So if I zoom out now I don't have to
have it taper completely to 0. I can have
| | 02:59 | it go to 1 point and that looks very nice,
and again, the same thing applies in this end.
| | 03:03 | With Illustrator you can't have a
round cap on one end of a path and then on
| | 03:07 | different kind of cap on another end,
but likely this is going to now kind of
| | 03:10 | run into the leg anyway so I won't see that.
| | 03:12 | So this gives me a nice way to add
a nice width to this path itself.
| | 03:16 | Now let's take a look at another
situation here along the belly here.
| | 03:19 | I am going to click on this path over
here just to select it because I want you
| | 03:22 | to see that it has a
stroke weight here of 1 point.
| | 03:24 | So I am going to go ahead and deselect it.
| | 03:26 | I use my Width tool over here to kind
of come right about over here and click
| | 03:29 | and drag and make it a little bit thicker
here and maybe I want it to be a little
| | 03:32 | bit thicker here as well, so now I kind
of get thin stroke and then it kind of
| | 03:36 | gets little bit thicker and it tapers
down a little bit more narrow and then
| | 03:39 | back to this weight again over here.
| | 03:41 | Now let's say I wanted to dial
in a very specific thickness.
| | 03:44 | What I can do is I can take this same
Width tool and mouse over the actual
| | 03:49 | width point right here and you will
notice by the way as you are doing this it
| | 03:51 | will kind of snap to it.
| | 03:53 | And when I double-click on that width
point the Width Point Edit dialog box appears.
| | 03:58 | Here I see the exact
width right now at that point.
| | 04:01 | So again this is why I would
not need to have Smart Guides.
| | 04:03 | I can always see what any width point is set
to right now just by double-clicking on
| | 04:07 | it and I can see now that
my Total Width here is 4.379.
| | 04:10 | Let's say I want it to be precise.
| | 04:12 | I want it to be exactly 3.5 point.
| | 04:15 | I could type in 3.5 and click OK and now I
can dial in a very specific thickness as well.
| | 04:21 | But if I double-click once again on
that point you will notice that I also have
| | 04:24 | the ability to set different
values for Side 1 and Side 2.
| | 04:27 | There is a lock icon here, and if I
click on it this means that the weight will
| | 04:31 | always be evenly distributed along the path.
| | 04:33 | But if I don't have that icon turned on
I could set let's say Side 1 to be maybe
| | 04:39 | 2 points in width and Side 2 to be 1
point and that gives me a total of 3.
| | 04:45 | Now when I click OK you can see how
there is more thickness on one side of the
| | 04:48 | path than there is in the other.
| | 04:50 | I can also do that by eye simply by
clicking on the actual little outer diamond
| | 04:56 | shape over here and when I do that
both sides kind of get stretched, but if I
| | 05:00 | hold down the Option key or the Alt key
on Windows while I am doing it, you can
| | 05:03 | see that I am only adding thickness or
adjusting the thickness along one side of that path.
| | 05:08 | Now you will also notice that if I
click on the width point itself and drag
| | 05:12 | left or right I can reposition it
along the path and you could even see how
| | 05:16 | Illustrator is kind of readjusting the way that
the path tapers from one width point to the next.
| | 05:22 | Illustrator will always create width
points for you on either end of the path
| | 05:26 | but as you're dragging you'll only
see that the path right now is moving up
| | 05:31 | until this point right here because
I've already defined another width point.
| | 05:34 | So right now as I adjust this one it's
kind of adjusting the width between the
| | 05:39 | width points that already currently exist.
| | 05:42 | However, there is a way to
proportionally move all the width points at once.
| | 05:45 | So as I was doing before if I click
and drag on this width point you can see
| | 05:49 | that it adjusts along the path by
itself. But if I hold down the Shift key while
| | 05:53 | I do that you can see now that the
other width point is also moving.
| | 05:57 | So this way I'm able to take
multiple width points and move them
| | 06:01 | proportionately along a path.
| | 06:04 | Now let's say I realize you know
what, I kind of messed up on this one.
| | 06:07 | I really don't want this
width point here at all.
| | 06:09 | There are two ways that I can get rid of it.
| | 06:11 | One way is to double-click on it and
then simply hit the Delete button or I am
| | 06:15 | going to click Cancel and with my
Width tool if I click on the width point
| | 06:18 | you'll see that it's selected. Right now,
| | 06:20 | it's highlighted in red,
which is my layer color.
| | 06:22 | I can hit just Delete on my
keyboard and it won't delete my path.
| | 06:26 | It will just delete that width point and
evenly redistribute the weight along the path.
| | 06:30 | So for example, if I don't want a width
point here as well I can click on this,
| | 06:34 | hit Delete and now I am back to a single
path that has a consistent stroke width
| | 06:38 | of 1 point along the entire path.
| | 06:41 | So you can see that it's not only easy
to adjust the width of a stroke along
| | 06:44 | its path, but it's also a lot of fun and you can
really add a lot of expression to your artwork.
| | 06:49 | Problem though is that if you have a lot of
paths in your artwork like we do here with Mister
| | 06:53 | Zee, it could be quite tedious to have to
go with you every single path and modify
| | 06:58 | each thickness manually.
| | 07:00 | The good news is that there are ways to
automate this process or at least make
| | 07:04 | this process a little bit easier to accomplish.
| | 07:06 | We will cover that in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving time with width profiles| 00:00 | Perhaps one of the most powerful
aspects of variable widths inside of
| | 00:04 | Illustrator is not the Width tool,
but something called width profiles.
| | 00:09 | You see whenever you have a
selection, for example, I'm going to use my
| | 00:12 | Regular Selection tool here to select this path,
which we already applied a variable width to.
| | 00:17 | Now, we've discussed that any path with
variable widths show up with an asterisk
| | 00:21 | here inside of the Appearance panel.
| | 00:23 | However, if I look towards the top
here of my Control panel, I'll also see
| | 00:28 | another shape over here which is
called a variable width profile.
| | 00:32 | Instead of manually going into a path
and adjusting individual width points, I
| | 00:37 | could choose to add a width
profile which is a preset way
| | 00:40 | that weight is distributed along a path.
| | 00:44 | So for example, let me come back
down here towards the belly of Mister Zee.
| | 00:47 | If I click on it right now and
let's say I increase the stroke weight to
| | 00:51 | around 2 points, but I'd want it to
taper towards the ends, but be thicker here
| | 00:55 | towards the bottom of the belly.
| | 00:57 | So what I could do is I can come to
this Profile pop-up over here and I can
| | 01:00 | choose different profiles.
| | 01:02 | For example, if I click Uniform that
I'm just going to get a solid 2 point
| | 01:06 | stroke, but if I choose this option
right here called Width Profile 1, it will
| | 01:11 | make it so that it's tapered on both
ends but heavier here towards the middle.
