33. Using Smart GuidesWelcome to One-on-One| 00:03 |
Hello.
This is Deke McClelland.
| | 00:05 |
Welcome to the final course in my
four-part series devoted to your ultimate
| | 00:09 |
mastery of the world's most powerful
vector-based drawing software, which I
| | 00:14 |
call Illustrator CS6 One-on-one Mastery.
As many of you know one-on-one is all
| | 00:21 |
about project based learning.
That is to say you learn by rolling up
| | 00:25 |
your sleeves, and creating compelling
projects for yourself.
| | 00:29 |
That way you'll be better equipped to
create your own artwork in the future.
| | 00:34 |
Now this course is eight chapters long.
I'll start things off by demonstrating
| | 00:38 |
the hidden power of smart guides which
let you create precise logos and
| | 00:42 |
schematic artwork.
Then I'll show you symbols, which let you
| | 00:48 |
replicate commonly used elements, and
take advantage of 9 slice scaling.
| | 00:53 |
We'll take a look at how you can create
custom color contours using gradient mesh.
| | 00:59 |
I'll show you how to mask entire layers,
using opacity masks.
| | 01:04 |
You'll apply custom distortions, using
the liquefy tools, and envelope commands.
| | 01:09 |
I'll teach you how to assemble a seamless
multi-part pattern brush.
| | 01:14 |
You'll learn how to create a custom
pictograph from a spread sheet of
| | 01:18 |
numerical data and finally we'll see how
you can apply 3D effects to path outlines
| | 01:23 |
and live editable type.
The result is a contextualized learning program.
| | 01:31 |
Illustrator's features make sense because
you apply them to clearly defined tasks,
| | 01:35 |
and you leave each chapter with a genuine
sense of accomplishment.
| | 01:40 |
In this first chapter, I'll show you how
to set up a world of constraints at 30
| | 01:44 |
degree increments.
Using the little known, but exceedingly
| | 01:48 |
useful, construction guides.
And while that may not sound exciting,
| | 01:52 |
construction guides allow me to to take
this rough sketch for a personalized
| | 01:56 |
logo, and turn it into this
fully-realized piece of artwork.
| | 02:01 |
Here, let me show you exactly how they
work.
| | 02:05 |
| | 59:59 |
(music playing)
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up angular construction guides| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to work
with construction guides, which are a
| | 00:04 |
variety of smart guides which allow you
to create lines at very specific angles.
| | 00:09 |
So inside of this artwork we have these
diagonal lines that are running at 60
| | 00:12 |
degree angles.
And then we have the vertical lines which
| | 00:16 |
are 90 degrees.
And both 60 and 90 are multiples of 30 degrees.
| | 00:22 |
So sometimes you have to use a little bit
of math, I don't think it's that hard,
| | 00:25 |
but you do have to think it through.
I'll go ahead switch over to this
| | 00:29 |
starterguides.ai file which contains a
few horizontal guidelines as well this
| | 00:33 |
big guide structure in the center here.
But it'll just help us to better keep
| | 00:38 |
track of what's going on.
Then you want to press Ctrl+K or Cmd+K on
| | 00:42 |
the Mac to bring up the preferences
dialog box.
| | 00:46 |
And click on Smart Guides here inside the
left hand list.
| | 00:49 |
And now notice this option right there,
Construction Guides.
| | 00:52 |
By default, it's set to 90 and 45 degree
angles.
| | 00:55 |
I'm going to go ahead and switch it to 30
degree angles.
| | 00:59 |
Now, the thing about 30 degrees, if you
decide to switch to it, is you're ruling
| | 01:03 |
out 45 degrees, because straight diagonal
lines are 45 degrees, which is to say,
| | 01:07 |
not multiple of 30 degrees.
So you're going to skip from zero to 30
| | 01:12 |
to 60 to 90 and so forth.
If you also want to incorporate 45
| | 01:16 |
degrees, then you want this guy right
here, 90 degrees and 15 degrees because
| | 01:20 |
after all, 45 and 30 are both multiples
of 15.
| | 01:24 |
Anyway, I'm going to switch over to this
guy 30 degree angles.
| | 01:28 |
And then you've got to turn on this
checkbox.
| | 01:30 |
It doesn't turn on automatically.
So, go ahead and turn on construction guides.
| | 01:34 |
Notice that now that the only checkbox
that's off is Transform tools.
| | 01:37 |
You can turn it on if you want to, but
it's not going to make any difference for
| | 01:40 |
our purposes.
And then, I recommend you change the
| | 01:43 |
color from green, which is a little bit
hard to see, especially in video, I'm
| | 01:46 |
going to switch it over to light red,
which is going to be a lot more obvious.
| | 01:50 |
Also, it'll stand in stark contrast to
our artwork, which we'll be coloring with
| | 01:54 |
shades of yellow, green and blue.
All right, so now I'll go ahead click OK.
| | 01:59 |
And then what you want to do is go up to
the View menu, and either confirm that
| | 02:02 |
the smart guides command is turned on, or
if it's not, go ahead and chose the command.
| | 02:07 |
Or of course you can press that keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+U or Cmd+U on a Mac.
| | 02:11 |
Now, the best way to draw these lines at
60 and 90 degree angles, is to use the
| | 02:15 |
pen tool, because it's going to give you
the best feedback.
| | 02:19 |
Then you want to click right about
there, on this guide, really anywhere
| | 02:21 |
along this horizontal guide right here.
And then, bring your cursor up until you
| | 02:26 |
see that you've got this slightly
diagonal line.
| | 02:29 |
And you can also see down in the lower
left region of the screen a line 60
| | 02:32 |
degrees which is telling me that I'm
creating a line that is 60 degrees
| | 02:36 |
rotated upward from the horizontal.
I can also see that I'm intersecting with
| | 02:41 |
the top guideline which is what I want.
So I'll go ahead and click right there.
| | 02:45 |
And then I'll move my cursor straight
down like so.
| | 02:47 |
You don't have to press the shift keys
when you're working with smart guides
| | 02:49 |
like this.
You can create 90 degree angles just like
| | 02:52 |
so, just by dropping down.
Clicking at the point where you see intersect.
| | 02:56 |
Then move your cursor back up so you see
intersect at the top guideline.
| | 03:00 |
You also should see a line 60 degrees at
the bottom guideline.
| | 03:03 |
Then go ahead and click there, drop down
to this point.
| | 03:06 |
You should see a line 90 degrees at the
top guideline, an intersect at the bottom
| | 03:10 |
guideline, in which case click.
And then move your cursor up until you
| | 03:14 |
see intersect at the top, aligned 60
degrees at the bottom, click at that
| | 03:17 |
point, and then drop down to the bottom
guideline again until you see aligned 90
| | 03:20 |
degrees at the top and intersect at the
bottom.
| | 03:24 |
And it's very important that you see both
words.
| | 03:27 |
If I move my cursor slightly over I can
see the word guide, so that tells me I'm
| | 03:30 |
intersecting with the guide but it does
not tell me that I have an exactly
| | 03:33 |
vertical line.
I only have a vertical line if I see a
| | 03:36 |
line 90 degrees up there at the top, then
you want to go ahead and click to set
| | 03:40 |
that final point.
All right, we want to make a few additional
| | 03:43 |
modifications here, go ahead and switch
to the black arrow tool, which you can
| | 03:46 |
get by pressing the V key.
And drag this anchor point right there,
| | 03:51 |
the bottom right one until it snaps into
alignment with the intersection of these
| | 03:55 |
vertical and horizontal guides.
Then go into the control panel, change
| | 04:00 |
the first swatch, the fill swatch, to
none and go ahead and click on the word
| | 04:03 |
stroke and we'll change the weight to 20
points in this case.
| | 04:08 |
And I do want mitered corners nice sharp
mitered corners like you see here and I
| | 04:12 |
also want to extend the cap.
So we want projecting caps for this
| | 04:17 |
particular art work, and that we can clip
off the caps without having any gaps in
| | 04:20 |
our art work.
Now we want to go ahead and scoot the
| | 04:25 |
letters over half of their current line
weight.
| | 04:28 |
So line weight is 20 points, obviously.
So we want to move the artwork over 10 points.
| | 04:33 |
And I'm doing so, just actually,
accidentally by pressing the enter key,
| | 04:36 |
or the return key on a Mac in order to
bring up the move dialog box.
| | 04:40 |
And I'll change that horizontal value to
negative 10 points like so which will
| | 04:44 |
scoot the selected path over to the left.
And then I'll click the OK button in
| | 04:49 |
order to make that change.
And that friends, is how you create
| | 04:53 |
exactly angled lines using construction
guides here inside Illustrator.
| | 04:59 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shaving off miter joins and projecting caps| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to shave
away angled bevel joints, as well as
| | 00:03 |
projecting caps, using a clipping mask.
And this is pretty simple stuff by now frankly.
| | 00:09 |
But hopefully it'll give you a sense of
how to create your own precisely angled
| | 00:12 |
schematic artwork.
I'll go ahead and switch over to my
| | 00:15 |
illustration in progress, and I'll zoom
in as well, so we can take in more of the
| | 00:18 |
art work.
And I'll click on this zig zag path
| | 00:21 |
outline to select it.
Now what I want to do is cleave away
| | 00:24 |
these miter joints at an exactly
horizontal angle.
| | 00:28 |
However, if I were to do so in the
traditional manner, by clicking on the
| | 00:31 |
word Stroke up here on the control panel,
and then changing the corner to a bevel
| | 00:34 |
joint, you can see that I don't get the
right effect at all.
| | 00:38 |
Instead what Illustrator is doing is, it
is of course beveling off the miters but
| | 00:42 |
it's splitting the difference between the
angles of the two neighboring segments
| | 00:46 |
and that's not what we want at all.
So, we'll press Ctrl Z or Cmd Z on a Mac
| | 00:51 |
in order to undo that change.
Now, we're going to start things by
| | 00:54 |
adding a few path outlines based on the
existing one.
| | 00:57 |
But first, I'm going to change the color
of the stroke by clicking on the second
| | 01:01 |
color swatch, and then switching out to
standard black for a rich black.
| | 01:05 |
So we get a nice dark path outline and
that will help eliminate any trapping
| | 01:08 |
problems as well.
Then I'll press Ctrl C or Cmd C on a Mac,
| | 01:12 |
in order to copy this line.
And now we want to create these little
| | 01:17 |
blue peaks up here at the top of the logo
art.
| | 01:20 |
And I'll do that by switching back to my
illustration in progress, clicking on a
| | 01:24 |
second color swatch right there, and then
changing it to this pre-defined shade of blue.
| | 01:29 |
And you can see that it's C65M15Y0K0.
And we end up getting this effect here.
| | 01:37 |
Now, go ahead and press Ctrl F or Cmd F
on a Mac in order to paste in that
| | 01:40 |
original path outline.
And this time we want to add the green
| | 01:45 |
fill, which needs to be independent of
the black stroke, for reasons that will
| | 01:48 |
become evident in a future movie.
But for now, just go ahead and change
| | 01:53 |
the second stroke to none, and then
change the fill swatch, the first one
| | 01:57 |
here, to this shade of green, which is
C80M25Y100K0, and you get this effect here.
| | 02:05 |
All right, now let's go ahead and zoom back
out here, by pressing Ctrl 0, or Cmd 0 on
| | 02:09 |
the Mac.
And press the A key to switch to the
| | 02:12 |
white arrow tool, and then go ahead and
click off the path outline and select
| | 02:15 |
this lower left anchor point, right here.
Now it's very important that your smart
| | 02:20 |
guides are still turned on.
Notice that you can see the word anchor
| | 02:23 |
right there when I hover over the anchor
point.
| | 02:26 |
It's barely visible, probably inside the
video but if you're working along with me
| | 02:29 |
you should be able to see a red word
anchor against that green background on
| | 02:32 |
the left hand side.
As you drag you want to make sure that,
| | 02:37 |
that red text changes to a line 60
degrees, so that we're keeping the angle
| | 02:40 |
of this line segment at exactly 60
degrees from horizontal, and then drag
| | 02:44 |
down until you intersect with the next
horizontal guide down, and then release
| | 02:48 |
like so.
Then drag this lower right anchor point
| | 02:53 |
down, and you should see the words align
90 degrees up there along that higher
| | 02:57 |
guideline, and then you should see
intersect along the bottom one, in which
| | 03:00 |
case go ahead and release in order to
create this effect here.
| | 03:07 |
Now press Ctrl F or Cmd F yet again, in
order to paste the final copy of that
| | 03:11 |
black zig zag line.
Now you want to switch to the standard
| | 03:16 |
rectangle tool, which you can get by
pressing the M key, and draw a rectangle
| | 03:19 |
from this top horizontal guide down to
the next guideline below it, and make
| | 03:23 |
sure that you have plenty of room over on
the right and left hand sides so that the
| | 03:27 |
clipping mask is as big as it needs to
be, so, in other words it's an oversize
| | 03:30 |
clipping mask, we're only interested in
clipping the top and the bottom precisely.
| | 03:39 |
Most likely you'll end up with this big
thick black stroke, that doesn't actually
| | 03:42 |
matter, just leave it there.
Then press the V key in order to switch
| | 03:46 |
to the black arrow tool, and Shift click
in the black zig zag line and then Shift
| | 03:50 |
click again, this time on the green
filled path, in order to select them both.
| | 03:56 |
And then you want to go up to the Object
menu, choose Clipping Mask and choose Make.
| | 04:01 |
And Illustrator will not only clip the
paths below the rectangle, but it will
| | 04:04 |
also get rid of the stroke around that
rectangle.
| | 04:07 |
And we end up with this effect here.
I'll go ahead and click in an empty
| | 04:11 |
region of the background to deselect the
artwork, and I'll press Ctrl semicolon,
| | 04:14 |
or Cmd semicolon on the Mac in order to
hide the guidelines and then I'll go
| | 04:17 |
ahead and zoom in here.
And notice that we have these exactly
| | 04:22 |
horizontal beveled joints as a result of
that clipping mask, and they are exactly
| | 04:26 |
where they want to be and we end up with
these blue peaks in the background as well.
| | 04:33 |
If you scroll down you will see that we
have some problems with the blue mitre
| | 04:37 |
joints as well as the projecting caps,
but we'll end up resolving those issues
| | 04:40 |
in future steps.
In any event, a clipping mask is all you
| | 04:45 |
need to shave away precisely angled bevel
joints, and projecting caps here inside Illustrator.
| | 04:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Precisely aligning angled logo artwork| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to create
these initials in the center of the artwork.
| | 00:04 |
and once again all the segments are
angled at either 60 degrees or 90 degress.
| | 00:09 |
I've gone ahead and shaved off the excess
miter joints and projecting caps.
| | 00:14 |
And most important of all.
I've made sure that the initials
| | 00:17 |
precisely align with the zig zag path
outlines at the top so I'll start things
| | 00:21 |
off by returning to my art in progress go
ahead and zoom out a little as well and
| | 00:24 |
press Ctrl + Semicolon or Cmd + Semicolon
on the Mac to bring back my guidelines.
| | 00:32 |
Now you want to select the pen tool once
again by pressing the P key if you like
| | 00:35 |
and then click somewhere along this
horizontal guide.
| | 00:40 |
And then move your cursor up so that you
see a line 60 degrees down there along
| | 00:44 |
that original guideline, and the word
intersect along the guideline above it.
| | 00:49 |
And then click at that location to create
a line like so.
| | 00:52 |
And then drop down to that original
guideline, look for the words.
| | 00:55 |
Align 90 degrees up top, and intersect
down below, and then click.
| | 01:00 |
And the click at about here.
As soon as you see a line 60 degrees down
| | 01:04 |
below intersect up at the top and then
drop down again until you see a line 90
| | 01:08 |
degrees at the top and intersect down
below.
| | 01:12 |
All right, now press the V key to switch to
the black arrow tool and go ahead and
| | 01:15 |
click on this top accurate point right
there.
| | 01:18 |
If you're working along with me, by the
way, just in case make sure in the view
| | 01:22 |
menu that the bounding box is turned off.
So this command here should appear as
| | 01:26 |
show bounding box, to indicate that it's
currently hidden.
| | 01:30 |
And that way you'll have an easier time
grabbing anchor points and precisely
| | 01:33 |
aligning the paths.
And then go ahead and drag this anchor
| | 01:37 |
point until it snaps into alignment with
the anchor point at the beginning of the
| | 01:41 |
black zig-zag path, and you should see
the words intersect, as well as a white
| | 01:44 |
snap cursor.
Which indicates that everything's
| | 01:49 |
precisely aligned.
Then drag from this anchor point, the
| | 01:52 |
top right one, all the way over to this
location so that you're once again
| | 01:56 |
snapping into alignment.
This time with the right side of the zig
| | 02:00 |
zag path, and the press and hold the ALT
key or the Option key on a Mac.
| | 02:04 |
And you should see a double-white arrow
cursor showing you that you have a snap
| | 02:08 |
and you're about to create a clone of the
selected path, in which case, go ahead
| | 02:12 |
and release the cursor in order to create
a duplicate of that M.
| | 02:18 |
Now, I'll drag this guy over to a fairly
random location like so, and I'll press
| | 02:21 |
the Alt key or the Option key on the Mac
in order to create a copy.
| | 02:26 |
I also have the Shift key down by the
way.
| | 02:28 |
So I've got shift down, alt down on the
PC, shift and option down on the mac and
| | 02:31 |
then release when you get your artwork,
you know, more or less here.
| | 02:35 |
And then you want to double-click on the
rotate tool.
| | 02:38 |
In order to bring up the rotate dialog
box.
| | 02:40 |
Set the angle to 180 degrees.
It doesn't matter where the
| | 02:44 |
transformation origin is located.
The fact that the w's off center is a
| | 02:48 |
problem that we'll solve in just a
second.
| | 02:51 |
But make sure the preview check box is
turned on so you can see what you're
| | 02:53 |
doing, and then click OK.
And now you want to press the V key to
| | 02:56 |
again switch to the black arrow tool.