| | 01:15 | If I choose a different profile, for
example this one over here, you can see
| | 01:19 | that it starts out thin, gets a little
bit thicker, gets thin again, then gets
| | 01:23 | thick again and then goes
back to being thin again.
| | 01:26 | So I have the ability to take preset
settings which are called profiles and
| | 01:31 | apply them which is one click to a path.
| | 01:33 | So let me actually zoom out for a
second here so we could see the back of
| | 01:36 | the body here of Mister Zee.
| | 01:37 | If I choose this path right now and
choose this option here, then I can maybe
| | 01:42 | increase the stroke weight just a
little bit, and I can see that when doing so,
| | 01:46 | it's going to be 6 points in weight at
its thickest point which is right about
| | 01:50 | over here, but it tapers towards a nice
point the end on both ends of the path.
| | 01:55 | This can save me a tremendous amount
of time especially when I want similar
| | 01:58 | looks for similar types of adjustments.
| | 02:00 | For example, let's take a
look over here at the eye of Mister Zee.
| | 02:04 | I'm going to zoom in a little bit over
here, and you have these nice little eyelashes.
| | 02:08 | I'm actually going to choose to select
all of them right now and I'm going to
| | 02:12 | choose a different profile here, kind
of towards the bottom here where it's
| | 02:16 | thicker on one end and thinner on the other.
| | 02:18 | So you can see how now it looks a
little bit more like eyelashes. Now they kind
| | 02:22 | of come to an abrupt end here.
| | 02:24 | So what I might do is open up my
Stroke panel and choose to give it a round
| | 02:28 | cap, and that makes it look really nice.
| | 02:30 | Now, one thing that I'll note is that
sometimes when you apply a profile to a
| | 02:34 | path, it gets applied in a backwards way.
| | 02:37 | For example, right now, you can
see that my profile looks correct.
| | 02:41 | It's thin, and tapered on one end, and then it
gets thicker on this end which is what I want.
| | 02:46 | However, it's possible to actually
flip a profile, so that it actually gets
| | 02:50 | applied to the other side of the path.
| | 02:52 | So I can do that at the bottom of the
Stroke panel here where I can see that I
| | 02:56 | can apply a profile. There's also a button
that lets me flip that profile along the path.
| | 03:02 | So with one click of the mouse here, I
can actually make it thicker on this side
| | 03:05 | and thinner on this side.
| | 03:07 | Let's go back though and flip it along
back to the way that it was and let me
| | 03:10 | apply the same settings here
to these eyelashes as well.
| | 03:13 | Just apply that profile and actually
click on Stroke here and give it a round cap.
| | 03:18 | And with just a few clicks of a mouse,
I can get a really nice look and add a
| | 03:23 | ton of expressions to my artwork.
| | 03:24 | Even if I zoom down here to this part of
the nose, I can add a little profile here.
| | 03:30 | Maybe make it like this and maybe kind
of make it a little bit thicker and again
| | 03:33 | add a round cap here.
| | 03:34 | So I get a really nice look to that nose for Mister Zee.
| | 03:37 | If I come down here to this part of
his snout, I can select these two areas
| | 03:43 | here and once again maybe
choose a tapered option.
| | 03:46 | So it looks just a little bit more
expressive and a little bit nicer.
| | 03:49 | Take a look at that. With just a few
extra clicks of the mouse, I can now add a
| | 03:53 | ton of expression to my artwork.
| | 03:55 | I'll actually hide the Sketch layer
so it doesn't get in the way, and see how
| | 03:59 | nice and expressive that artwork is.
| | 04:02 | All you need to do is simply add a profile and
it can change the entire look of your artwork.
| | 04:07 | If you want to, you can also
create your own width profiles.
| | 04:10 | In my own work, chances are that
almost everything that ships by default with
| | 04:14 | Illustrator, which are these default
profiles, are probably going to be enough for you.
| | 04:18 | But if you wanted to, you can simply
take any stroke that you've already
| | 04:21 | applied a width to and then come up over here
and choose to save that as your own width profile.
| | 04:27 | When you do so, it will actually get
saved as an application setting, so it will
| | 04:31 | be available in all other
documents that you're working in.
| | 04:35 | I'll close with one other
note about working with profiles.
| | 04:38 | One of the really nice things about
working with profiles is that when you
| | 04:41 | define a graphic style inside of
Illustrator, the profile that you've applied to
| | 04:46 | the paths are also captured and
stored inside of that graphic style.
| | 04:51 | So if you're working on a project
and you want to have a consistent look
| | 04:54 | throughout that entire piece of
artwork, using width profiles together
| | 04:58 | with graphic styles can really help you out,
and saving time and ensuring consistency.
| | 05:03 | Perhaps most importantly, when that
client requests those changes which you know
| | 05:07 | are going to happen, all you need to
do is modify the graphic style and that
| | 05:11 | ripples through the entire document.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Turning variable width strokes into filled paths| 00:00 | It's important to realize that variable
widths are really just stroke attributes.
| | 00:05 | They're no different than regular
strokes that you apply to your artwork, and
| | 00:09 | from a production perspective sometimes
we may think about when we send artwork
| | 00:14 | out to other people to work on,
| | 00:16 | we want to convert all of our
stroke outlines to actual filled paths.
| | 00:21 | The reason why we want to do that,
especially with logos or artwork that's going
| | 00:25 | to be reused many times, is because
when people scale artwork inside of
| | 00:30 | Illustrator they may have
different settings for those options.
| | 00:34 | For example, if I go to Preferences here,
I'm going to choose Illustrator here
| | 00:38 | and choose Preferences and I go down
to where it says General, and again if
| | 00:41 | you're on Windows you would
choose Edit and then Preferences.
| | 00:46 | You can see there is an option here
called Scale Strokes & Effects, which
| | 00:49 | right now is turned off.
| | 00:51 | That would mean if I took Mister Zee
| | 00:52 | right now and enlarged him to 300%,
my stroke weight would not scale
| | 00:57 | along with the artwork.
| | 00:59 | The paths would get larger, the artwork
would get larger, but the stroke weights
| | 01:03 | would all stay the same.
| | 01:04 | Now again, there may be times when you
want that to happen and maybe times when
| | 01:07 | you don't, but usually when you
create artwork, well like I said logos or
| | 01:11 | artwork that's going to be used in many,
many different ways or applications,
| | 01:16 | you probably don't want to keep
artwork which stroke weights intact and you
| | 01:20 | want to convert them to actual filled paths
and that way they'll always scale correctly.
| | 01:25 | So I'm going to click on the Cancel button here.
| | 01:27 | I'm just want to show you that if you
select some paths, for example I'll
| | 01:30 | select these three paths that
each have widths applied to them.
| | 01:34 | I can go up to the Object menu and
choose Path and then choose Outline Stroke,
| | 01:40 | and when I do so, Illustrator now
converts those to actual filled paths.
| | 01:44 | So they're no longer editable as
strokes. I can no longer modify their
| | 01:49 | widths using the Width tool.