And drag this upper right anchor point
| | 03:00 |
until it snaps into alignment at this
point right there.
| | 03:05 |
And you'll get those letters exactly
where they need to be.
| | 03:08 |
All right now we need another clipping mask
in the form of a rectangle.
| | 03:11 |
So go ahead and select the rectangle tool
from the toolbox.
| | 03:14 |
And then you should be able to move your
cursor over to the right here.
| | 03:16 |
Until you see the lower right corner of
the previous rectangular clipping mask.
| | 03:21 |
And you don't have to exactly align to it
but it's just a good idea if you want to
| | 03:25 |
keep things tidy and make the artwork a
little easier to navigate in the future
| | 03:28 |
and then drag from this location down and
to left, like so, until you snap into
| | 03:31 |
alignment like this with the left side of
that existing rectangular clipping mask.
| | 03:39 |
And then go ahead and release, and you
should end up with this effect.
| | 03:43 |
In which case, switch back to the black
arrow tool and then go ahead and marquee
| | 03:46 |
like so through the center of the bottom
rectangle along with the three letters.
| | 03:52 |
And that should just select those four
objects that you see selected here on my screen.
| | 03:57 |
Then you want to go out to the object
menu, choose clipping mask an choose
| | 04:01 |
make, an you will clip those letters like
so.
| | 04:04 |
An you can see, that we have everything
precisely aligned, kind of, but we do
| | 04:08 |
have a little bit of a problem.
I'll go ahead an press Ctrl + Shift + A,
| | 04:13 |
or Cmd + Shift + A on a Mac to deselect
the artwork, an then I'll press Ctrl +
| | 04:15 |
Semicolon, or Cmd + Semicolon on a Mac.
In order to hide the guidelines and now
| | 04:21 |
zoom in.
And notice that we've got some wiggles
| | 04:25 |
scenes here, we'll take care of that
problem in the next movie, but in the
| | 04:28 |
mean time we've got some kind of
realignment problems as well, so the
| | 04:31 |
green is cutting down into the top of the
M.
| | 04:36 |
But if you switch over to this location
here, it's not coming down far enough
| | 04:40 |
because it's leaving part of that blue
stroke in the background revealed.
| | 04:44 |
So in other words, you have to make a
design decision at this point, and what I
| | 04:47 |
recommend you do is press the A key to
switch to the wide air tool, and then
| | 04:50 |
just go ahead and marquee this region
right there.
| | 04:55 |
The seam that is between the green and
the white, and that's going to select the
| | 04:58 |
bottom edge of the top clipping mask and
the top edge of the bottom clipping mask.
| | 05:03 |
Then you want to press Ctrl + K the Cmd
key on a Mac to bring at the Preferences
| | 05:06 |
dialog box and choose a keyboard
increment to one point as by default and
| | 05:10 |
then click OK.
Now, press the Down Arrow key, because
| | 05:14 |
you've just have those two coincidence
horizontal segments selected Press the
| | 05:18 |
Down Arrow key a total of three times in
a row in order to produce this effect
| | 05:21 |
here, and then you can click off the
paths in order to deselect them.
| | 05:27 |
And notice that we have this nice
intersection at this location.
| | 05:31 |
We don't have such a nice intersection
over here or in the case of the far right
| | 05:34 |
side of the artwork.
However, everything looks hunky-dory over
| | 05:38 |
here on the left-hand side of the
artwork.
| | 05:40 |
So, now what we've got to do is deal with
these seams right here, as well as these
| | 05:45 |
choppy transitions.
And I'll show you how to fix those
| | 05:49 |
problems in the very next movie.
| | 05:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Covering up gaps and seams in your logo| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to fix these
bad seams between the initials and the
| | 00:04 |
zigzag mountain peak path outlines above
them, by adding overlapping transitional
| | 00:08 |
path outlines, based on paths that we've
already created.
| | 00:13 |
So the first thing I want you to do, just
to make things easier to select, is to
| | 00:17 |
press Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y on a Mac, in order
to switch to the Outline mode.
| | 00:22 |
And then press the A key in order to
switch to the wide arrow tool.
| | 00:26 |
And we want to select this anchor point
right there.
| | 00:29 |
But if I click at this location, I'm
going to select the zigzag line above
| | 00:32 |
instead of the initials down here at the
bottom, which is a little bit crazy
| | 00:35 |
because the initials are sitting on top.
But the problem is that that little
| | 00:41 |
corner right there, is clipped away, in
the initials.
| | 00:44 |
So what you need to do instead, is click
on this M in the bottom right corner of
| | 00:47 |
the artwork, and then click on its top
right anchor point instead.
| | 00:52 |
All right, now press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on
the Mac to switch back to the preview mode.
| | 00:57 |
And I'm going to zoom out a little bit
here and then, still armed with the White
| | 01:00 |
arrow tool, I'll Shift-click on this
diagonal segment to select it
| | 01:03 |
independently of the rest of the path.
And that way we'll be able to create a
| | 01:08 |
transitional line down and to the left
like so.
| | 01:11 |
And now we need to do something similar
for this area, as well as this point of intersection.
| | 01:17 |
And the best way to solve those problems
is to select these two neighboring
| | 01:20 |
segments right here.
So shift-click on this vertical segment,
| | 01:24 |
and then shift-click on the left-most
diagonal segment as well.
| | 01:29 |
And now you have a total of three of
these segments up top selected, as well
| | 01:32 |
as these two down here selected.
Then go ahead and press Ctrl+C, or Cmd+C
| | 01:38 |
on a Mac, in order to copy them.
Now press the V key to switch to the
| | 01:42 |
Black arrow tool and click off the ass
outlines in order to deselect everything.
| | 01:47 |
And then press Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on a Mac,
in order to paste those path outlines
| | 01:50 |
outside of their former clipping masks.
And you can see that they appear, or they
| | 01:56 |
at least should, if you're working along
with me, as four path outlines, here at
| | 02:00 |
the top of the MWM logo layer, inside the
Layers panel.
| | 02:05 |
Now, we've gone ahead and covered up
those seams, as you can see.
| | 02:08 |
So this guy's totally covered up, nice
and hidden.
| | 02:11 |
This one could possibly be better.
Might as well go ahead and lengthen the segment.
| | 02:15 |
And I'm going to to do that by pressing
the A key to switch to the Wide arrow
| | 02:17 |
tool once again.
I'll click off the path to deselect it.
| | 02:21 |
I'll go ahead and click on this anchor
point to select it, and I'll drag it down
| | 02:25 |
until it snaps into alignment with the
bottom right corner of the W.
| | 02:30 |
And don't worry about the projecting
cap, we're going to clip that away.
| | 02:33 |
And now we want to do something similar
with this anchor point, so go ahead and
| | 02:36 |
click on it.
And this is the bottom left anchor point,
| | 02:39 |
in the top zig zag by the way, the top
copied segment.
| | 02:43 |
And then you want to go ahead and drag it
down until it snaps into alignment with
| | 02:46 |
the bottom left corner of the first M,
and you'll end up with this effect here.
| | 02:51 |
All right, now go ahead and zoom out.
And we need to once again add a clipping mask.
| | 02:56 |
So press the M key to switch to the
Rectangle tool.
| | 02:58 |
Press Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y on a Mac, to
switch to the Outline mode, so that you
| | 03:02 |
can see the two existing clipping masks.
And let's go ahead and create a new one
| | 03:07 |
inside of them.
It would be nice to have the guidelines
| | 03:10 |
back though, so press Ctrl+; or Cmd+; on
a Mac, to display them once again.
| | 03:15 |
They're not really appearing in the best
shape, because when you're working in the
| | 03:19 |
outline mode, guides appear black.
So, if that bugs you, then you could just
| | 03:24 |
switch back to the preview mode by
pressing Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y again.
| | 03:28 |
And I'll think I'll do that because it'll
make things a little more obvious.
| | 03:31 |
And I'll drag from this horizontal guide
up here at the top, down to this location
| | 03:35 |
right there.
And I'm trying to keep the new rectangle
| | 03:38 |
inside of the existing ones just to make
things easier to tell apart.
| | 03:43 |
All right, now, with that new rectangle
selected, I'll go ahead and Shift-click
| | 03:47 |
on this guy, right there.
And then you want to Shift-click on this
| | 03:52 |
path segment, as well as this one and
this one.
| | 03:55 |
So you should have a total of five
segments selected on screen.
| | 03:59 |
And these are the path outlines right
here.
| | 04:01 |
This is the first five paths at the top
of that MWM logo layer.
| | 04:05 |
Then go up to the Object menu, choose
Clipping Mask and choose Make, in order
| | 04:09 |
to place those paths inside of the
clipping mask.
| | 04:14 |
Now, all is not well, as you can see
here.
| | 04:17 |
If you zoom in on this location, right
there, you can see that we've got a
| | 04:21 |
little bit of an extra edge that we
definitely do not want, nor do we need it.
| | 04:26 |
And the simplest way to solve this
problem, in my opinion, Is to press the A
| | 04:29 |
key to switch to the Wide arrow tool.
Go ahead and twirl open that top clip
| | 04:33 |
group, and I'm going to rename it, by the
way.
| | 04:36 |
I'm going to call it Covers, because
these are lines that are covering up
| | 04:38 |
other details, and I might as well rename
these other guys too so I can keep track
| | 04:41 |
of them.
Those are the initials.
| | 04:45 |
This side in here is what I'm calling
Interweave, because it will ultimately
| | 04:48 |
contain some interwoven details, and then
I'll double-click this guy at the bottom
| | 04:51 |
and call it Peaks.
Having done that I'll twirl open the
| | 04:56 |
Covers group, and I'll go ahead and lock
down the clipping mask at the top so that
| | 04:59 |
it doesn't get in my way.
And I'll select these two top anchor
| | 05:04 |
points like so, but that's going to end
up selecting a bunch of other details
| | 05:07 |
inside the artwork as you can see.
Specifically, the interweave and the peaks.
| | 05:13 |
And to deselect them, you want to
Shift-click on their little target
| | 05:16 |
meatballs here, inside the Layers panel.
And that way we have just these two
| | 05:20 |
anchor points selected.
And if everything's selected properly,
| | 05:23 |
then we can go up to the object menu,
choose Path and choose Join, or you can
| | 05:26 |
press Ctrl+J, or Cmd+J on a Mac, to join
those two anchor points into one.
| | 05:31 |
That turns that location into a miter
join, and gets rid of that little problem
| | 05:34 |
right there.
All right, we've got a couple of others,
| | 05:37 |
though, as well.
I'll go ahead and scroll down to the
| | 05:40 |
bottom of the art.
And it looks like I just took that
| | 05:42 |
clipping mass too far down, which means
that I need to raise it, which of course
| | 05:45 |
means that I need to unlock it.
So I'll twirl open Covers and unlock that
| | 05:49 |
clipping mass, and then I'll select that
bottom edge there, and I'll just go ahead
| | 05:53 |
and drag it up.
Might as well press the Shift key as
| | 05:56 |
well, in order to constrain the angle of
my dragging to exactly vertical.
| | 06:00 |
But that doesn't quite take care of these
two problems right here.
| | 06:04 |
So notice this path outline extends out
too far.
| | 06:07 |
I'll go ahead and zoom in so you can see
what I mean.
| | 06:09 |
And this is the kind of stuff you run
into when you're trying to create this
| | 06:12 |
kind of art.
And even though it's a little bit
| | 06:15 |
exasperating, the problems are easily
solved.
| | 06:17 |
Just go ahead and lock down that clipping
mask once again inside the twirled open
| | 06:21 |
Covers item, and select this anchorpoint.
And just go ahead and drag it up and you
| | 06:26 |
should see at least the word Path, or a
line 60 degrees at the bottom there.
| | 06:30 |
Either is fine, the word path would tell
you that you're following the angle of
| | 06:33 |
the path, which works as well.
Just go ahead and drag it up a little bit
| | 06:37 |
until you get rid of that extra edge.
And then grab this guy, this anchor
| | 06:41 |
point, and drag it up, and see what I
mean by the word Path?
| | 06:44 |
That's entirely acceptable.
That shows you that you're matching the
| | 06:47 |
angle of the path underneath, which is
what you want.
| | 06:50 |
In which case, go ahead release in order
to move that anchor point.
| | 06:54 |
And you can see now, if I press Ctrl+; or
Cmd+; on the Mac, once again, to hide the
| | 06:58 |
guidelines, that we have now covered up
all the bad intersections.
| | 07:03 |
And we no longer have any seams
whatsoever inside of our artwork.
| | 07:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating ornaments based on miter joins| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to create
these kind of yellow fire elements at the
| | 00:03 |
top of the initial.
And it's a matter of modifying the
| | 00:07 |
existing miters while precisely
maintaining the angles of those line segments.
| | 00:13 |
So I'll go ahead and switch to the
artwork in progress here and I'll zoom in
| | 00:16 |
as well.
And I want to be able to select these
| | 00:19 |
points right here at the tops of these
initials, but I can't get to them because
| | 00:22 |
they're clipped away.
So what I need to do is go to the W and
| | 00:26 |
double-click on this segment right here,
in order to enter the Group Isolation
| | 00:30 |
mode for this particular clipping group.
Then press the A key in order to switch
| | 00:35 |
to the White arrow tool and locate the
top of that W right there, and you should
| | 00:39 |
see an anchor point.
Go ahead and click on it and then
| | 00:42 |
shift-click on the anchor point up here
at the top of the M.
| | 00:46 |
Notice that these guys are ever so
slightly clipped away.
| | 00:48 |
So you'll have to move your cursor up a
little bit higher than the bottom edge of
| | 00:52 |
that green space, and then shift-click at
this location as well.
| | 00:57 |
And each time you select one of these
anchor points, you're not only selecting
| | 01:00 |
the point but you're selecting the two
neighboring segments as well.
| | 01:04 |
Then go up to the Edit menu, and choose
the Copy command.
| | 01:08 |
Then press the Esc key in order to escape
out of the Isolation mode.
| | 01:12 |
And press Ctrl+Shift+A, or Cmd+Shift+A on
the Mac, to deselect all of the initials.
| | 01:17 |
And press Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on the Mac, in
order to paste copies of those three sets
| | 01:21 |
of pointy line segments outside of their
former clipping paths.
| | 01:26 |
Now go up to the control panel and change
the color of the stroke, that is the
| | 01:29 |
second color swatch, to the shade of
yellow which is C0 M10 Y80 and K0, and
| | 01:33 |
and you'll end up with this effect here.
All right, now what you want to do is
| | 01:40 |
switch to the Object menu.
Choose Path and then choose Outline
| | 01:43 |
Stroke, or if you loaded D Keys, you have
a keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+\, or Cmd+\
| | 01:47 |
on the Mac, in order to produce this
effect here.
| | 01:53 |
And now let's go ahead and zoom in on
this far left stroke here.
| | 01:56 |
And we'll go ahead and edit it using the
Pen tool.
| | 01:59 |
So with this path outline selected, press
the P key to switch to the Pen tool and
| | 02:02 |
click right about there.
Doesn't matter if you go slightly your
| | 02:06 |
own way in order to add an anchor point
at this location.
| | 02:10 |
And then, click right about there as
well.
| | 02:12 |
So that we've added two anchor points
along this straight segment.
| | 02:16 |
Then press the A key to switch to the
wide arrow tool.
| | 02:19 |
And grab this middle anchor point right
there, and drag it inward and downward
| | 02:23 |
like so.
And you don't want to take it too far
| | 02:25 |
down, maybe about there will work.
You may also want to drag up on this
| | 02:29 |
anchor point.
If you do, you probably want to press the
| | 02:32 |
Shift key in order to constrain the angle
of your drag to exactly vertical.
| | 02:36 |
And then I'm going to drag this guy up
and over, and I want to make sure that as
| | 02:39 |
I drag upward that I'm still seeing a
line 60 degrees in red, against that
| | 02:42 |
field of green, which makes it pretty
difficult to see, but it is there for me.
| | 02:49 |
And make sure it's there for you, and
then at any old point, when you think
| | 02:52 |
you've got something you like, just go
ahead and release the mouse button in
| | 02:55 |
order to produce an effect like this one.
And I'm going to select this anchor point
| | 02:59 |
as well, and just press the up arrow key
a couple of times in order to nudge it upward.
| | 03:04 |
All right, now let's duplicate this
effect by pressing the V key to switch to
| | 03:07 |
the Black arrow tool.
I'll go ahead and click on the path
| | 03:10 |
outline to select it.
Then I'll zoom out a little bit so I can
| | 03:12 |
see more of what I'm doing.
And I'll go ahead and drag from this
| | 03:16 |
anchor point right there.
And as I drag I'll press the Shift and
| | 03:19 |
Alt keys, or the Shift and Option keys on
a Mac.
| | 03:22 |
And once I snap into alignment with the
similarly yellow path that's on top of
| | 03:25 |
the W there, I'll see a double white
arrow cursor, which shows me that I'm
| | 03:28 |
snapping and that I'm about to create a
clone as soon as I release the mouse button.
| | 03:34 |
And then you can release the Shift and
Alt keys, or the Shift and Option keys on
| | 03:37 |
the Mac.
Now you might as well get rid of these
| | 03:40 |
two yellow paths here.
Click on this one to select it, so notice
| | 03:43 |
I'm clicking inside at that little
cleaved detail there, and I'll shift
| | 03:45 |
click on this one as well, in order to
select them both, and then press the
| | 03:48 |
Backspace key, or the Delete key on the
Mac, to get rid of them.
| | 03:53 |
And then select this guy again and press
Ctrl+D, or Cmd+D on the Mac, in order to
| | 03:57 |
duplicate it onto the final M.
Now go ahead and select all the yellow paths.
| | 04:02 |
And the easiest way to do that is to
locate the Select Similar Objects icon on
| | 04:05 |
the right side of the Control panel,
click the down-pointing arrowhead.
| | 04:10 |
Make sure it's set to All.
And then go ahead and click on the icon
| | 04:13 |
in order to select all the yellow paths.
Now press Ctrl+X, or Cmd+X on a Mac, in
| | 04:17 |
order to cut those paths to the
clipboard.
| | 04:21 |
Now, twirl open the MWM Logo layer and
then twirl open that Interweave group,
| | 04:25 |
which is the zigzag mountainous lines at
the top of the logo.
| | 04:30 |
Scroll your way down the list, and then
when you find this green path outline
| | 04:33 |
right there go ahead and meatball it by
clicking on its circular target.
| | 04:38 |
And now, press Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on a Mac,
in order to paste those yellow paths in
| | 04:42 |
front of the green path outline.
And because we're working inside of a
| | 04:47 |
clipping mask, Illustrator goes ahead and
clips those yellow fiery details as well.
| | 04:52 |
And now you can go ahead and press
Ctrl+Shift+A, or Cmd+Shift+A on a Mac, in
| | 04:55 |
order to deselect the artwork.
So that's how you go about modifying a
| | 05:00 |
miter join, in order to create a fancy,
but still highly stylized, and accurate
| | 05:04 |
effect, here, inside Illustrator.
| | 05:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Hand-drawing letters as stroked paths| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll hand draw the
letters in the word Maximilian, and we'll
| | 00:03 |
do so as we've done most everything we've
done so far, using a series of stroked
| | 00:07 |
path outlines.
And again, most of the segments are
| | 00:11 |
angled either at 90 degrees, 60 degrees,
zero degrees, in the case of the
| | 00:15 |
crossbars across the a's.
The only exception is the x, which is a
| | 00:19 |
little different.
Switch over to my illustration in
| | 00:23 |
progress, and press Ctrl+semicolon, or
Cmd+semicolon on a Mac, in order to bring
| | 00:26 |
back my guidelines.
And then I'll press the P key in order to
| | 00:30 |
switch to the Pen tool.
Your smart guide should still be turned
| | 00:33 |
on, by the way.
And then you want to go ahead and click
| | 00:36 |
at this bottom left-most intersection in
the guidelines in order to set an anchor
| | 00:40 |
point there.
And then click at this location, and
| | 00:44 |
notice, you're not only intersecting the
guidelines.
| | 00:47 |
You're also creating a segment that
aligns to 60 degrees.
| | 00:51 |
Then click down here, so you see a line,
90 degrees at the top and intersect at
| | 00:54 |
the bottom.
Click up again when you see a line 60
| | 00:57 |
degrees down at the bottom, and intersect
at the top, and then click down when you
| | 01:02 |
see these words on screen.
All right, now what we want to do is
| | 01:06 |
assign this path outline at different
strokes.
| | 01:08 |
So I'll the V key to switch to the black
arrow tool.
| | 01:11 |
Then I'll go ahead and click on my M.
And I'll go up to the control panel, and
| | 01:15 |
I'll change the line weight, this time to
ten points, and I'll go ahead and change
| | 01:20 |
the color of the stroke to that dark
green, ZADM25y100k0.
| | 01:26 |
And I'll change the fill to none.
And we end up with this effect here.
| | 01:31 |
And now I'm going to zoom in, by the way,
so that I can take in my text a little tighter.
| | 01:35 |
And I need to move it over.
Notice that the outside edge of the black
| | 01:39 |
initial aligns to the guideline, where
the center of the green m is in alignment
| | 01:43 |
with that guide.
So, I'll double-click on the Black Arrow
| | 01:48 |
tool in order to bring up the Move dialog
box.
| | 01:50 |
You want to set the vertical value to
zero, and then set the horizontal value
| | 01:55 |
to 5.75 points.
In order to create this effect here.
| | 01:58 |
And you might wonder why 5.75, why not
just 5 points?
| | 02:02 |
Well you can see, because the line is
angled, that moving the line in five
| | 02:05 |
points, which is what I'd do if I was
moving it inward from a vertical
| | 02:08 |
guideline, or downward from a horizontal
guide, because that's half the 10 point
| | 02:11 |
line weight.
However, because the segment is at an
| | 02:16 |
angle, I actually had to use
trigonometry.
| | 02:20 |
But I'll tell you, you can just eyeball
it as well.
| | 02:23 |
And you'd figure out that 5.75 points is
going to work just fine.
| | 02:27 |
Then click OK.
All right, now let's create the other m
| | 02:30 |
that appears at the middle of my child's
name.
| | 02:33 |
And I'll do that by taking the existing
one and dragging it by its top right
| | 02:36 |
anchor point until it snaps into
alignment with the anchor point at the
| | 02:40 |
bottom of the big w.
And then I'll press the Alt key, or the
| | 02:44 |
Option key on a Mac, and release my mouse
button in order to create a duplicate of
| | 02:48 |
this location.
Now, it's hard to get this one to snap
| | 02:52 |
into place right, so you might want to
press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a Mac.
| | 02:56 |
Make sure that things have snapped
properly.
| | 02:58 |
In other words, you want this path
outline to continue into the bottom m,
| | 03:02 |
like so.
So the angle of those two lines should be
| | 03:05 |
exactly the same.
Now, double-click on the Black Arrow tool
| | 03:09 |
again to bring up the Position dialog
box.
| | 03:11 |
And what's great about this is we just
moved the path outline this terrific
| | 03:15 |
horizontal distance.
We don't care about that.
| | 03:19 |
We now know this is the distance we
wanted.
| | 03:21 |
So just go and change that value to zero,
in order to skip to the vertical value.
| | 03:26 |
We don't want to move it upward however,
so we want to undo the upward movement by
| | 03:30 |
changing the vertical value to a negative
version of what it was before.
| | 03:35 |
So it was negative 20, meaning that we
need to change it to positive 20.
| | 03:40 |
And so these two values, zero for
horizontal and 20 for vertical, end up
| | 03:43 |
producing exactly the effect we're
looking for.
| | 03:46 |
Then click OK in order to accept that
change and now you'll see now that the
| | 03:50 |
two m's are precisely horizontally
aligned with each other.
| | 03:55 |
All right, now for the other letters.
Go ahead and press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a
| | 03:58 |
Mac to switch back to the preview mode,
and press the A key in order to switch to
| | 04:01 |
the Wide Arrow tool, and click on this
top anchor point in this first m to
| | 04:05 |
select it, and then press Ctrl+C, Cmd+C
on a Mac to copy it, press Ctrl+F or
| | 04:09 |
Cmd+F on a Mac to make a copy of just
those two segments and then drag them over.
| | 04:17 |
This will eventually be our a.
Next we want to make an x, follow by an i.
| | 04:21 |
So you might as well make a copy of this
a, just by dragging it while pressing the
| | 04:24 |
Shift and Alt keys, that would be the
Shift and Option keys on the Mac, until
| | 04:27 |
you create a copy of this location.
And then, go ahead and switch to the
| | 04:33 |
Scissors tool, which you can get from the
Eraser tool File menu, or you can just
| | 04:36 |
press the C key, and click on this top
anchor point, in order to sever those two
| | 04:40 |
segments away from each other.
And I'll go ahead and zoom in to get rid
| | 04:45 |
of that screen artifact as well.
And then I'll press the V key to get my
| | 04:48 |
Black Arrow tool.
I'll marquee this diagonal path.
| | 04:52 |
And press Shift+Left Arrow a few times to
move it over to the left.
| | 04:55 |
And then I'll go ahead and switch from
the Rotate tool to the Reflect tool,
| | 04:57 |
which you can get by pressing the O key.
Double-click on the tool inside the
| | 05:02 |
toolbox, change the axis to vertical, and
click Copy, and you've got yourself an x.
| | 05:07 |
Problem is, it's too narrow in my
opinion, so I went ahead and pressed the
| | 05:10 |
A key to get the White Arrow tool.
And then I went ahead and marqueed these
| | 05:14 |
two right-hand points.
Then I pressed the Enter key or the
| | 05:17 |
Return key on a Mac to bring up the Move
dialog box, and I changed the horizontal
| | 05:20 |
value to eight, and then I'll click OK.
And then I did the same thing for the
| | 05:25 |
left anchor point.
So go ahead and select them and press the
| | 05:29 |
Enter key, or the Return key on a Mac.
And this time I'll change the horizontal
| | 05:33 |
value to negative eight.
But you don't really have to do it that way.
| | 05:36 |
You could've just moved one set of points
16 points in either direction and you
| | 05:39 |
would've gotten the same effect, but just
giving you a sense of how I put this
| | 05:43 |
together in the first place.
Then I'll click OK in order to make that change.
| | 05:49 |
All right, now I am going to zoom out a
little bit, so I can see more of my
| | 05:52 |
artwork at a time.
And I'll press the V key to get the Black
| | 05:55 |
Arrow tool.
I'll go ahead and grab that I there, and
| | 05:58 |
Shift+Alt+drag it or Shift+Option+drag it
over to the right, like so.
| | 06:02 |
I'll make another copy right about there.
And I need another copy right there for
| | 06:06 |
the l, so I'll go ahead and create it.
And then I'll go ahead and zoom in on
| | 06:10 |
that l.
And the bottom of the l, by the way,
| | 06:13 |
needs to go ahead and lift upward so that
it's inside of this guideline.
| | 06:18 |
So I'll press the A key in order to
switch to the White Arrow tool, I'll
| | 06:21 |
click off the path outline then I'll
click on that bottom anchor point.
| | 06:25 |
And then I'll press the Enter key or the
Return key again, in order to bring up
| | 06:28 |
the Move dialog box.
I'll change the horizontal value to zero,
| | 06:31 |
and I'll change the vertical value to
half the line weight, negative five,
| | 06:34 |
which raises that anchor point up five
points.
| | 06:38 |
Then I'll click OK.
And now I press the P key to switch to
| | 06:40 |
the Pen tool, and I'll click on that
anchor point to make it active.
| | 06:44 |
And I'll Shift-click right about there in
order to add a new anchor point and
| | 06:48 |
create that mitre joint.
So now the l is laying right there on the guideline.
| | 06:54 |
All right, I want the bottom of the l to
be a very specific length.
| | 06:56 |
So I'm going to press the A key, switch
to the Lined Arrow tool.
| | 06:59 |
And I'm going to go ahead and drag the
right-hand anchor point back over to the
| | 07:02 |
left-hand one so it snaps back into place
like so.
| | 07:05 |
So we've got two anchor points right on
top of each other.
| | 07:08 |
And then I'll press the Enter key for the
billionth time here, in order to bring up
| | 07:11 |
the Move dialog box.
And I'll change the horizontal value to
| | 07:14 |
35 points and leave the vertical value
set to zero points.
| | 07:17 |
So, this segment right here is exactly 35
points long.
| | 07:19 |
And then, I'll click OK in order to
accept that change.
| | 07:22 |
All right, let's go ahead and zoom out a
little bit so that I can better see what
| | 07:25 |
I'm doing.
We've got ten letters here.
| | 07:28 |
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, so we need two more.
| | 07:32 |
So I'll go ahead and press the V key to
get my Black Arrow tool, and I'll
| | 07:35 |
Shift+drag that I over a little bit, and
then I'll go ahead and grab that a, and
| | 07:39 |
I'll Shift+Alt+drag it over to about
here, for example, in order to create a
| | 07:42 |
copy of it.
And then, I'll double-click on the
| | 07:48 |
Reflect tool.
And make sure that axis is again set to
| | 07:51 |
vertical, and then click OK this time, we
don't need to click copy.
| | 07:55 |
And then go ahead and press the P key to
get the Pen tool.
| | 07:57 |
Click at this anchor point and
Shift-click there, on that guy, in order
| | 08:00 |
to create the final segment of the n.
And now we need to go ahead and select
| | 08:05 |
this guy with the Black Arrow tool, drag
it over by this anchor point til it snaps
| | 08:09 |
into alignment.
And then press the Enter key, or the
| | 08:13 |
Return key on a Mac, in order to bring up
the Move dialog box.
| | 08:16 |
And change the horizontal value to half
the line weight, negative five, in order
| | 08:19 |
to move it to the left.
So we're aligning the right edge of the
| | 08:22 |
end with a right edge of the initial
above, and then click OK.
| | 08:26 |
All right, we just need to make the
crossbar in the a, so I'll go ahead and
| | 08:29 |
zoom in on it.
And I'll press the P key in order to get
| | 08:32 |
my Pen tool and I'll click here and
Shift-click here, just to draw a
| | 08:35 |
horizontal line.
Then I'll press the V key to get my Black
| | 08:39 |
Arrow tool.
I'll go and drag this guy until it snaps
| | 08:41 |
into alignment right there, with this
anchor point at the bottom.
| | 08:44 |
I'll press the Enter key or the Return
key on the Mac to bring up the Move
| | 08:47 |
dialog box.
I'll change the horizontal value to zero,
| | 08:50 |
and the vertical value to negative 25
points.
| | 08:54 |
And I'll be honest with you, when I was
originally coming up with these values, I
| | 08:56 |
figured them out, by pressing the arrow
keys and just nudging things around.
| | 09:00 |
But these are the final values I came up
with.
| | 09:03 |
So now I'll click OK in order to accept
that change.
| | 09:06 |
All right, now I'll go ahead and zoom
out.
| | 09:08 |
And naturally, I want to go ahead and
create a copy of this a.
| | 09:12 |
So I'll go ahead and marquee these two
path outlines.
| | 09:14 |
And I'll Shift+Alt+drag or
Shift+Option+drag them over to the right
| | 09:17 |
hand side, like so.
And we now have the word Maximilian,
| | 09:21 |
which is fine.
But we've got some spacing problems, of
| | 09:23 |
course, that we need to address.
And we need to go ahead and move these
| | 09:27 |
lines downward and clip the letters as
well.
| | 09:30 |
And I'll show you how all that works in
the next movie.
| | 09:33 |
(BLANK_AUDIO)
| | 09:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Kerning and clipping hand-drawn type| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to take
our custom letter forms, and we're
| | 00:03 |
going to extend the caps, as well as
properly space all the letters,
| | 00:06 |
essentially apply some custom kerning on
the fly.
| | 00:11 |
And then we'll clip the letters as well,
in order to create this final version of
| | 00:14 |
the logo.
So, first thing I want to do, is select
| | 00:17 |
all these letters just by dragging across
them with the black arrow tool.
| | 00:21 |
And I should drag down this way so that
I get the crossbars and the A's as well.
| | 00:26 |
And then I'll click on the word Stroke up
here in the Options bar and I'll select
| | 00:30 |
the projecting Cap item from that list of
Cap icons so that I'm extending all the
| | 00:34 |
caps outside of the guidelines.
That way we can clip all the edges of the
| | 00:39 |
letter forms horizontally, just as we've
done in the past.
| | 00:43 |
Then press the Escape key in order to
hide that panel.
| | 00:46 |
Next thing we want to do is work on these
As a little bit.
| | 00:49 |
I'm going to Zoom In on the left-hand A
and I'll Press the A of all keys to
| | 00:52 |
Switch to the Wide Arrow tool.
And then, I'll Click Off the Path Outline
| | 00:56 |
to Deselect it and I'll Select this
Anchor Point right there.
| | 00:59 |
And you can see that it extends outward
too far.
| | 01:02 |
I'll press control Y or command Y on the
Mac to switch to the outline mode.
| | 01:06 |
Then I'll go ahead and drag this guy in
until it intersects.
| | 01:09 |
And I've got the shift key down as well
to constrain the angle of my drag to
| | 01:12 |
exactly horizontal.
Then press control y or command y again
| | 01:15 |
in order to switch back to the preview
mode.
| | 01:18 |
And you can see that that projecting cap.
Is causing us some problems.
| | 01:22 |
And you might be tempted to get rid of it
but we've got to combine the cross bar
| | 01:25 |
with the a anyway as a compound path so
all of the subpaths have to share the
| | 01:29 |
same attriutes.
So what you're better off doing is with
| | 01:33 |
this anchor point selected.
Just press the right arrow key a total of
| | 01:37 |
three times.
Assuming that you are nudging one point
| | 01:40 |
at a time in order to hide that
projecting cap from view, without
| | 01:43 |
revealing any problems down here below.
Because for example if you went to far
| | 01:49 |
with your nudge, you'd end up producing
this kind of effect here, but as long as
| | 01:52 |
you stay somewhere around this area,
you'll be just fine.
| | 01:58 |
All right, now press the V key to switch to
my black arrow tool, and I'll go ahead
| | 02:01 |
and marquee these two path outlines to
select them, and then I'll go up to the
| | 02:05 |
object menu, choose Compound path, and
choose Make.
| | 02:09 |
Or you can press Ctrl-8, or Cmd-8 on the
Mac, and that will ensure that those two
| | 02:13 |
path outlines will behave as one.
As you make further modifications to the artwork.
| | 02:19 |
All right, I'll go ahead and zoom out once
again, and as opposed to replaying those
| | 02:23 |
very same operations on this A, I figure
I might as well grab it and delete it,
| | 02:27 |
and then go ahead and make a copy of this
one by selecting it and shift-alt or
| | 02:30 |
shift-option, dragging it Over to, the
right hand side.
| | 02:37 |
All right, so now notice, let's say these
guys, are way off kilter, like so.
| | 02:41 |
And we've got way too much space, in some
areas, and way too little in others.
| | 02:45 |
Well what you want to do, I've set things
here, so that the N is a kind of anchor
| | 02:49 |
As is that first M and the middle M as
well.
| | 02:53 |
And so we're going to distribute between
those key points.
| | 02:56 |
So I'll go ahead and marque these letters
in order to select them.
| | 03:01 |
So M I L I A N, that's it.
Then I'll go ahead and zoom in so I can
| | 03:05 |
see things a little better.
And I'll go up to the Align icon, and you
| | 03:09 |
want to make sure Align To is set to
selection.
| | 03:11 |
This is extremely important, because
otherwise you'll get totally the wrong result.
| | 03:16 |
And as opposed the obvious distribute
option, which would be this guy right
| | 03:19 |
there, Horizontal Distribute Center,
which doesn't give you the right results
| | 03:23 |
at all.
And the problem is that the N is so much
| | 03:26 |
thicker than, for example, the I that we
end up distributing each of these path
| | 03:30 |
outlines by it's center.
And that makes a mess of things.
| | 03:34 |
INstead what you want is distribute
spacing.
| | 03:36 |
So just go ahead and select this guy
right there.
| | 03:38 |
Horizontal distribute space and you get
exactly the effect that you're looking for.
| | 03:43 |
All right, now let's try the frist letters
here by marquing the first m through what
| | 03:47 |
is ultimately the last m in the middle of
the work.
| | 03:51 |
And then return to the align panel and go
ahead and click on that horizontal
| | 03:54 |
distribute space option again.
And we'll end up making a mess of things.
| | 03:59 |
What's happened here?
Well, problem is I did not combine the X
| | 04:01 |
into a single compound path, so
Illustrator is treating it as two
| | 04:04 |
independent paths.
That's not what we want, so press Ctrl +
| | 04:08 |
Z or Cmd + Z on a Mac to undo that change
and then go ahead and marque the x like so.
| | 04:14 |
In order to select both parts fit and
return to the Object menu, choose
| | 04:17 |
Compound path and choose Make in order to
fuse it into a single path outline, at
| | 04:21 |
least in so far as Illustrator is
concerned.
| | 04:26 |
And then go ahead and marquee the M
through the M once again go up to a line
| | 04:29 |
and click on distribute spacing in order
to adjust a position of those various letters.
| | 04:36 |
Now zoom out just a little bit again, so
I can take in the entire word.
| | 04:40 |
And now I want to mask things with yet
another rectangle.
| | 04:43 |
So press the m key in order to get the
rectangle tool.
| | 04:46 |
Of course, you could select it from the
toolbox as well if you like.
| | 04:49 |
And I'll drag from the second to last
horizontal guide down to the very last
| | 04:52 |
one and you want to make sure that you
have a fair amount of room on the left
| | 04:55 |
and right sides of the letters, like so,
and then go ahead and release to select
| | 04:59 |
all of those objects and then I'll switch
back to my black arrow tool.
| | 05:06 |
Which you can get by pressing the V key.