They're treated as regular filled objects
| | 01:53 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:54 | So if I know I want to lock down the
look of my artwork, I know I'm not going to
| | 01:58 | be making any other changes to this
artwork, I might choose to select all my
| | 02:01 | strokes and convert them to filled
paths in this way to ensure that the
| | 02:06 | integrity of my artwork remains
constant, no matter how it's used, no matter
| | 02:10 | where it's used, and no matter who uses it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Drawing with a TabletUnderstanding how the Pen and Pencil tools differ| 00:00 | At first blush, we might be able to say
that the Pen tool was really created for
| | 00:06 | mouse-based input, but the Pencil tool
was added to Illustrator and focused
| | 00:10 | more on pen tablet based input.
| | 00:13 | Let's understand a little bit about
these two different tools and understand
| | 00:16 | what makes them work.
| | 00:17 | Then we'll start to find better ways that
we can actually use these tools as well.
| | 00:21 | Now, as we kind of defined way back in
the beginning of this course, the Pen
| | 00:25 | tool is really used for plotting anchor points.
| | 00:28 | We don't actually draw with the Pen tool.
We create anchor points, we actually
| | 00:32 | define where anchor points need to
live in our document, and Illustrator
| | 00:37 | connects those anchor points with paths.
| | 00:39 | Based on the kinds of anchor points
that we create, whether they are corner
| | 00:43 | anchor points or smooth anchor
points, and where we position these control
| | 00:47 | handles, Illustrator will connect
the dots with these curved paths.
| | 00:52 | So for example, if I wanted to draw a
shape, I would start with the Pen tool and
| | 00:56 | I would click to define
where an anchor point was.
| | 00:59 | I would click again where I
want another anchor point to go.
| | 01:01 | So I'm not really drawing that curved line.
Illustrator is drawing the curved line.
| | 01:06 | I'm just kind of defining the
contraints that control that line.
| | 01:10 | If I draw let's say over here, and
click-and-drag, I'm starting to draw
| | 01:14 | what looks like a shape.
| | 01:15 | But all I'm really doing is plotting
exactly where the anchor points go and as
| | 01:19 | we have discussed also, the real secret
to using the Pen tool is just to be able
| | 01:24 | to anticipate where the anchor
points and the control handles need to go.
| | 01:29 | Illustrator then connects
the dots with these paths.
| | 01:31 | I'll press Delete a few times though.
| | 01:34 | Now, I'll switch over to the Pencil tool.
| | 01:36 | At the same time, I am also going to go ahead
now and pick up my pen which is a Wacom pen.
| | 01:42 | For this course, I'm
actually using the Intuos4 tablet.
| | 01:45 | I highly recommend it only because I'm a lefty.
| | 01:48 | So it's a great tablet because you can
flip it around for lefties and righties.
| | 01:52 | With the Pencil tool, we actually do the
exact opposite of what we do with the Pen tool.
| | 01:58 | The Pen tool is what we use to plot
anchor points and Illustrator connects the
| | 02:02 | dots with paths.
| | 02:04 | However, with the Pencil tool, we
actually create the paths ourselves; we don't
| | 02:10 | plot any anchor points and Illustrator
is the one that figures out where the
| | 02:14 | anchor points need to go.
| | 02:16 | So if I wanted to draw a shape for
example like this, I'm just drawing where I
| | 02:19 | want the path to go.
| | 02:20 | But when I release the mouse,
Illustrator now goes ahead and creates the anchor
| | 02:24 | points along the path that I've already defined.
| | 02:28 | So again, the contrast is with the
Pen tool I'm creating anchor points and
| | 02:33 | Illustrator creates the paths.
| | 02:35 | With the Pencil tool, I create the paths
and Illustrator creates the anchor points.
| | 02:40 | So it's a complete opposite way of
looking at how we create artwork.
| | 02:44 | More importantly, if you're a visual
person who wants to be able to sketch
| | 02:48 | something and many times our hands are
a little bit more creative than our mind is,
| | 02:52 | if I want to quickly sketch
something out of my screen, I may find it easier
| | 02:56 | for my hand to make this motion, and
let Illustrator figure out the underlying
| | 03:00 | anchor point problem and this way I
don't have to deal with the Pen tool.
| | 03:04 | So the nice thing about working with
the Pencil tool in this way is that I'm
| | 03:07 | focusing on what I want to draw.
| | 03:10 | I'm not focusing on trying to anticipate
where anchor points need to go in order
| | 03:14 | for me to get at the
artwork that I want to create.
| | 03:17 | Traditionally, working with the Pencil
tool has always been a little bit of a
| | 03:21 | problem only because normally inside
of Illustrator, for us to create filled
| | 03:25 | artwork we need to have closed shapes.
But we've already learned throughout this
| | 03:30 | entire title about things like
Pathfinder and more importantly, things like Live
| | 03:34 | Paint and the Shape Builder tool, that
we don't need to work with close paths.
| | 03:39 | We can just draw a whole bunch of
paths that are open, and later on using the
| | 03:43 | Shape Builder or using Live Paint or
even Pathfinder, we can combine those
| | 03:48 | together to create the shapes that we need.
| | 03:50 | So for example, if I wanted to create
some fluid shapes, all I would need to do
| | 03:54 | is kind of work like this and I
know that later on I can combine these
| | 03:59 | overlapping shapes, get rid of the
parts that I don't want, and color it in to
| | 04:02 | my heart's content.
| | 04:04 | So the Pencil tool when you think about
it this way becomes incredibly valuable.
| | 04:09 | If you have a tablet in front of you,
it's easy to create these fluid paths
| | 04:13 | and if you've mastered the use of
building artwork inside of Illustrator
| | 04:17 | using the three methods that we
discussed so far, meaning Pathfinder, Live
| | 04:22 | Paint, and Shape Builder, Illustrator
suddenly becomes this wonderful creative
| | 04:26 | environment to work in.
| | 04:27 | We're not bogged down with things like
the Pen tool or thinking about anchor
| | 04:31 | points or control handles.
| | 04:33 | So pick up your pressure sensitive pen
and get ready to have fun drawing inside
| | 04:38 | of Illustrator, because that's
what this chapter is all about.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting the behavior of the Pencil tool| 00:00 | At first glance the Pencil tool
inside of Illustrator looks very simple;
| | 00:04 | however, there are some pretty
powerful features hidden inside of it.
| | 00:08 | Let's actually discuss a few of those here
by trying to lay down some paths here for Mister Zee.
| | 00:12 | I'm working on this document called
drawing.ai and basically all I've done is
| | 00:17 | create a template layer there with a
new artwork layer that I am going to start
| | 00:20 | using to draw some paths.
| | 00:22 | I am going to zoom in maybe
on this hind leg here of Mister
| | 00:25 | Zee because maybe I want to
draw this curve right over here.
| | 00:28 | So I am actually going to zoom out just a bit.
| | 00:30 | That looks really good.
| | 00:31 | Centre that on my screen and now I am also
going to go ahead now and choose my Pencil tool.
| | 00:37 | I can start to click and drag.
| | 00:38 | Normally, we might think that if we
want to have a very smooth and fluid path,
| | 00:42 | we would need to click
and kind of go very quickly.
| | 00:45 | But it's going to be very hard for you,
because your hand is probably somewhat
| | 00:49 | removed from the screen,
because it's a little bit hard,
| | 00:51 | you are watching the screen but your
hands are on a tablet that is on the ground.
| | 00:55 | If you have one of the Wacom Cintiq
tablets, those are the monitors that are
| | 00:59 | also integrated into the tablet.
| | 01:00 | So you are like drawing right on the monitor.
| | 01:02 | It's a little bit easier to do this.
| | 01:04 | However, you still might find yourself
saying well, that doesn't look really good.
| | 01:07 | I am going to hit Command+Z to undo
and then try to lay down another path and
| | 01:11 | keep working with it that way.
| | 01:12 | I found that it's a lot easier to
actually to start out and go pretty slow.
| | 01:17 | If you are going to add a jagged path
or lots of anchor points, don't worry
| | 01:21 | about that because it's so
easy to clean it up later.
| | 01:23 | So for example, what I might start
doing is clicking and dragging and kind of
| | 01:26 | following along the path here.
| | 01:28 | By slowing down a little bit, it's a
lot easier for me to follow now that
| | 01:31 | count toward the path.
| | 01:33 | One of the things that we find when
working with a real Pencil tool on real
| | 01:36 | paper is that many times when we are
starting to work on a sketch, we are kind
| | 01:40 | of lightly drawing with these really
light lines that as we kind of get happier
| | 01:44 | or we get a better idea of where we
want our drawing to go, we start to kind of
| | 01:49 | darken in the lines a little bit.
| | 01:50 | While when working in a digital
workflow, like we have right here, there's
| | 01:53 | really no such thing as kind of light
lines and darker lines because when I laid
| | 01:57 | down my path, I mean that's my path.
| | 01:59 | It's not like I am going to have my darker
path and say yeah, that's what I want to have.
| | 02:04 | We find that sometimes we feel the need
to lay down that perfect path each time,
| | 02:09 | but the reality is that Illustrator has
a very interesting function built into
| | 02:13 | the Pencil tool that kind of helps us.
| | 02:15 | For example, if you look towards right
now the top part of the path here, I
| | 02:19 | didn't really kind of meet this exactly.
| | 02:20 | So what I could do is I can
just draw over my existing path.
| | 02:24 | Just take my Pencil icon now and click
and drag over it to kind of go a little
| | 02:28 | bit more to the right and you can see
how Illustrator now modified my path.
| | 02:32 | In fact, it can do that in many places.
| | 02:34 | If I wanted this to kind of loop down
a little bit, I will just kind of click
| | 02:37 | here and kind of continue the path
that way where I can kind of draw over it
| | 02:41 | and kind of get a better idea of how I want
my path just by drawing over the path itself.
| | 02:47 | This is a feature that
Illustrator calls Edit Selected Paths.
| | 02:50 | Because right now when I first
created my path it still stays selected,
| | 02:55 | as I drove over the path Illustrator
thinks that I want to modify the look of
| | 02:59 | it so it lets me quickly just
modify the path by drawing on top of it.
| | 03:03 | However, there may be times
where this becomes a problem.
| | 03:06 | For example, let's focus here
on the tail here in the back.
| | 03:08 | I am actually going to zoom in just a
little bit closer right here to this
| | 03:11 | part of the sketch.
| | 03:13 | And let's say I want to kind
of lay down some paths here.
| | 03:15 | So I am just going to draw a line over
here and that looks okay. Maybe not that
| | 03:19 | great and maybe we want to
make it a little bit smoother.
| | 03:21 | Well, how would I do that?
| | 03:23 | Well, if you look over here underneath
the Pencil tool, there's something here
| | 03:26 | called the Smooth tool.
| | 03:27 | Now I can choose to select the Smooth tool
| | 03:30 | and kind of draw over it, which we've
done before in previous chapters.
| | 03:34 | However, it's a pain to keep switching
between the Pencil tool and the Smooth tool.
| | 03:39 | So there's an important keyboard
shortcut to note, that when you have the Pencil
| | 03:43 | tool active, if you hold down the
Option or the Alt key on your keyboard, again
| | 03:47 | that's Option for the Mac, Alt on
Windows, you are going to see that your tool
| | 03:51 | toggles to become now the Smooth tool.
| | 03:54 | So just now I drew a path which I'm
not that happy with. I am happy with the
| | 03:58 | overall shape, but it's
just not smooth enough for me.
| | 04:00 | So now I can hold down the Option key,
now I switch to the Smooth tool, and now I
| | 04:04 | can draw over it to kind of
smooth out that path. Great!
| | 04:08 | So I am happy with that path.
| | 04:10 | Now I want to start a new path going this way.
| | 04:12 | So I am going to click over here.
| | 04:13 | Again, I'm letting go now the Option
key so I am back to my Pencil tool.
| | 04:16 | Now when I draw back over
here, whoa, what just happened?
| | 04:20 | Illustrator thought that I wanted to
modify my path because it was still selected.
| | 04:25 | So now that I went ahead and I
started drawing a new path, Illustrator
| | 04:29 | modified the path instead.
| | 04:31 | So Illustrator is kind of second-
guessing me here and that becomes a problem
| | 04:35 | when you work very
quickly inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:37 | Rather than Illustrator dictate what
should be happening, you as a designer
| | 04:41 | should be dictating how
Illustrator should behave.
| | 04:43 | So I am going to press Command+Z to undo
to go back to my path here for a moment
| | 04:47 | and there are two ways to solve this problem.
| | 04:49 | One way is to actually here double
-click on the Pencil tool itself.
| | 04:53 | That brings up the Pencil Tool Options
dialog box where you can uncheck the Edit
| | 04:57 | selected paths option.
| | 04:59 | In doing so, you're now disabling
Illustrator's ability to modify the path.
| | 05:04 | However, I'll tell you that I have a
problem with that, because I like the feature
| | 05:07 | and I want to be able to
edit paths by drawing over it.
| | 05:10 | I just want to make sure that
Illustrator does it when I want it to, not when it
| | 05:14 | gets in the way of what I'm trying to do.
| | 05:16 | So what I can do is I can take this
checkbox here that's called Keep selected,
| | 05:20 | and I can uncheck that option.
| | 05:21 | Now I am going to click OK and you
will notice that when I draw a new path--
| | 05:24 | let's actually delete this existing path.
| | 05:26 | When I draw a path right here, it's not
selected anymore and now when I draw a
| | 05:31 | new path, Illustrator is
not modifying that path.
| | 05:34 | So now I have the ability to draw a
path this way without that feature
| | 05:37 | getting in the way.