I'll go ahead and marquee through these
| | 05:09 |
various path outlines, all of which have
green strokes in my case.
| | 05:13 |
And then you want to go up to the object
menu, choose clipping mask, and choose make.
| | 05:18 |
And you will end up with this effect
here.
| | 05:20 |
Then you can click off the letters in
order to deselect them.
| | 05:23 |
I'll go ahead and expand open my m w m
logo layer.
| | 05:26 |
And I might as well rename this guy.
And I'll call it First Name because that
| | 05:30 |
obviously is my son's first name.
And I'll press the F key, a couple of
| | 05:34 |
times in order to switch to the full
screen mode, and I'll go ahead and zoom
| | 05:38 |
in as well.
And I'll press Ctrl semi colon, or Cmd
| | 05:41 |
semi colon on a Mac, in order to hide the
guidelines.
| | 05:45 |
And that friends, is how you create a
custom personal logo.
| | 05:48 |
All together from scratch, using a
handful of precisely aligned schematic
| | 05:53 |
path outlines with the help of smart
guides here inside Illustrator.
| | 05:59 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
34. Working with SymbolsThe benefits of using symbols| 00:00 |
This chapter is about symbols.
Which allow you to expedite the creation
| | 00:04 |
of certain kinds of documents.
For example, let's say you have a
| | 00:08 |
document that contains repeated instances
of a logo, or a design, or an ornament,
| | 00:12 |
what have you.
Why then save off that element as a
| | 00:16 |
symbol, and then you can drag instances
of the symbol into your document.
| | 00:21 |
And that way if you decide to update the
design of the original Symbol, then all
| | 00:25 |
of those instances are going to update in
kind.
| | 00:28 |
Plus, you can take advantage of this
thing called Nine-Slice Scaling which
| | 00:32 |
allows you to Scale certain portions of a
Symbol while leaving other regions fixed,
| | 00:36 |
as you see here.
And then, finally, as you may be aware,
| | 00:41 |
Illustrator lacks master pages.
But for certain kinds of documents,
| | 00:45 |
symbols can be better, because you can
replicate a logo or a design or a header,
| | 00:49 |
for example, across multiple r ports.
And change the position and the size of
| | 00:55 |
those objects as much as you like.
Here, let me show you exactly how Symbols work.
| | 01:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| How symbols and instances work| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how you to
work with symbols, and I'll also show you
| | 00:03 |
why they are such remarkable time savers.
I'm looking at a kind of dimmed out map
| | 00:09 |
of Yellowstone National Park.
And you can see that I have a hand full
| | 00:12 |
of these picnic areas that are
represented by these picnic table icons.
| | 00:17 |
Now, as opposed to collecting these paths
into a group, for example and then
| | 00:21 |
duplicating the group to new locations.
What we're seeing is repeated instances
| | 00:26 |
of a single symbol.
And to confirm that's the case, I'll go
| | 00:29 |
up to the window menu and choose the
Symbols Command.
| | 00:32 |
Or you can just click on this little
Clover icon, over here in the panel Column.
| | 00:37 |
And notice that we do indeed see the
picnic area icon here inside the panel.
| | 00:42 |
If you're working along with me, go ahead
and click on that symbol, and then go out
| | 00:45 |
to the symbols fly out menu and choose
Select All Instances.
| | 00:50 |
And that goes ahead and selects every one
of the picnic table icons here inside the
| | 00:54 |
document window.
All right, now let's say you want to make a
| | 00:57 |
modification to the table icon.
There's two different ways to work, one
| | 01:01 |
of which I consider the wrong way.
I'll show you that up front because it's
| | 01:05 |
very convenient, but it offers some
downsides.
| | 01:08 |
And then I'll show you my preferred way
of working.
| | 01:11 |
I'll start things off by clicking off the
picnic tables to deselect them.
| | 01:15 |
Then I'll double-click on any one of
them, and notice that brings up an alert
| | 01:18 |
message telling you that you're about to
edit the symbol.
| | 01:22 |
And any modifications you apply will
affect every single instance in the document.
| | 01:27 |
Now, if you don't want to see this alert
in the future, you can turn on the Don't
| | 01:29 |
Show Again check box, but I'm going to
leave it off, just to make a point here.
| | 01:34 |
And now I'll click OK, and notice that
you enter the symbol isolation mode, so
| | 01:37 |
you only have access to the picnic area
symbol and nothing more.
| | 01:42 |
Now, what I find confusing about this
mode, is that you're seeing the symbol in
| | 01:45 |
the context of the rest of the art work.
So, you might be tempted to look at it
| | 01:49 |
and say, well, obviously the picnic table
is too big and it's in a wrong location,
| | 01:52 |
so I've got to fix that first.
So you might just go ahead and marquee
| | 01:57 |
all the paths, because there's many
independent paths at work here.
| | 02:01 |
And then, switch to say the Scale tool,
and go ahead and drag while pressing the
| | 02:04 |
Shift key in order to scale the picnic
table proportionately.
| | 02:09 |
And then, I might press the Arrow keys a
few times in order to nudge the table
| | 02:12 |
into a better location.
Now at this point, if you're satisfied
| | 02:16 |
with your changes, then you'd want to
exit the symbol isolation mode, and save
| | 02:19 |
your changes, just by tapping the Escape
key.
| | 02:23 |
But you can see, because every one of the
instances has been independently scaled,
| | 02:26 |
as a result, all the tables end up
getting smaller.
| | 02:30 |
And it's quite the chore to undo this by
the way, because you've got to press
| | 02:33 |
Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on a Mac, several times
in a row.
| | 02:36 |
The first time you press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z
on a Mac, you don't actually undo your changes.
| | 02:41 |
You just go back to the symbol isolation
mode.
| | 02:44 |
Then you've got to press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z
repeatedly until you get back to the
| | 02:48 |
original version of the table.
And then, if you're lucky, you'll be able
| | 02:53 |
to press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Mac to
get return to the actual unmodified
| | 02:56 |
version of the illustration.
Or you may find that the keystroke
| | 03:01 |
doesn't work, and you have to press the
Escape key in order to escape the symbol
| | 03:04 |
isolation mode once again.
Either way, it's a pretty laborious process.
| | 03:09 |
Compare that with merely double-clicking
on the actual symbol definition here
| | 03:13 |
inside the Symbols panel, in which case
you'll see the symbol independently of
| | 03:16 |
the rest of the artwork.
So, it's not out of kilter in context in
| | 03:21 |
other words.
And notice that we don't get an alert
| | 03:25 |
message either, which saves a step.
All right, I'm going to go ahead and zoom
| | 03:28 |
in on my artwork and make an authentic
change this time around.
| | 03:32 |
For starters, I want to change the color
of the background, so I'll press the V
| | 03:34 |
key to switch back to my Black Arrow
tool.
| | 03:37 |
And I'll go ahead and marquee around
these shapes right here, because this
| | 03:39 |
background comprises two independent
shapes.
| | 03:42 |
And then I'll go up to the Fill panel
flyout menu here.
| | 03:45 |
And I'll change the fill color to this
swatch right here, C85MTINY100K10, in
| | 03:50 |
order to produce this brighter
background.
| | 03:53 |
I'm also going to adjust the position of
these benches, just by selecting each one
| | 03:57 |
and pressing the Left Arrow key in the
case of this guy, and the Right Arrow key
| | 04:00 |
in the case of this one.
And by the way, I've set my keyboard
| | 04:04 |
increment to one point, which we can see,
now that I've pressed Ctrl+K or Cmd+K on
| | 04:08 |
a Mac, to bring up the preferences
dialog box.
| | 04:12 |
So, as a result, I've scooted each bench
out one point.
| | 04:15 |
All right now that I've spruced up the
artwork, I'll go ahead and press the
| | 04:19 |
Escape key in order to exit the symbol
isolation mode and return to the document.
| | 04:23 |
Now I can't really see what I'm doing
here because I'm so far zoomed in, and
| | 04:27 |
that's a function of having zoomed in
inside the isolation mode.
| | 04:31 |
So, I'll just go ahead and zoom out a few
clicks here, by pressing Ctrl+minus, or
| | 04:35 |
Cmd+minus on a Mac, and we end up with
this effect right there.
| | 04:40 |
So, I've been able to modify several
icons at a time just by editing the
| | 04:44 |
definition of a single symbol.
And that friends is your first taste for
| | 04:49 |
the power of working with symbols here
inside Illustrator.
| | 04:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and naming symbols| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
create and rename symbols.
| | 00:04 |
If you have access to the exercise files,
you'll find one called Photoshop shapes.ai.
| | 00:09 |
Then if you bring up the symbols panel,
you see it contains tons and tons of
| | 00:13 |
symbols that I've acquired over the years
from Photoshop's custom shape tool.
| | 00:20 |
And for those of you who do not have
access to this file, let me show you how
| | 00:22 |
you can put one together for yourself.
I'll go ahead and switch over to
| | 00:26 |
Photoshop, then I'll drop down to the
near bottom of the toolbox here, click
| | 00:30 |
and hold on the shape tool and select the
custom shape tool, and then what you want
| | 00:33 |
to do is go up to the shape option here
in the options bar.
| | 00:40 |
And click on it and you'll see that you
have a variety of different shapes that
| | 00:43 |
you can choose from so for example I can
go ahead and grab the Florida Lee if I
| | 00:46 |
wanted to and then just drag inside of my
image like so and if you want to
| | 00:49 |
constrain the proportions of the artwork
so you don't end up stretching it.
| | 00:56 |
Then you press and hold the Shift key
until you finish drawing the shape.
| | 01:00 |
Now that might seem like a cool trinket,
but A it's something that's missing from
| | 01:03 |
Illustrator, and B you have access to a
lot more artwork than these simple shapes here.
| | 01:09 |
And you can get to everything that ships
along with Photoshop by clicking in this
| | 01:13 |
little gear icon and choosing All from
the menu.
| | 01:17 |
That's going to go ahead and replace
everything that's already here, so
| | 01:20 |
instead of clicking append, Just go ahead
and click on the OK button and you'll see
| | 01:24 |
this very long list of shapes, like so.
And then I might grab one, such as Crown 2.
| | 01:31 |
And I'll go ahead and press the Esc key
to hide that panel, and then I'll drop
| | 01:34 |
the crown next door to the fleur-de-lis
while pressing the shift key.
| | 01:39 |
To get this artwork over to Illustrator,
you want to get the black arrow tool,
| | 01:42 |
which is the path selectino tool, you can
also get to it by pressing the A key.
| | 01:47 |
And then, if we want to select both
shapes here, then I'll go ahead and click
| | 01:50 |
this guy, the crown, because currently
these objects are on different shape
| | 01:53 |
layers, and I'll press Ctrl + X or Cmd +
X on a Mac in order to cut that shape,
| | 01:56 |
then I'll go ahead and click on the
Fleur-de-lis for a moment here just to
| | 01:59 |
make sure it's selected, and I'll press
Ctrl + V or Cmd + V on a Mac.
| | 02:06 |
And notice, that places the two shapes on
the same shape layer.
| | 02:09 |
Which is essential, if you want to select
a both and then you can Shift + Click on
| | 02:12 |
the Fleur-de-lis in order to select it as
well, and then you want to press Ctrl + K
| | 02:16 |
or Cmd + K on the Mac, to bring up the
preferences dialog box.
| | 02:21 |
I normally recommend that people turn
this option right here off, export
| | 02:24 |
clipboard, cause when you are copying big
image files it can present a problem.
| | 02:29 |
But in our case we will want export
clipboard to be turned on as by default.
| | 02:33 |
So, I'll just go ahead and click the
canel button.
| | 02:35 |
And then, go to the edit menu and choose
a copy command, or you can press Ctrl + C
| | 02:39 |
or Cmd + C on the Mac.
Now go ahead and switch back over to Illustrator.
| | 02:44 |
And at this point, it's just a matter of
going up to the edit menu and choosing
| | 02:47 |
the paste command.
Or you can press Ctrl + V or Cmd + V on
| | 02:50 |
the Mac.
Here in the paste options dialog box, you
| | 02:54 |
want to go ahead and select compound
path, which is going to give you simple
| | 02:57 |
shapes, not really faster ones, and then
click OK.
| | 03:01 |
And you will end up with these 2 unfilled
shapes like so.
| | 03:05 |
Just to separate them from the other
clutter in the background, I'll go ahead
| | 03:08 |
and change their filter color to, lets
say, red.
| | 03:12 |
Should make them nice and garish on
screen.
| | 03:13 |
And also notice that they've
automatically been combined into a single
| | 03:16 |
group, which we can see, over here in the
far left side of the control panel.
| | 03:21 |
So, to get rid of that group, go up to
the object menu and choose the N group
| | 03:24 |
command, or press Ctrl + Shift + G or Cmd
+ Shift + G on a Mac.
| | 03:28 |
Because, otherwise, we wouldn't be able
to define these objects independently of
| | 03:31 |
each other.
And now we can select each object
| | 03:33 |
independently, which is all together
essential, of course, for defining
| | 03:37 |
independent symbols.
Anyway, I've already put these guys into
| | 03:42 |
this document with the exception of these
two down here.
| | 03:46 |
The tricycle, which no longer ships along
with Photoshop, but did once upon a time.
| | 03:50 |
And then the world wide web next door.
So I'll go ahead and delete the red
| | 03:54 |
shapes from view and I'll show you two
ways to save a shape at as a symbol.
| | 03:59 |
One is to put the new symbol in a very
specific location.
| | 04:02 |
I'll go ahead and increase the size of my
panel here.
| | 04:04 |
And let's say I want to put this tricycle
right next store to the bike.
| | 04:08 |
Well then I'll go ahead and drag it and
drop it into place, and you can see that
| | 04:12 |
allows to specify exactly where that
symbol goes, and then release, and up
| | 04:15 |
comes the symbol options dialog box, and
actually you want to name your symbol,
| | 04:19 |
I'll just call mine tricycle, and in most
cases that all you need to do, but I will
| | 04:22 |
briefly explain what's going on with the
rest of the options Type is specifically
| | 04:26 |
for working with Flash Professional.
A movie clip just goes ahead and gives
| | 04:34 |
the symbol a time code, which is a more
flexible way to work.
| | 04:37 |
But if you're working just inside of
Illustrator, then, this option is meaningless.
| | 04:42 |
Next door we've got registration, which,
where Illustrator is concerned affects
| | 04:45 |
the default location of the
transformation origin.
| | 04:49 |
When you're scaling or rotating a symbol.
And I'll show you what that looks like in
| | 04:52 |
a future movie.
I'll also explain nine slice scaling in a
| | 04:55 |
future movie.
And finally, a line and pixel grid is
| | 04:59 |
going to go ahead and align the
perpendicular segments associated with a
| | 05:02 |
symbol, to the pixel grid.
Which is useful if you're going to the web.
| | 05:07 |
If you're creating Web art.
But if you're not creating web art, or
| | 05:10 |
you have circular or curving objects,
then it's more of a pain in the neck than
| | 05:13 |
anything else.
So I'll go ahead and leave it off, and
| | 05:17 |
then I'll click OK.
And notice that goes ahead and turns the
| | 05:20 |
tricycle into an instance and we can see
the registration mark right there, in the
| | 05:24 |
center of the object.
All right, what if you don't want to drop
| | 05:28 |
an object to a specific location.
Well in that case, let's say you want it
| | 05:31 |
to appear at the end of the list.
Then you go ahead and cilck on you paths
| | 05:35 |
out here on the document window.
And you click on the little page icon on
| | 05:38 |
the bottom of the symbols pannels.
Well, and I'll just go ahead and name
| | 05:42 |
this guy World Wide Web, and then click
OK.
| | 05:45 |
In order to save it off right there at
the bottom of the panel, and turn the
| | 05:49 |
original object into an instance of that
symbol.
| | 05:54 |
Finally, let's say you need to give a
symbol a new name.
| | 05:56 |
For example, if I click off this symbol
to deselect it, you'll notice in this
| | 06:00 |
row, I've got a symbol called Boom 1 and
another called Boom 2.
| | 06:04 |
But I neglected to name this one next
door, so it's just called New Symbol 164.
| | 06:09 |
If you want to change the name of the
symbol, don't double-click on it because
| | 06:12 |
that's how you change the definition of a
symbol, that's how you edit it.
| | 06:17 |
To change it's name, you drop down to
this little dialog box icon at the bottom
| | 06:20 |
of the panel and click on it.
And then I'll just go ahead and call this
| | 06:25 |
guy sculpted star, and click OK.
In order to modify it's name and you can
| | 06:30 |
see that the new name now appears as a
tip here inside the Symbols panel.
| | 06:35 |
And that's how you create a new symbol,
as well as rename an existing one here
| | 06:40 |
inside Illustrator.
| | 06:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing 9-slice scaling| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to take
advantage of Nine-Slice Scaling which
| | 00:04 |
despite its wonky name, is a really great
feature that allows you to define exactly
| | 00:08 |
which portions of a Symbol Scale.
So that you can Stretch a Symbol and have
| | 00:14 |
certain regions stay fixed in size.
And it's such a great feature that you
| | 00:18 |
may find it helpful even when you're not
interested in replicating artwork.
| | 00:23 |
So the first thing I'm going to do is go
up to the File menu and choose the New
| | 00:26 |
Command or you can press Ctrl N or Cmd N
on the Mac.
| | 00:29 |
And you want to set the profile to print
in order to see the specific symbols that
| | 00:33 |
I'm interested in showing you here.
And then you can leave the other options
| | 00:37 |
set to their defaults and click OK.
Then go ahead and bring up the symbols
| | 00:42 |
panel, and you'll see the symbols
somewhere along the top here, called Trim
| | 00:45 |
Marks with 9 Slice.
Go ahead and click on it to select it.
| | 00:49 |
And then, to introduce the symbol into
the artwork, you can drag and drop it,
| | 00:52 |
but that will place the symbol at a
specific location inside the document.
| | 00:56 |
I just want to go ahead and center in the
darn thing.
| | 00:58 |
So I'm going to click on this little icon
play symbol instance, and that will place
| | 01:01 |
the symbol right there, at the center.
All right, now I'll hide the symbols panel.
| | 01:06 |
And I'll switch over to my Scale tool,
which you can also get by pressing the S
| | 01:10 |
key, and notice if I now drag in order to
scale my artwork, that none of the trim
| | 01:13 |
marks or registration marks, or any of
the other printer marks, for that matter, scale.
| | 01:21 |
They all remain fixed in size.
It's just this empty region in the center
| | 01:24 |
That's growing larger.
Now that's only going to hold up to a
| | 01:27 |
point by the way.
If I were to take the size of the artwork
| | 01:30 |
down too small, then I'd end up squishing
the art because at a certain point that's
| | 01:34 |
going to happen.
But as long as you make the symbol larger
| | 01:38 |
then Illustrator will go ahead and
precisely stretch your artwork.
| | 01:42 |
All right.
So, how do we go about creating such a thing?
| | 01:44 |
Well, I'll go ahead and switch back to my
sample file and if I press Shift>Pg Dn,
| | 01:47 |
you'll see that I have a second art board
in place.
| | 01:51 |
So, let's say I'm interested in creating
a symbol where just the central shaft of
| | 01:55 |
this arrow stretches and this blue tip
art down below it is allowed to stretch
| | 01:58 |
both horizontally and vertically.
Well then I go ahead and switch back to
| | 02:04 |
my black arrow tool, and marquee all
these objects in order to select them.
| | 02:08 |
And then I'll bring up my symbols panel
once again, and I'll go ahead and create
| | 02:12 |
a new symbol at the end of the list by
clicking on the little page icon, and
| | 02:15 |
I'll call this arrow and tip for now.
And the next thing you want to do is set
| | 02:21 |
a registration point, which will define a
default transformation origin when you go
| | 02:25 |
to scale the object.
I'm going to set mine inthe top left
| | 02:29 |
corner like so.
And then you want to turn on Enable
| | 02:32 |
guides for nine slides scaling and click
OK.
| | 02:36 |
And then it goes ahead and adds a new
symbol to the bottom of the list, and it
| | 02:39 |
also turns my original artwork into an
instance.
| | 02:42 |
Notice that cross right there.
By default if I hadn't changed the
| | 02:45 |
registration position, it'd be in the
center.
| | 02:47 |
But now it's in the upper left hand
corner indicating once again that's where
| | 02:51 |
we'll see the default position for the
transformation origin.
| | 02:56 |
All right, I'll go ahead and hide the
symbols panel.
| | 02:57 |
And then, I'll switch over to the Scale
tool.
| | 03:00 |
And notice whereas if we were editing a
standard piece of art, a standard path
| | 03:03 |
outline, that kind of thing, we'd see
that origin target right there in the
| | 03:06 |
center, but instead it's located in the
top-left corner.
| | 03:10 |
You can, of course, move it to a
different location if you want to, but
| | 03:13 |
that just ends up defining the default.
Now I'll go ahead and drag with my Scale
| | 03:18 |
tool in order to stretch the artwork.
And you can see that it doesn't stretch
| | 03:23 |
how it normally would.
Which is to say we're not making the art
| | 03:27 |
in its entirety wider, or necessarily
taller, rather we are selectively
| | 03:30 |
stretching the object.
The problem is, we're not doing so in any
| | 03:35 |
way we naturally want to.
So to fix things what you want to do is
| | 03:39 |
press the V key to return to the black
arrow tool.
| | 03:42 |
And then double-click some place on the
artwork.
| | 03:45 |
And by the way, when you're modifying an
instance inside of Illustrator, you don't
| | 03:49 |
want to try to drag the bounding box,
that is the frame around the object,
| | 03:52 |
because that's not going to work.
You want to click somewhere on an actual
| | 03:57 |
path alloy, and then you can drag that
path to a different location.
| | 04:01 |
So even though you don't see all the
selection (INAUDIBLE) all around those
| | 04:05 |
edges, they still exist.
Anyway, to edit the artwork, go ahead and
| | 04:09 |
double-click on it.
If you see the alert message just go
| | 04:12 |
ahead and click OK, and, or to switch to
this view here, and notice that we are
| | 04:15 |
now seeing some guides that illustrator
automatically setup for me.
| | 04:21 |
That define how the artwork will stretch.
Coming to terms with how to use these
| | 04:25 |
guides however can be a little tricky.
So I'll explain how that works in the
| | 04:29 |
next movie.
| | 04:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Customizing the effects of 9-slice scaling| 00:00 |
All right, just for the sake of a
reminder here.
| | 00:02 |
This is the badly stretched version of
the arrow so far.
| | 00:05 |
In this movie, I'm going to show you how
to adjust the 9-Slice scaling guides in
| | 00:09 |
order to achieve much better results.
And we'll see a couple of examples.
| | 00:13 |
First thing you want to do is
double-click somewhere on the arrow art.
| | 00:16 |
And make sure, by the way, that you can
see a little square underneath your arrow cursor.
| | 00:21 |
That'll tell you that you're in the right
location.
| | 00:23 |
If you get the alert message, just go
ahead and click OK in order to enter the
| | 00:27 |
Symbol Isolation mode.
I'm going to go ahead and zoom in so that
| | 00:30 |
I can see the artwork more closely.
Now notice that we have a collection of
| | 00:34 |
four guides in all, two horizontal and
two vertical.
| | 00:38 |
And if you're still kind of wondering
what the nine slices are all about, now
| | 00:40 |
you can see them.
So we've got these four guides cutting
| | 00:44 |
our picture into nine pieces at all,
three up, three in the middle, and three down.
| | 00:50 |
The central area here is going to stretch
like crazy, and then the areas above and
| | 00:53 |
below, they'll stretch horizontally.
And the areas to the left and right will
| | 00:58 |
stretch vertically.
Each one of the corner quadrants will not
| | 01:02 |
stretch at all.
And so that's why we're having this break
| | 01:05 |
in the arrow, where it goes from not
stretching at all, to all of a sudden
| | 01:08 |
stretching vertically, and then we've got
a horizontal problem over here.
| | 01:13 |
We know we want the shaft of the arrow to
stretch.
| | 01:15 |
So, let's go ahead and move these guys
inward, both the vertical guides, until
| | 01:19 |
we're strictly inside this perpendicular
region.
| | 01:23 |
And that's what 9-slice scaling is all
about.
| | 01:26 |
You just stretch the perpendicular stuff
and nothing more.
| | 01:29 |
Now we need to look for an area that can
stretch vertically, and the only area
| | 01:32 |
that falls into that category, because we
need vertical lines, are the edges of the
| | 01:36 |
blue tip bar.
So go ahead and drag this guide down,
| | 01:40 |
like so.
You don't want to go so far down that you
| | 01:42 |
start hitting the rounded corner.
That would be a problem.
| | 01:45 |
Move it up to about there, and then take
this guide down into the vertical region
| | 01:50 |
as well.
And that way the central portion of the
| | 01:54 |
blue tip bar, that's going to stretch in
both directions.
| | 01:57 |
And then this region here between the two
vertical guides, that will stretch
| | 02:00 |
horizontally, and the area between the
two horizontal guides will stretch vertically.
| | 02:05 |
Now you can go ahead and press the Escape
key, and you'll see that Illustrator goes
| | 02:08 |
ahead and stretches the artwork properly
from this point on.
| | 02:13 |
All right, now let's say we want to turn
the arrow by itself into a symbol and we
| | 02:16 |
just want it to stretch horizontally,
this region right here, but we'd rather
| | 02:20 |
not see any portion of the artwork
stretch vertically.
| | 02:24 |
Well as near as we can get, where this
art is concerned, is to allow just the
| | 02:27 |
shaft of the arrow to stretch
horizontally.
| | 02:30 |
But the entire artwork will have to
stretch vertically.
| | 02:33 |
And let me show you what that looks like.
I'll go ahead and marquee this bottom
| | 02:37 |
arrow here, in order to select all of it.
Then I'll bring up the Symbol panel, and
| | 02:41 |
I'll click on the little page icon in
order to create a new symbol, and I'll
| | 02:45 |
call this guy Arrow Only.
And then I'll turn on Enable Guides for
| | 02:49 |
9-slice scaling.
And I'll select this center point right
| | 02:53 |
there, along the left hand side.
Then click OK.
| | 02:57 |
Now notice if I grab my scale tool.
And I just go ahead and drag from the tip
| | 03:01 |
of the arrow head, because all I want to
do is apply a horizontal stretch, I end
| | 03:05 |
up stretching the entire arrow quite
badly.
| | 03:09 |
So of course, I need to adjust my guides.
I'll do so by pressing the V key to
| | 03:13 |
switch to the black arrow tool, and then
I'll double-click on my artwork, click OK
| | 03:16 |
in response to the alert message and drag
these guys over here.
| | 03:22 |
What I really like to see happen is that
this area between the vertical guides,
| | 03:25 |
that'll stretch horizontally, but I don't
want anything to stretch vertically so
| | 03:28 |
I'll just go ahead and move both the
horizontal guides upwards.
| | 03:33 |
So ideally, this region right there would
stretch in both directions, this area
| | 03:37 |
would just stretch horizontally, and
nothing would stretch vertically.
| | 03:42 |
However, if I go ahead and press the Esc
key in order to accept that change, you
| | 03:45 |
can see that the entire art work is now
stretching.
| | 03:48 |
And that's because Illustrator just
doesn't like it if there's an empty
| | 03:51 |
region right in the center.
So what you have to do instead is compromise.
| | 03:56 |
So I'll double-click on the arrow again,
click OK in response to the alert message.
| | 04:00 |
Go ahead and drag this down, this bottom
horizontal guide all the way down.
| | 04:06 |
Drag this one to about here, just so that
the entire arrow is inside of the two
| | 04:10 |
horizontal guides.
And of course the vertical guides only
| | 04:14 |
include the brown shaft right there.
Then go ahead and press the Esc key, in
| | 04:18 |
order to accept that change.
And you can see now I end up stretching
| | 04:21 |
the proper portion of the arrow.
However, were I to select the arrow once
| | 04:25 |
again, press the S key to switch to the
scale tool and then drag down, like so,
| | 04:29 |
in order to scale the arrow vertically,
you can see that it scales vertically
| | 04:33 |
throughout the entire artwork.
I don't want that, of course, so I'll go
| | 04:38 |
ahead and press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on the
Mac, to undo that change.
| | 04:41 |
And I'm going to drag the arrow back over
here.
| | 04:44 |
So, we have some artwork that looks, more
or less, like our original.
| | 04:49 |
Because I want to show you, one more side
element, that's interesting to note,
| | 04:52 |
where 9-slice scaling is concerned.
I'll press the V key, to switch to the
| | 04:56 |
black arrow tool, and then I'll go ahead
and take this tip bar right here, and
| | 04:59 |
I'll save that off as a separate symbol,
just so that I have it.
| | 05:04 |
And I'll go ahead and call this guy Blue
Tip Bar.
| | 05:06 |
And I'll set the registration to the same
thing it is for the arrow, and I'll turn
| | 05:10 |
on Enable Guides for 9-slice scaling.
And I'll click OK, and then I'll double
| | 05:15 |
click any artwork and click OK in
response to the alert message.
| | 05:19 |
By now, I should have gone ahead and said
don't show again, but maybe I will in the future.
| | 05:23 |
In the meantime, I'll go ahead and drag
these guys up like so.
| | 05:25 |
And otherwise, this region is just fine.
And now I'll press the Esc key in order
| | 05:30 |
to accept that change.
And now we have a symbol right here that
| | 05:34 |
will scale just like I want it to.
If I press the S key in order to switch
| | 05:38 |
to the scale tool, you can see that no
matter how much I scale this artwork, I'm
| | 05:41 |
not harming the rounded corners at all.
All right, I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z,
| | 05:45 |
Cmd+Z on a Mac, to undo that change.
I can now take both of these symbols and
| | 05:49 |
turn them into another symbol if I like.
So I'll press the V key, Shift-click on
| | 05:54 |
the arrow instance here, and now I'll
drag both instances into the Symbols panel.
| | 06:00 |
And I'll call this guy Two Symbols
because ultimately that's what it is.
| | 06:04 |
I'll set the registration to the same
thing.
| | 06:06 |
I'll turn on Enable Guides for 9-slice
scaling.
| | 06:09 |
And I'll go ahead and click OK.
And now notice when I scale the artwork,
| | 06:12 |
it just scales proportionally.
And there's nothing you can do about it.
| | 06:17 |
I can press the V key to switch back to
the black arrow tool.
| | 06:20 |
Double-click somewhere on the artwork.
Turn on the Don't Show Again check box.
| | 06:24 |
By now I should do it.
Click OK.
| | 06:26 |
And then I could set these guys anywhere
I want them to be, like, I'll set them
| | 06:29 |
where they should be, right here for the
vertical guides, and then down here for
| | 06:33 |
the horizontal guides.
I'll go ahead and drag this one down, and
| | 06:37 |
drag this one down as well, and you can
stretch a teeny tiny area, by the way, if
| | 06:40 |
you want to.
But I'll just set things the way I've had
| | 06:43 |
them before, and then I'll press the Esc
key, and you can see it doesn't have any effect.
| | 06:49 |
So, if you're going to take advantage of
9-slice scaling, you've got to be working
| | 06:52 |
from original artwork.
You can't be doing something clever like
| | 06:56 |
creating symbols from other symbols.
And that, friends, is how you adjust the
| | 07:01 |
guides for 9-slice scaling, here inside
Illustrator.
| | 07:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Acquiring, trading, and previewing symbols| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
acquire symbols and trade them between documents.
| | 00:04 |
I'll also show you the best way for
previewing symbols inside Illustrator.
| | 00:08 |
I have open this document called
468Symbols.ai, and as you might imagine,
| | 00:12 |
were you to bring up the symbols panel,
it contains a total of 468 symbols that
| | 00:16 |
have shipped along with Illustrator over
the years.
| | 00:22 |
Now it's not always easy to make out
what's going on with these symbols from
| | 00:25 |
their tiny little thumbnails.
And while you can switch to different
| | 00:29 |
views, such as the small list view, that
barely shows you any thumbnail at all, or
| | 00:33 |
the larger list view.
You can't get bigger thumbnails than
| | 00:37 |
you're seeing in the standard thumbnail
view.
| | 00:40 |
Which is kind of a tragedy, because it
would be nice to see these things in a
| | 00:43 |
little more detail.
But it is possible to get a better view
| | 00:46 |
of things.
All you need to do is just double-click
| | 00:49 |
on one of these symbols, and that's going
to show you the symbol at any old size
| | 00:52 |
you want to see it, here inside the
document window.
| | 00:57 |
So I'll just go ahead and zoom in on this
3D at sign, which is this purple guy
| | 01:00 |
right there, the at symbol.
And if you like, at this point, you could
| | 01:05 |
change it around.
Now, this is a true 3D object inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:09 |
We'll be discussing 3D, in detail, in a
future chapter.
| | 01:12 |
But for now I'm just going to select the
text and change its color to say, this
| | 01:16 |
shade of red, right here, inside the
swatches panel.
| | 01:19 |
And that goes ahead and updates the
artwork, and then if I press the Escape
| | 01:23 |
key, I can see that the symbol is updated
here inside the symbols panel.
| | 01:28 |
I'll go and scroll down my list a little
bit, which you can do with the scroll
| | 01:30 |
wheel, by the way as long as you're
hovered over the symbols panel.
| | 01:34 |
And I'll double-click on this guy, tiki
idol.
| | 01:36 |
And then if you decide you want to check
out something else, such as this little
| | 01:39 |
television screen here, then just double
click on it.
| | 01:43 |
You don't have to escape out and go back,
you can just double-click, and you can
| | 01:46 |
save your modifications that way as well.
Now check out down here at the bottom of
| | 01:51 |
the list.
We have these vector pack collections,
| | 01:53 |
which are just outstanding.
I'll double-click on Florid Vector Pack
| | 01:57 |
08, and you can see what I'm talking
about, just outstanding little pieces of
| | 02:01 |
artwork here.
This one's 13, and then we've got these
| | 02:05 |
Regal packs as well.
For example, this is Regal Vector pack
| | 02:08 |
number 16.
But there is one collection that I failed
| | 02:11 |
to add to this list so far.
And let me show you what it looks like,
| | 02:14 |
and how to add it to this collection as
well, or any other illustration you like.
| | 02:19 |
I'll go ahead and click on this little
bookshelf icon, in the lower left corner
| | 02:21 |
of the panel.
And I'll choose this guy right there,
| | 02:25 |
Grime Vector Pack.
Which brings up this collection of objects.
| | 02:28 |
Now if I want to see one of these in
greater detail, I can't just double-click
| | 02:32 |
on it.
Clicking on one of these items in these
| | 02:35 |
pop up panels.
Just goes ahead and adds that symbol to
| | 02:39 |
the symbols panel.
And then if you want to add a few more,
| | 02:42 |
then just go ahead and click on one, and,
and Shift click on another.
| | 02:46 |
You'll see that the first one's been
added right there, but you can just drag
| | 02:49 |
over all the selected items, in order to
merely add the ones that haven't been
| | 02:53 |
added so far.
Then at this point you would double-click
| | 02:57 |
on one of the items in the symbols panel,
in order to preview its appearance.
| | 03:01 |
I'm going to go ahead and add a few more
here including this guy, this guy, and
| | 03:05 |
this guy right there.
Its not necessary to add these two,
| | 03:08 |
because they already appear at the top of
the symbols panel.
| | 03:12 |
Instead, just go ahead and grab these
guys right there, and do a drag and drop
| | 03:16 |
in order to fill things out.
And then, I'll close the panel to hide it.
| | 03:21 |
So that's all there is to bringing over
symbols from libraries that ship along
| | 03:24 |
with Illustrator.
And as you can see, there's many there,
| | 03:28 |
but just about all of them are to some
extent represented here inside this document.
| | 03:34 |
Well what if you've got another document,
and you want to be able to load all of
| | 03:37 |
these symbols over, as well as all the
symbols from yet another document.
| | 03:42 |
Well the easiest way to work, is to click
on the little bookshelf icon, and then
| | 03:45 |
choose the save symbols command.
It just saves a standard AI document, by
| | 03:49 |
the way, but it saves it to a special
location that you can easily access later.
| | 03:54 |
And it doesn't include any of the
artwork, it just includes the contents of
| | 03:57 |
the symbols panel.
And I'll go ahead and call this 480,
| | 04:01 |
because I added 12, AI symbols, because
these are symbols that have shipped with
| | 04:04 |
Illustrator over time, and then I'll
click the save button.
| | 04:09 |
And now I'm going to switch over to that
updated Photoshop shape documents and
| | 04:12 |
save on its symbols as well, by once
again clicking on the bookshelf icon, and
| | 04:16 |
choosing the save symbols command.