| | 05:39 | However, I will also tell you that if I
now want to go ahead and smooth out that
| | 05:42 | path, I have to find a way to select it.
| | 05:44 | Of course, I can always press the
Command key and then select that path and
| | 05:49 | now if I draw over it, it will redraw
that path or I can hold down the Option
| | 05:53 | key and smooth it out.
| | 05:55 | You can also, by the way, use this exact
same method to solve the problem as well.
| | 05:58 | Let me show you.
| | 05:59 | If I am going to go back here to my
Pencil tool and double-click on it, let's
| | 06:02 | keep the Keep selected option turned on and
the Edit selected paths turned on as well.
| | 06:07 | This is the default
setting inside of Illustrator.
| | 06:09 | I am going to hold my Command key
and click and drag to just select this
| | 06:13 | path and just delete it.
| | 06:14 | Let's start from scratch again.
| | 06:15 | I draw a path over here.
| | 06:17 | I want to smooth it out.
| | 06:18 | So I will Option+drag or
Alt+drag on top of it so that it's smooth.
| | 06:22 | I want to draw a new path here, but I
don't want Illustrator to accidentally get
| | 06:26 | rid of this path and modify it.
| | 06:27 | So now I am going to
Command+click off of the path.
| | 06:30 | Now that it's deselected I don't have
to worry about that problem anymore, but
| | 06:34 | it would mean that each time that I
draw a path, I would have to manually
| | 06:37 | Command+click off of it to now draw a new path.
| | 06:41 | So it's up to you how you want to
handle it but I just want to make sure
| | 06:43 | that you are aware of the settings.
| | 06:45 | When working with the Pencil tool,
you can use the Option or the Alt key to
| | 06:48 | toggle between the Pencil tool and the
Smooth tool, which can be very helpful,
| | 06:53 | and you can also use the Command key or
the Ctrl key on Windows to either select
| | 06:58 | or deselect the path to control
whether or not Illustrator modifies your
| | 07:02 | existing path or draws a new one.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Path Eraser tool| 00:01 | When I was drawing some of the paths
here with my Pencil tool, I made some of
| | 00:05 | the paths here way too long and I want
to be able to chop those things down.
| | 00:08 | Now, of course, we know that we could use
things like the Shape Builder tool later on.
| | 00:12 | We don't need to lay down
perfect paths right now.
| | 00:15 | However, sometimes when you are
sketching, you really want to make sure that
| | 00:18 | things look at least a little bit
closer to what your intentional design is.
| | 00:20 | So I am going to zoom in on
this part over here of Mister
| | 00:23 | Zee where I kind of went a
little bit too far with this path.
| | 00:26 | So I am going to start by selecting
the path itself and rather than deal with
| | 00:30 | things like the Scissors tool to cut it,
what I could do is I can use the same
| | 00:34 | metaphor as the Pencil tool.
| | 00:35 | You notice that in the same location
of the Pencil tool, in addition to this
| | 00:39 | Move tool, I also have
something called the Path Eraser tool.
| | 00:43 | This is different than another
tool here called the Eraser tool.
| | 00:46 | This we are going to deal with a little
bit later inside of the chapter, but for
| | 00:49 | now we are now going to focus on
this tool called the Path Eraser tool.
| | 00:52 | So I am going to choose that option and
with my Pen I am simply going to come
| | 00:57 | over to the part of the
path that I want to remove.
| | 00:59 | If I just click over here and drag
over this part of the path, it removes
| | 01:03 | that part of the path.
| | 01:04 | Granted, it's a little bit more
difficult to use this because I kind of have to
| | 01:08 | draw over that part of the path.
| | 01:10 | However, if I really want to delete a
part of the path, I can use this tool,
| | 01:14 | the Path Eraser tool, to do so.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing with the Calligraphic Brush tool| 00:00 | Up until this point we have been using
our tablet, but remember that the tablet
| | 00:05 | is a pressure-sensitive tablet.
| | 00:06 | Meaning if we press harder we can
actually vary the width of the strokes that
| | 00:10 | we were putting down.
| | 00:11 | Now, we have already discussed in the
previous chapter that Illustrator has a
| | 00:15 | feature called a Width tool.
| | 00:17 | And I can actually vary the
width of a stroke along its path.
| | 00:20 | But that's something that I apply
to a stroke and I do it after I have
| | 00:23 | already created the path.
| | 00:25 | However, if I am in a paradigm right now
where I am actually trying to sketch
| | 00:29 | or draw something on the screen, I may
want to be able to translate those thick
| | 00:33 | and thins using the amounts of
pressure that I applied to the pen as a draw.
| | 00:38 | Now, I can't do that with the Pencil tool.
| | 00:41 | However, there is a tool inside of
Illustrator called the Paintbrush tool, which
| | 00:45 | allows me to use a brush inside of
Illustrator called a Calligraphic Brush.
| | 00:50 | This particular brush, the
Calligraphic Brush, can have pressure
| | 00:53 | settings applied to it.
| | 00:55 | Let's see how we can do that to actually add
pressure as we draw inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:00 | I am going to start by first
defining a new brush in this document.
| | 01:03 | So I am going to come over here to my
Brushes panel and if you don't see it
| | 01:07 | here inside of your existing user
interface, just go up to the Window menu and
| | 01:11 | you'll always find all the panels
listed here. Here are Brushes right here.
| | 01:14 | So I am going choose right
now to create a new brush.
| | 01:17 | I don't have any artwork selected.
| | 01:18 | I am just going to click on this
button of here to create a new brush, and I
| | 01:21 | want to create a new Calligraphic Brush.
| | 01:23 | I will click OK and that brings up
the Calligraphic Brush Options dialog.
| | 01:27 | So right now, I can give this brush a
name. Let me call this one pressure brush,
| | 01:33 | for lack of a better name right now for this.
| | 01:35 | If you have several of these brushes and
you might want to have different names,
| | 01:38 | so you can easily differentiate between them.
| | 01:40 | But I am going to come down over here
towards says Diameter and I am going to
| | 01:44 | set my Diameter to 3 points.
| | 01:46 | I am going to hit the Tab key to
accept that value and you can see that right
| | 01:50 | now the setting here for the Diameter is Fixed.
| | 01:53 | That means that as I draw a path, the
Diameter of my brush or the tip of my
| | 01:57 | brush is always going to be 3 points.
| | 02:00 | However, I could change it from
Fixed to be based on Pressure.
| | 02:04 | And I could set it to have a
Variation, meaning that based on the amount of
| | 02:07 | pressure vary it by certain amount.
| | 02:10 | So if I now choose let's say 2 points for
Variation, again hit Tab to accept that value,
| | 02:16 | take a look over here in this preview area.
| | 02:18 | This is the shape of my brush, so it's circular.
| | 02:20 | It's round right now.