And this one, I'll call 379 PS shapes,
| | 04:21 |
because after all, that's what it is.
And then, I'll click the save button.
| | 04:27 |
So, in other words, you now, if have
access to my exercise files, have a ton
| | 04:30 |
of symbols to work with.
Now I'll switch over to this document
| | 04:34 |
that just contains the six print default
symbols.
| | 04:37 |
Click on the bookshelf icon, and choose
user defined.
| | 04:40 |
And I might as well start with 379 PS
shapes, because after all, it's listed first.
| | 04:45 |
And then that item will come up in its
own panel, and you can click on the very
| | 04:48 |
first of the symbols, scroll your way
down, and then Shift click on the last one.
| | 04:53 |
And then go ahead and drag and drop them
into place.
| | 04:56 |
Now it is going to take a few moments for
that operation to occur, and by the way
| | 04:59 |
it's going to slow down the performance
of your save operation when you go to
| | 05:02 |
save this document.
But it is very possible to move these
| | 05:06 |
things around.
So now I'll go ahead and choose user
| | 05:09 |
defined, and 480 AI symbols.
Go ahead and increase the size of this sub-panel.
| | 05:14 |
And by the way, they may end up appearing
right next to each other, if you're
| | 05:17 |
following along with me.
And I'll go ahead and click on this guy,
| | 05:21 |
and then Shift click on the last of them,
and scroll down to the bottom, I would think.
| | 05:27 |
And then let's go ahead and drag them and
drop them.
| | 05:29 |
And I just want to make sure that the
blue item here appears in the right location.
| | 05:34 |
If not, then I would have to drag it
inside the panel.
| | 05:37 |
Because you can rearrange these symbol
thumbnails as much as you want.
| | 05:40 |
And that first symbol is appearing at the
top of the list, and that's because it's
| | 05:43 |
one of the six defaults.
All right, I'll go ahead and scroll down to
| | 05:46 |
the bottom.
And it looks now like we've got just
| | 05:49 |
about every symbol we could possibly
want.
| | 05:52 |
At least where the default symbols are
concerned.
| | 05:54 |
Not to mention, you now know how to
acquire symbols.
| | 05:57 |
As well as how to trade them between
documents.
| | 06:00 |
And preview them as large as you want
here inside Illustrator.
| | 06:04 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Duplicating and replacing symbol instances| 00:00 |
Another great thing about symbols is they
help to make up for the fact that
| | 00:03 |
Illustrator lacks master pages.
So, if you want to replicate text, or a
| | 00:07 |
logo on a page by page basis, then
symbols are the way to go.
| | 00:12 |
Because that way, you can modify the
symbol, and update all the pages automatically.
| | 00:18 |
And I'm going to show you how things
work, using this very basic book cover design.
| | 00:22 |
So, we've got the front cover over here
on the right hand side, and then the
| | 00:25 |
spine, and the back cover on the left.
And you can see that the title, and the
| | 00:29 |
author name, and the publisher, and so
forth are duplicated on every one of the
| | 00:32 |
art boards.
I'm going to start things off in this
| | 00:36 |
movie, by showing you how to duplicate
and replace symbols.
| | 00:40 |
In order to create this sequence of page
icons that make up the artwork for the
| | 00:44 |
front cover of the book.
So, we'll start off inside this document
| | 00:48 |
here, and I'm going to zoom in on the
front cover.
| | 00:51 |
Which is the third art board, the one on
the right.
| | 00:54 |
And then I'll press shift tab to bring
back my right side panels, and also bring
| | 00:58 |
up my symbols panel like so.
And I'll go ahead and marquee all the
| | 01:01 |
elements that make up this little page
icon.
| | 01:04 |
And then I'll click on the little page
icon, at the bottom of the symbols panel.
| | 01:08 |
And I'll call this guy page.
And then I'll click okay in order to
| | 01:11 |
create that new symbol.
And you can see as usual, that turns the
| | 01:15 |
original artwork into an instance.
All right, now let's go ahead and duplicate
| | 01:20 |
the symbol a few times, by double
clicking on the black Arrow tool icon, at
| | 01:23 |
the top of the toolbox.
And I'm going to change the horizontal
| | 01:27 |
position value to 78, and the vertical
value to zero, and then click on the copy
| | 01:30 |
button in order to create a copy of that
page.
| | 01:34 |
Now, assuming that your keyboard
increment is set to one point, which you
| | 01:37 |
can confirm by pressing Control-K, or
Command-K on a Mac, and there's my
| | 01:40 |
keyboard increment of one point right
there.
| | 01:43 |
I'll go ahead and cancel out.
Then press Shift-Alt-Up Arrow, or
| | 01:47 |
Shift-Option-Up Arrow on a Mac, in order
to create a duplicate of that page icon,
| | 01:51 |
10 points up.
And then press Shift-Right Arrow, in
| | 01:55 |
order to move it to the right.
All right, I'm going to go ahead and scoot
| | 01:59 |
my art over a little bit.
And then I'll marque both of these pages here.
| | 02:03 |
And once again double-click on the black
Arrow too icon, at the top of the toolbox.
| | 02:07 |
And this time I'm going to change the
horizontal value to 88 points, because we
| | 02:10 |
went ahead and added 10 points for that
extra page.
| | 02:13 |
And then I'll click on the copy button,
in order to create another copy of those pages.
| | 02:17 |
And then, I'll go ahead and press
Control-D, or Command-D on a Mac in order
| | 02:21 |
to duplicate the pages.
And the idea in case you're wondering
| | 02:25 |
what I'm up to here, is we've got a
single page icon over on the left hand side.
| | 02:30 |
Then we've got the universal symbol for a
multipage document.
| | 02:34 |
I want this third set of icons to
represent an ebook, so an electronic document.
| | 02:38 |
And then the final one should represent a
clipboard.
| | 02:41 |
So, I'm going to start with this final
one.
| | 02:43 |
I'll go ahead and click on the background
page, the lower of the two.
| | 02:47 |
And I'll go up to the control panel, and
you can see that there's this option
| | 02:50 |
called replace.
And if you click the down pointing
| | 02:53 |
arrowhead, you will see the list of the
symbols included along with the document.
| | 02:57 |
Including this one right here clipboard,
which I've created in advance.
| | 03:01 |
Go ahead and click on it, in order to
replace one symbol with the other.
| | 03:04 |
And then you can hide, that sub panel.
Now, shift-click on the forward page, and
| | 03:10 |
then click on it again.
You don't need to shift-click this time,
| | 03:13 |
just click on it.
In order to make it the key object.
| | 03:16 |
And then click on the word align, in the
control panel, and click horizontal align
| | 03:20 |
center, which will do exactly what we
want it to do.
| | 03:23 |
And then go ahead and try a vertical
align center.
| | 03:26 |
Although it's not going to turn out to be
the right option, because, after all
| | 03:29 |
we've got this tab at the top of the
clipboard that's making a mess of things.
| | 03:33 |
So, what we want to do instead is
shift-click on the page in order to
| | 03:37 |
deselect it.
And then go ahead and shift-click on this
| | 03:40 |
background page, the third one right
here, in order to select it, and click on
| | 03:44 |
it again to make it the key object, like
so.
| | 03:48 |
And click on the word align up here in
the control panel and finally, click on
| | 03:51 |
vertical align bottom, and that'll go
ahead and scoot that clipboard up.
| | 03:56 |
All right, now we want to add the little
e-publishing symbol, and I've created
| | 03:59 |
that once again in advance as a symbol.
To deploy it, go ahead and click on this
| | 04:04 |
page right here.
And then press Shift-Alt-Right Arrow, to
| | 04:08 |
make a copy of it 10 points to the right.
That would be Shift-Option-Right Arrow on
| | 04:12 |
the Mac.
And then press Shift-Down Arrow, in order
| | 04:15 |
to nudge it down a little bit.
And that will just be a place holder for
| | 04:18 |
our esymbol, which we'll now introduce
by clicking on the little down pointing arrowhead.
| | 04:23 |
Associated with the replace option, and
then clicking on the electronics symbol
| | 04:27 |
in order to produce this effect here.
All right now I'm going to press Shift-Down
| | 04:31 |
arrow three times in a row, followed by
Shift-Right Arrow, and then I'll press
| | 04:35 |
the Up arrow key a couple of times in
order to nudge that guy into the desired position.
| | 04:41 |
Finally, let's say I'm not very happy
with this little corner design here
| | 04:44 |
that's associated with the various page
Icons.
| | 04:47 |
Then I'll just go ahead and double-click
on any one of the pages, it doesn't
| | 04:51 |
matter which one.
They're all instances of the exact same symbol.
| | 04:56 |
And then, I'll select this corner wedge
like so, and I'll press shift-x in order
| | 04:59 |
to swap the fill and stroke attributes.
So that we no longer have any fill
| | 05:04 |
whatsoever, but we do have a black
stroke.
| | 05:06 |
And I'll change the line weight value to
four points.
| | 05:09 |
And then I'll press the A key, to switch
to the white Arrow tool.
| | 05:12 |
I'll click off the shape to deselect it.
And you can see that we have this
| | 05:16 |
unfortunate miter corners, that are
ruining the effect.
| | 05:19 |
To get rid of them, just click on this
segment right there, in order to select it.
| | 05:24 |
That is, the diagonal segment.
And then press the Back Space key, or the
| | 05:27 |
Delete key on a Mac.
In order to get rid of the segment as
| | 05:30 |
well the the miter joints.
Now you can press the escape key to exit
| | 05:34 |
the symbol isolation mode.
And that friends is how you duplicate,
| | 05:38 |
replace, and apply further modifications
to a symbol, here inside Illustrator.
| | 05:45 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using symbols to simulate master pages| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how we can
use symbols as substitutes for master pages.
| | 00:05 |
Now in case you're not familiar with
them, a master page is a page where you
| | 00:08 |
can put objects that you want to
replicate from one page to a next.
| | 00:12 |
You have master pages in, for example,
InDesign, but you don't have them inside Illustrator.
| | 00:18 |
And while master pages are very
convenient, they're designed for
| | 00:21 |
documents with consistent page sizes.
Which means they don't lend themselves
| | 00:25 |
very well to cover designs, like the one
here.
| | 00:28 |
Because after all, the spine is so much
slimmer than the front and back cover.
| | 00:32 |
Also, where cover design is concerned,
and this goes for a box design or any
| | 00:36 |
other sort of product design as well.
You don't necessarily want the objects
| | 00:41 |
repeated at the same positions.
So, for example, I've already turned the
| | 00:45 |
title of the book into a symbol, and it
appears higher on the back cover than it
| | 00:48 |
does on the front cover, and it's rotated
on the spine.
| | 00:52 |
We're going to do the same thing for the
publisher, as well as the publisher's
| | 00:56 |
logo, and for the author, whose name I
don't know yet, and I'll have to just
| | 00:59 |
drop that in later.
So I'll start things off by clicking on
| | 01:04 |
the author name with the black arrow
tool.
| | 01:06 |
Then I'll bring up the Symbols panel, and
then I'll click on the little page icon,
| | 01:10 |
and I'll call this symbol author,
actually, and then click okay.
| | 01:14 |
And now, I'll go ahead and duplicate the
author name by Alt dragging it, or Option
| | 01:18 |
dragging it on the Mac, and I'm also
pressing the Shift key as I drag.
| | 01:23 |
I'll go ahead and drop that into place on
the back cover, so that it's aligned with
| | 01:26 |
the right hand side of the art board.
And then I'll press Shift left arrow
| | 01:31 |
three times in a row in order to nudge it
30 points to the left.
| | 01:35 |
All right, let's make another copy of the
author name, on the spine this time.
| | 01:39 |
And then I'll double-click on the Rotate
tool.
| | 01:41 |
And we want to change the angle value to
negative 90 degrees.
| | 01:45 |
And then I'll click OK, and I'll press
the V key to switch back to my black
| | 01:48 |
arrow tool.
I'll just drag this name up and to the
| | 01:51 |
right just a little bit, like so.
All right, now let's do something similar
| | 01:55 |
with the name of the publisher, although
I'm going to do this as a combination of
| | 01:58 |
two symbols this time, just to keep the
logo and the publisher name separate from
| | 02:02 |
each other.
So I'll select the publishers name first
| | 02:06 |
and then click on the little page icon.
Call this symbol Publisher, and then
| | 02:10 |
press the Enter or Return key.
And then I'll go ahead and grab the logo
| | 02:14 |
this time around, click on the little
page icon, call this guy Logo, and then
| | 02:17 |
I'll marquee both of these items.
Click on the little page icon, so that
| | 02:22 |
we're making a symbol that's based on two
other symbols, and I'll just call it Pub
| | 02:26 |
& Logo, or something like that, and click
OK.
| | 02:30 |
All right, now let's go ahead and
duplicate these guys.
| | 02:33 |
First of all, I'm going to take it to the
back cover here, by Alt dragging or
| | 02:36 |
Option dragging the object to about this
location here, and maybe nudge it over to
| | 02:39 |
the right just a little bit.
And then I'll Alt drag or Option drag it
| | 02:44 |
to the spine.
Double-click on Rotate tool once again to
| | 02:48 |
rotate the item negative 90 degrees.
Click OK.
| | 02:51 |
And then I'll double-click on a Scale
tool, and I'll take the uniform value
| | 02:55 |
down to 60% and click OK.
Now let's just go ahead and nudge that
| | 02:59 |
guy into a better location, such as the
one you see right there.
| | 03:02 |
And I'm just eyeballing things this time
around.
| | 03:05 |
Now let's say we need to make some
modifications as surely we do.
| | 03:08 |
First of all, I found out the author's
name.
| | 03:10 |
So let's go ahead and scoot over to the
first occurrence, although it doesn't
| | 03:13 |
matter which one you edit.
Press the V key to switch to the black
| | 03:17 |
arrow tool and double-click on the text
to enter the Symbol Isolation mode.
| | 03:22 |
And then I'll go ahead and press the T
key to switch to the Type tool, click
| | 03:25 |
inside the type, press Ctrl+A, or Cmd+A
on a Mac, to select all of it, and I'll
| | 03:28 |
change this text to Dorothy Turner.
I don't know her, I just found out she's
| | 03:34 |
the author.
And then I'll press the Escape key a
| | 03:37 |
couple of times in a row in order to
update all occurrences of Dorothy's name,
| | 03:41 |
across not only the front cover of the
book, but the spine and back cover as well.
| | 03:48 |
All right, now I'm told that the logo
shouldn't be this color.
| | 03:50 |
So I'll double-click on this Publisher
object here in order to once again enter
| | 03:53 |
the Symbol Isolation mode.
But notice that I'm not deep enough.
| | 03:57 |
I'm looking at the Pub & Logo symbol, but
I need to be looking at the Logo symbol
| | 04:01 |
independently so I double-click again on
it.
| | 04:04 |
So, now notice I'm looking at the Logo
element inside Pub & Logo, and I'll go
| | 04:07 |
ahead and marquee it.
And it occurs to me that I've kind of
| | 04:10 |
made a mistake here (LAUGH)
I've gone ahead and turned one symbol
| | 04:13 |
into another.
Ribbon was already a symbol that's
| | 04:16 |
included along with Illustrator.
So, whatever, I'll just go ahead and
| | 04:20 |
click on it again in order to modify this
element independently.
| | 04:25 |
And then I'll go ahead and marquee the
object.
| | 04:27 |
So I suppose there's some use to the fact
I created a symbol inside of a symbol,
| | 04:30 |
because after all, one is a scale version
of the other.
| | 04:34 |
But in any case, now I'm modifying the
original path outlines.
| | 04:38 |
And so I'll go up to the control panel,
click on the second color swatch in, and
| | 04:41 |
change it to this shade of blue, C85 M50
Y0 K0.
| | 04:45 |
And then I'll just go ahead and press the
Esc key just once, in order to escape all
| | 04:49 |
the way out of the Symbol Edit mode.
And that goes ahead and updates all
| | 04:55 |
versions of the publisher's logo as you
see here.
| | 04:59 |
All right, finally, I'm going to go ahead
and add a registered trademark to the
| | 05:03 |
name of the press.
So I'll go ahead and zoom in.
| | 05:06 |
Double-click on the name like so.
Double-click again in order to gain
| | 05:09 |
access to the Type.
Press the T key in order to get my Type tool.
| | 05:14 |
Click after the final S in Press.
And then I'll go up to the Type menu and
| | 05:18 |
choose Glyphs in order to bring up the
big Glyphs panel.
| | 05:22 |
If you loaded my D Keys, you've got a
keyboard shortcut of mash-your-fist G.
| | 05:25 |
And once the Glyphs panel comes up
onscreen, right after the copyright
| | 05:28 |
symbol is the registered trademark
symbol.
| | 05:31 |
Notice right there.
Just go ahead and double-click on it, in
| | 05:33 |
order to add it to the text, and then you
can hide the Glyphs panel.
| | 05:37 |
After all, it takes up a ridiculous
amount of screen space.
| | 05:40 |
And then go ahead and select the
registered trademark, if you're working
| | 05:43 |
along with me.
Bring up the Character panel, which you
| | 05:45 |
can get by pressing Ctrl+T or Cmd+T on
the Mac.
| | 05:48 |
And let's go ahead and change the size
value to 10 points and I also want the
| | 05:52 |
baseline shift to be 7.5.
I just prefer a smaller registered
| | 05:56 |
trademark than the default.
And then you want to click between the S
| | 06:00 |
and the registered trademark, and let's
reduce the kerning, this value right
| | 06:04 |
here, to -100, like so, in order to
produce this effect.
| | 06:09 |
Then you can hide the character panel.
Press the Esc key in order to edit the
| | 06:12 |
Text Edit mode, and then press the Esc
key again in order to exit the Symbol
| | 06:16 |
Isolation mode.
And if you zoom out, which I've done here
| | 06:20 |
by pressing Ctrl+0, or Cmd+0 on a Mac,
you can see that all the text is updated
| | 06:23 |
from one art board to another.
The only thing I'm not happy with is the
| | 06:28 |
vertical placement of the publisher's
name, with respect to the author name,
| | 06:31 |
over here on the spine.
So I'm going to go ahead and move this
| | 06:35 |
guy over so that the r continues into the
s, like so.
| | 06:39 |
And then I'll press Shift left arrow a
couple of times in order to nudge that
| | 06:42 |
text to the left.
And that, friends, is how you use symbols
| | 06:47 |
as a very flexible substitute for master
pages here inside Illustrator.
| | 06:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Advanced symbol modifications| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll take a look at a
couple of advanced symbol modifications.
| | 00:04 |
Specifically, we'll take this title here,
and we'll give it a drop shadow.
| | 00:08 |
And because the titles expresses a
symbol, the drop shadow rotates along
| | 00:12 |
with it, which is unusual.
And secondly, we'll break the link
| | 00:16 |
between the title and the symbol, so that
we can break the first cover title onto
| | 00:20 |
three lines.
So let me show you how that works.
| | 00:23 |
I'll go in and switch to our document in
progress here.
| | 00:26 |
Zoom out as well, and I want to start by
giving this title a drop shadow.
| | 00:30 |
So I'll just go ahead and double-click on
any one of the title symbols here, in
| | 00:34 |
order to enter the symbol isolation mode.
And then, I'll click on this title text
| | 00:40 |
in order to select it, and I'll go up to
the Effect menu, and I'll choose Stylize,
| | 00:43 |
and then I'll choose Drop Shadow.
Or, if you loaded D keys, I've given you
| | 00:48 |
a keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+Alt+E, or
Cmd+Option+E, for Effect, by the way.
| | 00:55 |
I've got the mode set to multiply,
opacity 50%.
| | 00:58 |
I want the x-offset and y-offset values
to be five points a piece.
| | 01:01 |
I'll set the blur to zero points, and
then I've got the color, by the way, if
| | 01:06 |
you're following along with me, set to C
50, M 100, Y 100, and K 50%.
| | 01:13 |
And the reason is, I want huge infusion
of red in this drop shadow so it matches
| | 01:17 |
the background.
All right, I'll go ahead and click Okay,
| | 01:20 |
and turn on the preview check box.
And you can see, it's going to look
| | 01:23 |
something like this.
And the reason I say something like that
| | 01:26 |
is because the drop shadow will look
exactly like this, but it's going to be
| | 01:29 |
set against a darker red background.
Right now, the background is dim.
| | 01:34 |
So I'll go ahead and click Okay.
So you have to use a little bit of
| | 01:37 |
imagination here.
And now that I've applied this effect,
| | 01:40 |
I'll go ahead and press the Esc key in
order to exit the symbol isolation mode.
| | 01:45 |
And notice, we now have a pretty decent
looking drop shadow.
| | 01:48 |
And all the other title text has drop
shadows as well.
| | 01:51 |
And notice, this is very important, that
the drop shadow has rotated along with
| | 01:55 |
the type on the spine.
Normally, if I weren't working with a
| | 01:58 |
symbol, that wouldn't happen.
If I were to grab my Type tool, which of
| | 02:01 |
course I can get by pressing the T key,
and then click on the word character here
| | 02:04 |
in order to adjust some settings.
I'll dial in Adobe Garamond, because
| | 02:09 |
that's what I'm working with, and I'll
set the type size to, let's say 48 points.
| | 02:14 |
And then I'll just go ahead and press
the Enter key in order to hide that
| | 02:17 |
panel, and I'll make sure that my color
is set to white.
| | 02:21 |
Now I'll go ahead and click inside the
Document window, and I'll just enter the
| | 02:24 |
word, word.
All right, well it didn't take my color,
| | 02:27 |
darn it, so I'll go ahead and switch back
to the black arrow tool, and change it to white.
| | 02:32 |
And I'll set the effect, I'll just go
ahead and choose the very first command
| | 02:35 |
from the effect menu, Apply Drop Shadow,
in order to apply that same drop shadow I
| | 02:38 |
applied before.
So you can see, it's going down and to
| | 02:42 |
the right.
If I were to grab my Rotate tool and
| | 02:45 |
double-click on it, and rotate the text
negative 90 degrees, the drop shadow
| | 02:49 |
stays down and to the right.
And notice, I don't have the option of
| | 02:54 |
rotating the effect here inside of
Illustrator.
| | 02:57 |
What I want, of course, I'll go ahead and
click Okay, is to have the drop shadow go
| | 03:00 |
down and to the left.
So normally, what I'd have to do is go to
| | 03:04 |
the Appearance panel, click on Drop
Shadow, and change the x-offset value to
| | 03:07 |
negative five.
Turn on the preview check box, and now it
| | 03:11 |
goes in the right direction.
So it's not the end of the world, but you
| | 03:14 |
can see, after my belabored discussion of
what could go wrong here, how symbols
| | 03:18 |
make things just naturally right.
All right, so I'll go ahead and switch back
| | 03:23 |
to the black arrow tool.
Press the Backspace key, or Delete key on
| | 03:26 |
a Mac, to get rid of that text I added.
Now, I look at this title on the front cover.
| | 03:32 |
I'll go ahead and zoom out a little bit,
and it just looks wrong.
| | 03:34 |
It doesn't take up nearly enough space,
and it shouldn't be on a single line, and
| | 03:37 |
we have all this head room.
And it looks great.
| | 03:40 |
A single line title looks great on the
spine, and it looks fine on the back cover.
| | 03:45 |
But it doesn't look right on the front
cover, which is what needs to look the
| | 03:48 |
most right on a book cover, after all.
So, I'll go and select this text.
| | 03:52 |
How do I edit it now that it's a symbol,
without affecting the other guys?
| | 03:56 |
Well, you break the link.
You make it a non-symbol.
| | 03:58 |
And you do that, and this is fairly
awkward, in my opinion, but here's how it works.
| | 04:02 |
Bring up the Symbols panel, and click on
this little icon right there, Break Link,
| | 04:06 |
or, up in the Control panel, even more
conveniently, you have a Break Link button.
| | 04:12 |
I just want you to notice that they're
both there.
| | 04:14 |
Click on either, and you've broken the
link.
| | 04:16 |
It's no longer a symbol anymore.
It is now editable type.
| | 04:20 |
Problem is, notice how it has a little
red underline?
| | 04:22 |
That's because, if I switch back to the
Layers panel, you'll see that things
| | 04:26 |
start off blue, but then they suddenly
turn red.
| | 04:30 |
If I go ahead and target this item, book
title, you can see that it's a layer.
| | 04:34 |
And what happens then is that Illustrator
colors everything underneath according to
| | 04:38 |
that sublayer color, even though they're
not part of that sublayer.
| | 04:43 |
Anyway, I'm going to twirl this guy open,
so that I can grab this text, which is
| | 04:46 |
what I want, drag it out of the sublayer,
because I don't need the sublayer.
| | 04:51 |
Grab the sublayer, throw it in the trash.
Everything remains kind of reddish,
| | 04:55 |
because Illustrator doesn't keep track of
things very well.
| | 04:58 |
Go ahead and twirl the cover layer
closed, twirl it back open, and you can
| | 05:01 |
see that everything's back to normal.
So, it's just a little bit of
| | 05:05 |
housekeeping, if that kind of thing bugs
you, which obviously, it does me.
| | 05:09 |
That's how you take care of it.
All right, I'll press the T key to switch
| | 05:12 |
back to the Type tool, and I'll go ahead
and break this text onto three
| | 05:15 |
independent lines.
And I'll grab it, and I'll drag it
| | 05:18 |
upward, and that's the effect that I'm
looking for.
| | 05:21 |
Except for one thing, I want to go ahead
and change the type size here to 72 points.
| | 05:26 |
And that is the effect I'm looking for.
All right, now it seems to me that the
| | 05:30 |
other drop shadows are a little too big,
the ones that are associated with the symbols.
| | 05:35 |
That is, they're too far away from the
text, so I'm going to go ahead and double
| | 05:38 |
click on one of these symbols, in order
to once again enter the symbol isolation mode.
| | 05:44 |
Click on the text to select it now, and
then I'll switch back to the Appearance panel.
| | 05:48 |
Click on the drop shadow.
And I'll take both the x-offset value and
| | 05:52 |
the y-offset value down to 3.33 points.
Because that's what it should be, in
| | 05:59 |
order to match the new text, which is 72
points versus 48 points.
| | 06:03 |
And I'll turn on the preview check box,
and to me this looks better.
| | 06:07 |
Now I'll click Okay, and I'll go ahead
and press the Esc key in order to apply
| | 06:10 |
my modifications to the spine, as well.
So there you have it, a couple of
| | 06:15 |
advanced symbol modifications.
Namely, we added an effect to a symbol.
| | 06:20 |
Which means that it'll rotate and scale
along with the text, in this case.
| | 06:25 |
And we broke the link so that we could
edit the first cover text independently
| | 06:29 |
of the spine and the back cover here
inside Illustrator.
| | 06:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
35. Gradient MeshShading objects with Gradient Mesh| 00:00 |
In this chapter, we'll take a look at one
of the most impressive features in all of
| | 00:04 |
illustrator, and it goes by the name
Gradient Mesh.
| | 00:08 |
And it allows you to add shadows and
highlights inside of a single path outline.
| | 00:13 |
So that you can make it appear contoured
and volumetric and just plain real.
| | 00:18 |
Now, you could think of a gradient mesh
as a kind of net that you cast around a
| | 00:21 |
path outline, and at the intersection of
any two ropes in that net, is an anchor point.
| | 00:28 |
And you can not only move the anchor
point around, but you can also assign it
| | 00:31 |
a color, and then Illustrator, creates a
series of miniature gradients, between
| | 00:35 |
all the pairs of colorful points.
And as a result, we can take these flat
| | 00:41 |
path outlines and turn them into this
dramatic dimensional final piece of art.
| | 00:47 |
I cannot wait to show you how gradient
mesh works.
| | 00:50 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a gradient mesh| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
create a gradient mesh.
| | 00:03 |
So here's the final version of the
peppers that we're going to create, just
| | 00:06 |
so you can see them on screen.
And if I click on this forward path
| | 00:09 |
outline, you can see the mesh, wherein
every single point represents a unique color.
| | 00:15 |
I'll go ahead and switch over to our base
document here.
| | 00:18 |
And if you turn on the base paths layer,
you'll see that I've gone ahead and draw
| | 00:22 |
nine paths in advance, mostly with the
pen tool.
| | 00:26 |
And then, if you turn that one off, and
turn on mesh peppers, you'll see that
| | 00:29 |
I've already assigned gradient meshes to
the right hand pepper.
| | 00:33 |
Because otherwise, we'd end up with a lot
of duplication of information, we are
| | 00:36 |
going to assign gradient meshes to the
paths associated with the left hand
| | 00:39 |
pepper, which is going to be more than
enough work for us.
| | 00:44 |
All right, I'll go ahead and zoom in on the
peppers here, to 200% just so I can see
| | 00:48 |
them big on screen.
And I'll go scroll them up so I can see
| | 00:52 |
the entire path at a time.
And then finally, I'll select this
| | 00:56 |
forward path that we want to fill with
the gradient mesh.
| | 01:00 |
Now, there's three ways to create a
gradient mesh in Illustrator, and I'll be
| | 01:03 |
demonstrating all of them.
And I just want you to know up front, if
| | 01:07 |
you only have a gradient assigned to your
object, then you can convert it to a
| | 01:10 |
gradient mesh by going up to the Object
menu, and choosing the Expand command.
| | 01:16 |
So that's one way to work.
Another way is to drop down here to the
| | 01:20 |
mesh tool, which has a keyboard shortcut
of U, and then you can just click
| | 01:23 |
somewhere on the outline of the path in
order to add a perpendicular line to your mesh.
| | 01:30 |
And so, I could add a series of lines if
I wanted to, and then, after that, you
| | 01:34 |
can click on one of these existing lines,
add a perpendicular line to it.
| | 01:40 |
So, I'm basically divvying up this object
into a series of rows and columns.
| | 01:45 |
All right.
I'll press Ctrl Z, or Cmd Z on the Mac as
| | 01:47 |
many times as it takes to get back to the
original object so we can see the third
| | 01:50 |
way to create a gradient mesh, which is
possibly the most obvious as well.
| | 01:55 |
You go up to the Object menu, and you
choose Create Gradient Mesh, and that
| | 01:59 |
brings up this dialog box right here.
Now, you want to turn on the Preview
| | 02:02 |
check box so you can see what you're
doing.
| | 02:04 |
By default, Illustrator wants to divide
your object into four rows and four
| | 02:08 |
columns, so that is to say three row
lines, and 3 column lines as well.
| | 02:14 |
I'm going to go ahead and take those
values up to 6 each, and notice you can
| | 02:17 |
nudge these values from the keyboard by
pressing the up and down arrow keys.
| | 02:23 |
And you can go as high as you want.
For example, now we're seeing 9 columns.
| | 02:28 |
The problem with this configuration Is
that every single column is the same
| | 02:31 |
width, and when representing a volumetric
object, you really want more column lines
| | 02:35 |
around the outside, so that you have more
control over those highlights as they
| | 02:39 |
decline away.
So I'm going to take the columns value
| | 02:45 |
down to 6, and manually add and delete
rows and columns inside the next movie.
| | 02:50 |
Notice that by default appearance is set
to flat that means nothing is going on
| | 02:54 |
with the coloring.
Every single one of the points is the
| | 02:57 |
exact same color as you used to fill the
object in the first place.
| | 03:02 |
Alternatively, you can add a highlight
either in the center like so, or you can
| | 03:06 |
add it around the outer edge.
I'm going to set this guide to center and
| | 03:10 |
then I'm going to take the highlight
value down from 100%, which is going to
| | 03:14 |
be white, down to let's say 65%, which
will give me some highlight in the center
| | 03:17 |
but not as much as I had before, and then
I'll click Okay in order to accept that effect.
| | 03:25 |
Now you may notice if you press Ctrl H or
Cmd H on a Mac that we've lost our stroke
| | 03:29 |
and actually we've lost both the fill and
the stroke.
| | 03:34 |
Strange as that sounds.
In order to see waht I mean, switch over
| | 03:36 |
to the appearance panel, which you can
also get to by choosing appearance from
| | 03:39 |
the window menu.
And notice that we've got a mesh with
| | 03:42 |
mesh points, but we don't have any fill
or stroke attributes.
| | 03:46 |
To regain the stroke, drop down to the
Add New Stroke icon in the bottom left
| | 03:49 |
corner of the appearance panel and click
on it, and notice that adds a stroke as
| | 03:53 |
well as a none fill, which you could go
ahead and change if you wanted to do.
| | 03:59 |
I could change that guy say to blue, and
that's going to end up covering up my
| | 04:02 |
mesh points, unless I were to drag it
down to below the mesh points, in which
| | 04:05 |
case the mesh points would cover it up.
So in other words, we don't need that fill.
| | 04:11 |
It's not doing us any good, so I'll just
go ahead and switch it back to none
| | 04:14 |
regardless of its placement in the stack.
And that folks, is how you create a new
| | 04:19 |
gradient mesh here inside Illustrator.
| | 04:22 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding and deleting lines with the Mesh tool| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
manually assign rows and columns to a
| | 00:03 |
gradient mesh, so that you have as much
control over the process as possible.
| | 00:09 |
As I was saying in a previous movie, I
want to specifically add more column
| | 00:12 |
lines around the outer edges of the shape
as this volumetric object is declining
| | 00:17 |
away from us.
And you do that using the mesh tool.
| | 00:21 |
So go ahead and select the mesh tool,
either by clicking on this icon, or
| | 00:24 |
pressing the U key.
Next to add a new column line you want to
| | 00:28 |
click on an existing row line because you
always end up adding a line perpendicular
| | 00:32 |
to the one that you click on.
So I'll go ahead and click right there in
| | 00:36 |
order to add this kind of column tour and
then I'll go ahead and click over here in
| | 00:40 |
order to add a column line at that
location and I want to add another one
| | 00:43 |
right here.
Now, if you need more row lines, then you
| | 00:48 |
click on an existing column line.
For example, I'm going to create a new
| | 00:52 |
row line right about there and one up
here as well.
| | 00:56 |
Now, at some point, you may want to move
an existing line around.
| | 00:59 |
For example, I want this column line to
be farther over to the left.
| | 01:03 |
Now armed with the Mesh tool you can drag
points around, and with a great deal of
| | 01:06 |
control too.
Notice that I can drag this point right
| | 01:09 |
here, and if you press the shift key as
you drag, then you drag the column, in
| | 01:13 |
this case, along the existing row.
So the row's not affected, or if I were
| | 01:18 |
to drag up and down I could drag the row
and leave the column uneffected which is
| | 01:22 |
very useful.
Problem is in this to my way of thinking
| | 01:26 |
is just nuts.
You can't select multiple points at a time.
| | 01:29 |
You can with wide arrow tool if you press
the a key to switch to the wide arrow
| | 01:33 |
tool and then shift click on a bunch of
point like so.
| | 01:37 |
You can end up selecting the entire
column, as you see me doing right now.
| | 01:41 |
However, the problem is, there's no way
to constrain your drag, so you don't mess
| | 01:44 |
up all the row lines.
Which is what I'm looking to do.
| | 01:49 |
And if I were to undo that move.
Press the u key to switch back to the
| | 01:52 |
mesh tool.
And now drag these guys while pressing
| | 01:55 |
the Shift key.
You you can see that Illustrator goes
| | 01:57 |
ahead, and deselects all those points.
So the point of my diatribe is this.
| | 02:02 |
It's easier if you want to move an
existing line to just delete it and then
| | 02:05 |
click where you want it to be.
So delete the bad line, add a new good line.
| | 02:11 |
And to delete a line, what you do is you
press the Alt key while using the Mesh
| | 02:14 |
tool and then notice if you click on a
point, you're going to delete both the
| | 02:18 |
column and the row that were associated
With that point.
| | 02:23 |
I don't want that to happen, so I'll
press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Mac.
| | 02:27 |
Instead what you do is press the Alt key
or the Option key on the Mac, and click
| | 02:30 |
on an existing line segment like so.
And that'll just go ahead and delete that
| | 02:35 |
entire column.
Now I'll create a new column right here,
| | 02:38 |
by clicking on that point on the row
line.
| | 02:42 |
Now I want to delete this column line as
well, so press the Alt key or the Option
| | 02:45 |
key on a Mac and click on it, and then
I'll click right here to create a new
| | 02:48 |
column line.
So basically what I'm doing is moving
| | 02:52 |
these columns around.
I also want to move this row line right
| | 02:56 |
here so I'll press the Alt key or the
Option key on a Mac And click on a line
| | 02:59 |
segment associated with that row, and
then I'll click on the column line right
| | 03:02 |
about here, to add a new row like so.
All right now I want to adjust the contour
| | 03:09 |
of these two rows right here so that they
decline around this sort of spherical
| | 03:12 |
area of the pepper here.
And so I'll go ahead and drag this line
| | 03:17 |
while pressing the shift key, and that
will constrain the edge so it doesn't get
| | 03:20 |
all messed up And I'll drag this guy down
a little bit while pressing the Shift key
| | 03:23 |
as well.