| | 02:22 | By the way you can adjust it by making
this value different, and that would make
| | 02:25 | it let say a flatter brush. A real
calligraphy brush, for example, has a flat nib
| | 02:30 | so you can actually adjust the
Roundness of the tip of the pen itself and of
| | 02:34 | course you can also adjust the Angle.
| | 02:36 | The Angle makes no sense when I'm
keeping my Roundness set to 100%, but if you
| | 02:41 | look to the right of that I
have some preview settings here.
| | 02:44 | This is what my brush tip is going to look like.
| | 02:47 | At a Diameter setting that I've
chosen over here which is 3 points.
| | 02:50 | However, because I have specified a
Variation of 2, it can get a small as
| | 02:55 | 1 point in Diameter.
| | 02:56 | And it can get as large as 5 points in Diameter.
| | 02:59 | So now that I have those
settings here I am going to click OK.
| | 03:02 | That brush right now is selected so I
will go to my Tools panel and choose
| | 03:06 | the Paintbrush tool.
| | 03:08 | Now, just to show you when I click and
I drag very, very lightly I get a thin line,
| | 03:11 | but if I start adding more
pressure you can see that my line gets thicker.
| | 03:15 | So I started out with a thin line and
then I started adding some thickness by
| | 03:18 | just pressing harder with my pen.
| | 03:20 | When you press Command+A and Delete to
just get rid of that, or Control+A, and
| | 03:25 | let's zoom in on this say again, this hind
leg right over here, to try to draw this path.
| | 03:29 | Now I am going to start by drawing
very lightly on the top, but then kind of
| | 03:35 | adding weight as they get towards the bottom.
| | 03:37 | The only problem with laying down
paths in this way when using the
| | 03:40 | Paintbrush tool is that I have no
real way to modify this thickness once
| | 03:44 | I've actually laid down the path.
| | 03:46 | I can still use the Option key or the Alt
key on my keyboard to access my Smooth tool.
| | 03:52 | So I can go and I can
smooth the actual path itself.
| | 03:55 | However, once my pressure has been
calculated and added to the actual document
| | 04:00 | itself, I have no easy way to modify that.
| | 04:03 | So I am going to hit the Command key
right now to select this and then hit
| | 04:07 | Delete because I want to draw a new
path now and maybe I'll try again, kind
| | 04:10 | of lighter and then to kind of dark here so
it starts out light and then gets heavier.
| | 04:15 | So you see how you can start to vary
the width of things as you are drawing.
| | 04:19 | This is great for sketching, but maybe
not that great when you are trying to get
| | 04:22 | very precise paths laid down.
| | 04:24 | Because it may be hard to control the
pen as you are working with it.
| | 04:27 | Notice by the way that if you double-
click on the Paintbrush tool, you get the
| | 04:30 | same options that you had with the Pencil tool.
| | 04:33 | And for some reason, Illustrator's default
setting is not to keep your path selected.
| | 04:37 | But you still can edit selected paths.
| | 04:40 | So just want to show you if I go ahead
now and I Command+click or Control+click
| | 04:43 | to select the path, I can just kind of
draw over it to modify the path as well.
| | 04:48 | And in doing so I can also modify the pressure.
| | 04:51 | If I press harder now for example, I can
start to get a different look as I kind
| | 04:57 | of add this to my path.
| | 04:58 | And again, now that the path is
selected I can hold down the Option key and I
| | 05:02 | can start to smooth out that path as well.
| | 05:05 | So the Calligraphic Brush is a great
way for me to lay down paths that already
| | 05:08 | have thick and thins in different
pressure-sensitive settings applied to them.
| | 05:13 | But like I said, it's a little bit more
difficult to control than going in for
| | 05:16 | example using Width Profiles.
| | 05:19 | To be honest, if you're using a version
like Illustrator CS4 and you don't have
| | 05:23 | access to width profiles that were added
in CS5, then this is a great way to add
| | 05:28 | thickness to your artwork.
| | 05:30 | However, in many ways, the width
profiles are far more powerful than laying
| | 05:34 | down paths this way
using the Calligraphic Brush.
| | 05:37 | Still, for loose sketches or just
getting ideas inside of Illustrator, this is a
| | 05:41 | great tool to do so.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing with the Blob Brush tool| 00:00 | It's important to realize that in
Illustrator when you lay down paths using the
| | 00:05 | Paintbrush tool, it still creates a
single path and then it applies some kind of
| | 00:10 | an appearance to that path.
| | 00:12 | In the case of using the Calligraphic
Brush, it actually takes pressure-based
| | 00:16 | input from my pen, and
transfers that to the path itself.
| | 00:20 | Let me show you what I mean by that in
this file over here called drawing4.ai.
| | 00:24 | I already have some paths that I
have laid down with the Paintbrush tool.
| | 00:28 | In fact if I zoom in on this area here,
you can see the nice thick and thins
| | 00:32 | that I've created, but if I go into
Outline Mode by pressing Command+Y or
| | 00:36 | Control+Y, you can see
the actual path themselves.
| | 00:39 | So the appearance of that brush was
simply added on top of these paths.
| | 00:43 | I am going to press Command+Y. The
problem that you have with this is that
| | 00:48 | sometimes when I modify these paths by
like cutting them or erasing parts of
| | 00:53 | them, I may lose that pressure information.
| | 00:56 | For example, here inside of Illustrator,
I have a tool called the Eraser tool.
| | 01:00 | We will actually talk about this
tool more in detail in the next movie.
| | 01:03 | But for now, if I decided I wanted to
kind of slice through this part of the
| | 01:07 | path right here, I can
click and drag to do that.
| | 01:10 | But notice that as soon as I release
the pen, the thickness settings that were
| | 01:14 | applied to that path disappear.
| | 01:15 | I will just press Command+Z
so that you can see that again.
| | 01:19 | This is what it was like before and I
will press Command+Shift+Z and now you can see
| | 01:23 | that I've lost that pressure setting.
| | 01:25 | So basically, a brush is just reapplying
itself to that path because brushes are live.
| | 01:30 | All that are being applied to is the
path itself that appears underneath.
| | 01:34 | So, it's possible that I may want to
apply some kind of a thickness here, but
| | 01:38 | I want that to remain constant and I
also want to be able to erase it in a
| | 01:42 | more intuitive manner.
| | 01:43 | So let me switch back here to the
Paintbrush tool and I will press Ctrl+A or
| | 01:48 | Command+A to delete all this artwork.
| | 01:50 | I know it was very nice, it took me a long
time to do it, but I want to show you a
| | 01:53 | different tool inside of Illustrator,
which is a variation of the Paintbrush tool.
| | 01:58 | It's actually called the Blob Brush tool.
| | 02:00 | It's a very weird name.
| | 02:02 | I feel by the way it's a little bit
too close to the Blah Brush tool.
| | 02:05 | But it actually is a pretty cool
tool inside of Illustrator, because it
| | 02:08 | allows you to do the exact same thing
that we've already been doing with the
| | 02:12 | Calligraphic Brush.
| | 02:13 | However, it creates expanded
paths that we can now work with.
| | 02:17 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 02:18 | So directly underneath this Paintbrush tool
over here is this tool called the Blob Brush.
| | 02:23 | I am going to choose that option and
just to show you by the way-- I am going to
| | 02:26 | double-click on it-- the settings that
come up look almost identical to those
| | 02:30 | that we found with the Calligraphic Brush.
| | 02:32 | For example, I am going to set the
Size to maybe around 6 point here.
| | 02:38 | And I will set the size to be based on
Pressure and I will set the Variations to also be 6.
| | 02:44 | This will give me a nice big variation.
| | 02:46 | I could have either almost
nothing, to 6 points, up to 12 points here.
| | 02:51 | So now I am going to click OK and what
should happen now if I click and drag when I
| | 02:56 | press lightly and then heavier as I
kind of go along the path, that I start off
| | 03:00 | nice and thin and then I get thicker as I go.
| | 03:02 | But let's go into outline mode by
pressing Command+Y or Control+Y and you can
| | 03:06 | see that I no longer have a single path,
| | 03:09 | but as if I've drawn a
path and then expanded it.
| | 03:12 | So now I have an actual filled object,
not a stroke with something applied to
| | 03:17 | it but a filled object.
| | 03:19 | So if I press Command+Y and I now
switch to my Eraser tool and I drag through it,
| | 03:23 | you can see that I get a actual
clean mark that goes right through it and
| | 03:27 | I don't lose any pressure-sensitive settings
because I am just erasing parts of a filled path.
| | 03:32 | I'm not reapplying a live
brush effect to a stroke.
| | 03:36 | Let me press Undo a few times to go
back to here and I want you to get a better
| | 03:39 | understanding for how
intelligent this Blob Brush tool is.
| | 03:42 | So I want to go over here back to the
Blob Brush and I am going to click and
| | 03:46 | drag let's say to kind of draw a line
here, but I am in a need of much thinner
| | 03:49 | brush for this. Let's go ahead
now and double-click on this.
| | 03:52 | And by the way I could also choose a
Calligraphic Brush that I've already
| | 03:56 | defined in the Brushes panel and
use it with the Blob Brush as well.
| | 04:00 | But for here I am going to set Size again
back around 3, and then set my Variation to 2.
| | 04:05 | Click OK and then lay down a path
over here. That was pretty good, just get
| | 04:10 | a few rough paths drawing over here.
| | 04:13 | And if I go into Outline Mode you'll
see that it's creating these filled paths.
| | 04:16 | But now maybe I want a kind of draw in
some of these stripes that are here as well.
| | 04:21 | So if I draw a line like this and
like this and I start to kind of fill it in,
| | 04:24 | which I would normally do with maybe a
magic marker for example on regular paper.
| | 04:28 | If I now go into Outline Mode, you'll
see that Illustrator automatically merged
| | 04:33 | all of these as well.
| | 04:34 | What's really kind of happening here in
the background this is that as I draw,
| | 04:38 | Illustrator is expanding my brush.
| | 04:40 | So that it now becomes a filled shape
and then it's performing a Pathfinder Add
| | 04:45 | with any other pieces of art
that match the color of my brush.
| | 04:49 | So let me be little bit more clear about that.
| | 04:51 | I am going to go back to into Preview
mode by pressing Command+Y and maybe now
| | 04:54 | I want to switch to a different color.
| | 04:55 | Whether you are using any Brush tools,
be it the Paintbrush tool or the Blob
| | 04:59 | Brush tool, the color that you're
actually going to be using is specified via
| | 05:03 | the stroke color, not the fill color.
| | 05:06 | I know at the end of the day we are
going to end up with a filled object.
| | 05:09 | However, Illustrator uses the
stroke color for the settings.
| | 05:12 | So I am actually click over here
and choose maybe red for example.
| | 05:16 | And maybe I want to use red for this
part of the stripe over here so I am going
| | 05:19 | to start clicking and dragging
and create a filled area like this.
| | 05:22 | And if I now go into outline mode,
you'll see that Illustrator did not merge
| | 05:27 | this with the black because it
realized that I am using a different color.
| | 05:30 | It only merges with light colors.
| | 05:33 | So this is a really cool way of
working inside of Illustrator, especially if
| | 05:37 | you're the kind of person that loves
to just get your ideas out quickly on
| | 05:39 | paper, you can sketch them here very
quickly inside of Illustrator using the
| | 05:43 | Blob Brush, which is pressure-sensitive
but also kind of merges these paths
| | 05:48 | automatically and gives you really
nice clean artwork as you are drawing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Eraser tool| 00:00 | In Illustrator CS4 Adobe added not only the
Blob Brush tool, but also the Eraser tool.
| | 00:07 | Now this is different than the Path
Eraser tool which focuses on just deleting
| | 00:11 | paths inside of your document.
| | 00:14 | The Eraser tool is really meant to be
used more as a visual aspect, meaning it
| | 00:18 | erases things that you see on your screen.
| | 00:20 | It's more of the appearance side of
things rather than the structure side of them.
| | 00:24 | That's why it happens to be a
perfect match for the Blob Brush tool.
| | 00:28 | Let's take a look for
example at the Eraser tool itself.
| | 00:31 | I am actually going to double-click
on it and you'll see that the settings
| | 00:34 | look almost identical to what we saw
inside of the Calligraphic Brush and also
| | 00:38 | the Blob Brush tool.
| | 00:40 | I can actually specify a Diameter, have it
based on Pressure, and give it a Variation.
| | 00:45 | So for example, let's right now leave
it set as a default setting of 10 points
| | 00:49 | and let's have it based on Pressure
and set a Variation of 10 points as well.
| | 00:54 | This way we are going to
get a lot of thick and thins.
| | 00:55 | If I hit the Tab key, I will see the
difference here that I can get and I click OK.
| | 00:59 | Next, I am going to go to my Blob Brush
tool and double-click on that and do the same.
| | 01:03 | Let's set the Size here at 10 and
the Variation at 10 and then click OK.
| | 01:09 | So I'll lay down a few
strokes here with a Blob Brush tool.
| | 01:11 | Of course, first I am going to change
my stroke color to something that I'll
| | 01:14 | probably see instead of white.
| | 01:16 | Let's do red, and then I'll go ahead and now
I will click-and-drag to get some paths here.
| | 01:20 | Remember that I can always just continue
to add to this and kind of fill this in
| | 01:24 | if I wanted to, and these all get joined together.
| | 01:28 | But now I want to erase parts of this.
| | 01:30 | So what I could do is switch now to my
Eraser tool and then click-and-drag and
| | 01:35 | then starts to erase that path as well.
| | 01:37 | Sure, I can go ahead and erase parts of
it like this, but it's really intended
| | 01:41 | that I can actually just go over
and adjust the paths as I'm working.
| | 01:45 | A very fun tool to use, but the
interesting dichotomy that exists between these
| | 01:50 | two tools over here is that if you're
using a pressure-sensitive pen that has
| | 01:54 | both a tip and also an eraser on it,
Illustrator can automatically sense when
| | 02:00 | you switch between them.
| | 02:02 | So for example, right now I
have the Blob Brush tool selected.
| | 02:05 | So if I click-and-drag I am
going to start to see paths.
| | 02:08 | But if I flip the pen over in my
hand so that now the eraser is pointing
| | 02:11 | down as I click-and-drag
Illustrator erases the path.
| | 02:14 | So I am able to mimic the
paradigm of real pencil on paper.
| | 02:18 | As I put the pen back over again I can
start to draw paths that way and connect them.
| | 02:23 | So when using the Blob Brush tool, the
Eraser tool is kind of its partner in
| | 02:28 | crime. Just by a quick flip of the pen
on my tablet I have the ability to add
| | 02:32 | paths and also remove parts of paths as well.
| | 02:35 | One interesting thing to note about
how the behavior of the Eraser tool can
| | 02:39 | really help when you're working is
that you have the ability to control which
| | 02:43 | objects do get erased and which ones don't.
| | 02:45 | Let me explain what I mean.
| | 02:47 | I currently right now have
two objects in my document.
| | 02:50 | I am going to press the Command key to
switch back to my Selection tool. If you
| | 02:53 | are on Windows that would be the Ctrl key.
| | 02:55 | I am going to select just
this one object right here.
| | 02:58 | Now I have one object that's not
selected and one that is selected.
| | 03:02 | So if I now switch to my Eraser tool
and I am just flipping my pen over in my
| | 03:05 | hand right now, even though I start
dragging from here when I go across that path
| | 03:09 | that I go across this path, when I
release the mouse you will see that only this
| | 03:13 | path was deleted, but this remains untouched.
| | 03:16 | That's because when you have a
selection present, the Eraser tool only works
| | 03:21 | on the selected path.
| | 03:23 | If you, however, have nothing selected,
| | 03:25 | so for example I am going to
Command+Click over here just to deselect
| | 03:28 | everything, now nothing at all is selected.
| | 03:32 | Now if I click-and-drag
then all paths are affected.
| | 03:35 | So in this way you can really control
how the Eraser tool works as you are
| | 03:40 | creating your drawing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
ConclusionLooking at the VectorScribe plug-in| 00:00 | After spending a few hours together
learning about how to draw inside of
| | 00:04 | Illustrator without using the Pen tool,
I would be remiss if I didn't tell you
| | 00:08 | about a really cool plug-in
that's available called VectorScribe.
| | 00:12 | It actually adds a few tools to
Illustrator to help you create and modify paths
| | 00:17 | inside of Illustrator without having
to rely too heavily on the Pen tool.
| | 00:22 | In addition, it has some really cool
features that would be very useful to us
| | 00:26 | on a day-to-day basis.
| | 00:27 | For example, I'm just going to start
with the Pen tool for a moment here and
| | 00:31 | just draw kind of like a zigzag line like this.
| | 00:33 | Nothing too difficult. I'm
not even adding any curves here.
| | 00:36 | But I'm now going to switch to a
different tool here which is called
| | 00:39 | the PathScribe tool.
| | 00:41 | Once I select it, I'm now going to
click and drag to marquee-select all of my
| | 00:44 | anchor points, and you notice that when I
start mousing over this, little things pop-up.
| | 00:49 | And if I want to convert let's say this
to a curve, I can just click and drag to
| | 00:53 | turn this into a curve.
| | 00:55 | This is similar to what we were doing earlier
on with the Reshape tool inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:59 | However, the Reshape tool adds
anchor points and that requires us to then
| | 01:03 | smooth the path over again, whereas
using this PathScribe tool notice that no
| | 01:08 | anchor points were added.
| | 01:09 | It actually lets you just click and
drag to create a really nice curve.
| | 01:14 | Another really cool tool that is part
of this VectorScribe plug-in is something
| | 01:18 | here called Dynamic Corners.
| | 01:20 | It allows you to quickly add a rounded corner
to any one individual corner on your artwork.
| | 01:25 | Notice that as soon as I mouse over
this, a little red highlight there
| | 01:28 | shows, and if I click and drag downwards, I
can actually make this line have rounded corners.
| | 01:34 | But it's dynamic, meaning
it's almost like a live effect.
| | 01:37 | So if I were to click and drag, I can
continue to round little bit more or maybe
| | 01:41 | round it off a little bit less.
| | 01:42 | I could also use modifier keys, like
for example my Option key or the Alt key
| | 01:46 | and click and drag and kind
of adjust things this way.
| | 01:49 | So there are lot of cool tools that
are like this that exists inside of this
| | 01:53 | plug-in called VectorScribe, and if
this interests you, why don't you head
| | 01:57 | over to this website?
| | 01:58 | It's astutegraphics.com.
| | 02:00 | And go over there and you can
actually download a trial of this plug-in
| | 02:03 | called VectorScribe.
| | 02:05 | You might also watch some of these
movies that describe what each of the
| | 02:08 | features do inside of it.
| | 02:10 | You might find it incredibly helpful and
that it might save a lot of time in the
| | 02:13 | work that you do inside of Illustrator.
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| Next steps| 00:00 | Congratulations on finishing
Illustrator Insider Training:
| | 00:04 | Drawing without the Pen tool.
| | 00:06 | You see? I told you that you could
have fun inside of Illustrator without
| | 00:10 | having to be bogged down by worrying about
things like anchor points and control handles.
| | 00:15 | By focusing on building artwork and on
the artwork that you want to create, you
| | 00:18 | don't have to worry about those
technical details that may bog you down.
| | 00:23 | Perhaps most importantly, you've seen
how Illustrator can offer two different
| | 00:27 | ways at how you might create artwork.
| | 00:29 | You can have technical settings that
are very precise, but you can also go off
| | 00:33 | the beaten path and be a little bit creative.
| | 00:35 | So the real question is after
learning all this, what do you do now?
| | 00:41 | Maybe take a closer look at the some of
your artwork before you sit down to create it.
| | 00:45 | In this way, you might find ways to use the
tools that you've just learned how to use.
| | 00:50 | On top of that, you may want to look
at some other titles in the lynda.com
| | 00:54 | Online Training Library from folks
like Bert Monroy or Deke McClelland.
| | 00:58 | They may inspire you with some of the
artwork that they create, to push the
| | 01:02 | envelope and do even more with Illustrator.
| | 01:04 | Of course, the main goal is that as
we're working in a creative environment, we
| | 01:09 | want to have fun with the work that we're doing.
| | 01:11 | And hopefully, I've kind of provided a
little bit more of a friendly environment
| | 01:15 | especially around the use of
Illustrator to help you in your work.
| | 01:19 | So take care, have fun with Illustrator,
and I hope to see all of you again in
| | 01:24 | another Illustrator
Insider Training title real soon.
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