Notice that these points right here are
| | 03:28 |
sort of double smooth points, that is to
say, in all they have four control
| | 03:32 |
handles, two of which at any given time
are symmetrical to each other.
| | 03:37 |
So if I drag this control handle down,
The opposite one raises up, but I don't
| | 03:41 |
affect the top and bottom handles.
If I wanted to affect all four handles at
| | 03:45 |
the same time, when using the mesh tool,
then I would press the Shift key while
| | 03:49 |
dragging any one of these control handles
around.
| | 03:53 |
I also want to drag this guy up, so I'll
just go ahead and drag the control handle
| | 03:56 |
upward like so, and I might need to drag
this guy up a little bit as well.
| | 04:02 |
Then I'll take this point, and I'll
Shift-drag it to this location right here.
| | 04:06 |
Shift-drag this one a little bit down as
well, go ahead and adjust this control
| | 04:10 |
handle as well as this one, in order to
create this final effect here.
| | 04:16 |
And that's how you both add and delete
rows and columns inside of a gradient
| | 04:20 |
mesh, as well as adjust the positions of
specific anchor points and control handles.
| | 04:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assigning colors to mesh points| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
assign colors to the various points
| | 00:03 |
inside of a gradient mesh, both using the
eyedropper tool, which has the advantage
| | 00:07 |
of permitting you to lift colors from the
actual tracing template, as well as
| | 00:10 |
manually, by dialing in numerical values
here inside the color panel.
| | 00:16 |
Now you can see I have this photograph
layer in the background, which contains
| | 00:20 |
the tracing template, as indicated by
this little picture icon in the eyeball
| | 00:23 |
column, which means I can see the
template either in the preview mode or in
| | 00:27 |
the outline mode.
Now, because the pepper is covering up
| | 00:31 |
the template I'll switch to the outline
mode by pressing Ctrl Y or Cmd Y on a Mac.
| | 00:36 |
And then, I'll press the A key in order
to switch to the wide arrow tool, and
| | 00:40 |
I'll go ahead and click on one of the
anchor points inside the pepper.
| | 00:45 |
And just to make things as obvious as
possible, because this point is already a
| | 00:48 |
shade of red, and the change if I were to
lift a color from the pepper, would be
| | 00:52 |
pretty modest.
I'll go ahead and press the I key to
| | 00:56 |
switch to the eye dropper tool, and I'll
click inside the stem instead.
| | 01:00 |
And that goes ahead and lifts a color
from the template.
| | 01:04 |
And it doesn't lift the dimmed color that
we're seeing on screen.
| | 01:07 |
It lifts the actual color of that pixel
that I clicked on.
| | 01:11 |
And to confirm that the change has
happened, you can press Ctrl Y or Cmd Y
| | 01:14 |
again and you'll see that the anchor
point has turned green.
| | 01:18 |
Now, that's not the color we're looking
for, so I'll go ahead and press Ctrl Y or
| | 01:21 |
Cmd Y again, and I'll just go ahead and
click right there on that anchor point,
| | 01:25 |
and that will lift the color, not of the
anchor point because the point really
| | 01:28 |
doesn't have any color because we're
working inside the outline mode.
| | 01:34 |
Instead, I'm lifting the color from the
template.
| | 01:37 |
And then, I'll Ctrl click or Cmd click on
this anchor point, the fact that I have
| | 01:40 |
the Ctrl or Cmd key down allows me to
switch to the wide arrow tool, and then
| | 01:43 |
I'll release the key and click on this
point right here in order to lift its color.
| | 01:49 |
And in order to make a bigger change,
I'll go ahead and Ctrl click, or Cmd
| | 01:52 |
click on this anchor point, and I'll
click here in order to lift its light
| | 01:56 |
color, and so forth.
So you can work that way if you want to.
| | 02:01 |
But just for the sake of expediency,
I've played around with this pepper
| | 02:04 |
shape, here.
And I've come up with some very specific
| | 02:07 |
color values in advance.
And to see what those are, I'll go ahead
| | 02:11 |
and switch over to Photoshop.
And you can see, for those of you who
| | 02:14 |
have access to the exercise files, I've
created this intense diagram file that
| | 02:18 |
you can open in Photoshop.
And it's showing all of the color values
| | 02:23 |
associated with each and every point in
the mesh.
| | 02:26 |
Now, notice, for all points, the hues
value's set to zero degrees.
| | 02:30 |
And that's the way I prefer to work.
The illustration in progress happens to
| | 02:34 |
be an RGB file, but it could just as
easily by CMYK.
| | 02:37 |
In either case, it's easier to edit the
colors using HSB values, just because
| | 02:41 |
that way, you can lock down the hue, and
work from there.
| | 02:45 |
And so each of these number pairs here
show the saturation on top and the
| | 02:48 |
brightness value on the bottom.
Now, I've color-coded these because I
| | 02:53 |
tended to use a lot of the same color
values, as you can see right here.
| | 02:57 |
We've got 50 85.
So 50 for saturation, and 85 for
| | 03:01 |
brightness, all around the top points and
around the right hand side as well.
| | 03:06 |
Then over here on the left hand edge,
and along some of the top points as well,
| | 03:10 |
I've used a pairing of saturation 35 and
brightness 85.
| | 03:14 |
I've got a bunch of 85, 65s that you can
see in pink right here.
| | 03:19 |
And then toward the bottom, I have a
bunch of 75 70s, both along the bottom
| | 03:22 |
edge and along some of these columns as
well.
| | 03:26 |
That leaves us with just these dozen
white points, an even 12, which have
| | 03:29 |
unique values as you can see here.
So let's go ahead and apply them.
| | 03:34 |
I'll switch back to Illustrator, and I'll
select the points.
| | 03:37 |
Now this is going to take a little bit of
effort, so I'm going to press Ctrl Y or
| | 03:40 |
Cmd Y on the Mac, in order to switch back
to the preview mode, and I'll press the A
| | 03:44 |
key to get my wide arrow tool.
And I'll go ahead and marquee these top
| | 03:49 |
points like so to select them, and it's
important by the way, to press Ctrl K or
| | 03:52 |
Cmd K on a Mac if you want to be able to
work this way, then you need to go to
| | 03:55 |
selection and anchor display right here
and turn on this top check box object
| | 03:59 |
selection by path only.
That way you can drag through a path as I
| | 04:05 |
just did without moving it.
I'll go head and click the Cancel button
| | 04:09 |
because my check box was already on.
Now, I've selected a bunch of shapes in
| | 04:12 |
the background as well.
That's not what I want, so I'll go ahead
| | 04:16 |
and twirl open this mesh peppers layer
right here and I'll drag down, notice
| | 04:20 |
that the top object is the mesh.
Everything below it needs to be locked down.
| | 04:25 |
So I'll just go ahead and drag down the
Lock column, all the way down to this
| | 04:28 |
first circular red path so that we're
just accepting the mesh object, and
| | 04:31 |
nothing more.
All right, now, I'll go ahead and Shift
| | 04:35 |
drag around these anchor points, these as
well.
| | 04:39 |
It's just easier to marquee them than to
select them, oftentimes.
| | 04:43 |
And I want to select all the way down to
this bottom point right here.
| | 04:48 |
The square points, you want to leave
alone, because they don't have any colors
| | 04:51 |
assigned to them, they're basically
purposeless points which Illustrator
| | 04:53 |
throws in automatically every so once in
a while.
| | 04:57 |
All right, now I also want to select this
point right there and these two points as well.
| | 05:02 |
So, I'm Shift clicking on them of course
to add them to the selection.
| | 05:05 |
And then, there's this point right there.
That I want to select.
| | 05:09 |
So those are the points right there along
the top along the right hand edge, and
| | 05:11 |
the ones that I just Shift clicked on.
And notice that they have different
| | 05:15 |
values associated with them, so our RGB
values are blank.
| | 05:19 |
I'm going to switch over however to HSB
which isn't going to work, so I better
| | 05:23 |
dial in some sort of color.
I'll just click on some red down here, in
| | 05:27 |
order to get things going.
And then I'll switch over to HSB.
| | 05:32 |
And I'm looking for a hue value of zero
degrees, of course.
| | 05:34 |
We always want zero.
And then I'm going to take the saturation
| | 05:37 |
value up to 50 and the brightness value
up to 85.
| | 05:42 |
And the idea here is that in pairing
relatively low saturation values with
| | 05:45 |
relatively high brightness values because
if you crank the brightness value too
| | 05:49 |
high and you also pair it with a high
saturation value, you'll end up getting
| | 05:52 |
extremely hot colors, whereas if you go
with low saturation values, and low
| | 05:56 |
brightness values as well, you end up
with these dingy colors.
| | 06:02 |
So, you want low brightness with high
saturation, like so, or in our case,
| | 06:06 |
relatively low saturation with a
relatively high brightness value.
| | 06:12 |
Now, I'm dialing in values of exactly 50%
and 85%.
| | 06:15 |
Illustrator is changing the values on me,
because it's trying to find the closest
| | 06:19 |
RGB equivalents.
All right, so there you have a couple of
| | 06:23 |
ways to assign colors to points inside of
a gradient mesh, both using the
| | 06:26 |
eyedropper tool and by manually dialing
in values here, inside the Color panel.
| | 06:31 |
In the next movie we will assign the
remaining colors.
| | 06:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Finessing colors to add depth and shading| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll finesse the colors
of our anchor points.
| | 00:03 |
In order to take this gradient that we
have so far, which isn't bad, if I press
| | 00:07 |
Ctrl+ H or CMD+H on the Mac to hide the
mesh, you can see that we have created a
| | 00:10 |
custom gradient unlike anything that we
could achieve using the standard gradient tool.
| | 00:18 |
But we want to turn it into this much
better more dynamic gradient right here,
| | 00:22 |
that really shows off the volume of the
pepper.
| | 00:26 |
Now those of you who have access to the
exercise files, remember that I'm
| | 00:29 |
providing you with this diagram that
shows you the combination of saturation
| | 00:33 |
and brightness values that I'm assigning
at every single anchor point.
| | 00:38 |
And the color coding indicates points
where I'm repeating color values.
| | 00:42 |
Just in the name of expediency.
All right, so I'll switch back to
| | 00:45 |
Illustrator, then I'll press Ctrl+H or
Cmd+H on a Mac, in order to bring back
| | 00:48 |
the anchor points.
With my white arrow tool, I'll marquee
| | 00:52 |
these anchor points right there, in order
to select them all.
| | 00:56 |
I don't want this guy though, so I'll
shift click on him to deselect him.
| | 01:00 |
And then, I'll marquee these points as
well, as you see me doing here.
| | 01:04 |
Not this guy, I don't want him because
he's not a colorful point.
| | 01:07 |
The color points are circular by the way.
The non-circular point, that little
| | 01:11 |
square point right there, I don't want
him either so I won't marquee him.
| | 01:15 |
Those are the non-color-bearing points
that, insofar as I can figure out over
| | 01:19 |
time, don't really do anything.
They're just something that Illustrator
| | 01:23 |
requires to keep track of stuff.
And then I'll go ahead and assign some
| | 01:26 |
arbitrary color from this little HSB
spectrum down here at the bottom of the
| | 01:29 |
color panel.
And actually, I need two more points,
| | 01:32 |
these guys right here.
So I'll Shift-click on each one of them.
| | 01:36 |
Reassign the color.
That way, I just have some place to start.
| | 01:39 |
And I'll dial in a hue value of 0
degrees, and then I'll take the
| | 01:42 |
saturation value down to 35% this time.
And I'll take the brightness value up to 85%.
| | 01:48 |
And that gives us this nice glow of
highlight around the outer edge of the pepper.
| | 01:52 |
And I've got these two guys.
I'll go and click this one and
| | 01:55 |
Shift-click this one.
They need to be that same color that we
| | 01:58 |
assigned in the previous movie.
So, I'll dial in the hue values 0
| | 02:01 |
degrees, I'll change the saturation value
to 50% and I'll change the brightness
| | 02:05 |
value to 85%, in order to brighten up
those points.
| | 02:10 |
Now we want to assign some slightly
darker colors down here at the bottom of
| | 02:13 |
the peppers, so I'll go ahead and marque
these points right there, and then shift
| | 02:16 |
marque these without the little square
point, Shift marquee those as well.
| | 02:21 |
And then I'll go ahead and select this
point actually is the one I'm looking for.
| | 02:26 |
As well as these two here.
So I'll go ahead and Shift marquee them.
| | 02:30 |
And I want these two points as well, so I
still have the shift key down while I'm
| | 02:33 |
marquee them.
And this one and this one as well.
| | 02:38 |
And again I just came up with these
through trial and error.
| | 02:41 |
Go and Shift-click on this anchor point.
And I'll change the hue value to 0, and
| | 02:45 |
this time I'll take the saturation value
up to 75, and I'll take the brightness
| | 02:49 |
value down to 70.
So we have some darker colors at these locations.
| | 02:54 |
And now I'm going to go darker still,
with a handful of points along the top of
| | 02:58 |
the shape, so I'll go ahead and marquee
this guy, I'll Shift marquee this one as well.
| | 03:04 |
I need this guy selected, and this guy,
so I'm going pretty far down in this next
| | 03:08 |
to last column.
And I'll go ahead and select this point.
| | 03:13 |
And then I'm just going to Shift-click on
a few guys of these guys right here need
| | 03:16 |
to be selected.
Shift marquee around all these anchor
| | 03:19 |
points right there.
Shift marquee around these two as well as
| | 03:23 |
these two.
And then, let's go ahead and go down the
| | 03:27 |
left side of the pepper a little bit, and
then I'll Shift-click at this point as well.
| | 03:32 |
I think I want these two selected.
There's a lot of anchor points going on
| | 03:36 |
here, folks.
By the way, if you're having problems
| | 03:39 |
keeping up with me, if you're trying to
follow along.
| | 03:41 |
Just know that you can totally do your
own thing where this artwork is concerned.
| | 03:46 |
I'll go ahead and change the hue value,
this time to 0, of course always.
| | 03:49 |
And then I'll take the saturation value
up to 85% and I'll take the brightness
| | 03:53 |
value down to 65%, in order to create
this area of darkness that you see here.
| | 04:00 |
All right so, that should just leave us
with the dozen anchor points that go
| | 04:02 |
their own way.
So I'll go click on this guy and
| | 04:04 |
Shift-click on this guy.
These two, fortunately want to be the
| | 04:07 |
same color.
They already are, but they want to be a
| | 04:10 |
different one.
I'll take the saturation value down to
| | 04:13 |
50% and I'll take the brightness value to
70% like so, so that we have this area
| | 04:17 |
sort of low saturation darkness going on.
And then, I'll marquee these two points,
| | 04:23 |
and we want them to be very highly
saturated.
| | 04:26 |
Change the hue value to 0.
I'll take the saturation value up to 100%
| | 04:30 |
and the brightness value down 60%.
I'll select these two guys by marqueeing
| | 04:35 |
around them.
Hue value again 0 of course.
| | 04:37 |
Saturation value 90% this time and a
brightness value of 70%.
| | 04:42 |
This guy wants to darken up as well, so
I'll select it.
| | 04:45 |
And change it's saturation value to 90%
once again, but this time I'm taking the
| | 04:48 |
brightness value down to 60.
All right.
| | 04:52 |
Now click on this point right there in
the second to last column and I'll
| | 04:55 |
Shift-click on this anchor point and then
I'll dial in the hue value to 0 degrees.
| | 05:01 |
Getting pretty tedious by now, but we're
going to have a beautiful pepper by the
| | 05:03 |
time we're done.
Take the saturation to 60% and the
| | 05:07 |
brightness value up to 75%.
And now we have just three anchor points
| | 05:11 |
to go.
These three right here in a row.
| | 05:14 |
So, I'll select these two for starters,
and I'll change the hue value.
| | 05:18 |
Big surprise here, 0 degrees.
And then I'll change the saturation, 45%,
| | 05:22 |
and I'll take the brightness value up to
90%, like so.
| | 05:27 |
It's a little too bright for this guy I
think, so I'll click off of him and click
| | 05:30 |
back on him in order to select him and
then I'll take the brightness value for
| | 05:34 |
it down to 85% and then I'll go ahead and
select this guy.
| | 05:39 |
I want to dim thing up because we have a
highlight here and a highlight here that
| | 05:42 |
are divided by a darker region.
I'll go ahead and change the hue value
| | 05:46 |
for this last anchor point to 0 degrees
and then I'll change the saturation to
| | 05:49 |
65%, and I'll set the brightness to 85%
to produce this effect here.
| | 05:55 |
And now, if you press Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on
a Mac.
| | 05:58 |
You can see that we've got a beautifully
sculpted volumetric pepper.
| | 06:02 |
Thanks to our ability to set colors on a
point by point basis, inside of a
| | 06:07 |
gradient mesh.
| | 06:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a gradient with the Mesh tool| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
create a gradient mesh using the Mesh
| | 00:03 |
tool, and in doing so will add some
highlights and shadows to the shape in
| | 00:06 |
the background here.
That represents some of the lumps
| | 00:10 |
associated with the pepper.
So first thing I'm going to do is twirl
| | 00:14 |
open this mesh peppers layer and I'll
lock down the forward mesh because we
| | 00:17 |
don't want to modify it any further.
And I'll unlock this path outline that
| | 00:22 |
looks like some lumpy mouse ears by
clicking on its lock icon to turn it off.
| | 00:27 |
And then I'll go ahead and select a shape
using the black arrow tool.
| | 00:31 |
Now, we're only interested in the visible
parts of this shape.
| | 00:34 |
So, there's no reason to assign a
highlight to the central area.
| | 00:38 |
So we might as well just lay down,
exclusively, those rows and columns that
| | 00:42 |
we need.
And that's where the mesh tool comes in.
| | 00:45 |
So I'll go ahead and switch over to the
mesh tool and then I'll click on the
| | 00:48 |
outline of the shape right about here to
set a first row.
| | 00:52 |
So if you click on a mostly vertical
segment in the path outline, you'll
| | 00:55 |
create a row as I've done here.
If you click on a mostly horizontal
| | 00:59 |
region like right about there, then
you'll create a column.
| | 01:04 |
And I'll create another one here right at
the intersection of these two shapes,
| | 01:06 |
which is why it's so important to have
this forward shape locked down, because
| | 01:09 |
otherwise, it would have just switched
over to it, and added a real line to it
| | 01:12 |
instead, which would have messed things
up, of course.
| | 01:16 |
So, I'll go ahead and add a line about
there, and that's going to create this
| | 01:19 |
line, this is the real line I'm
interested in, becacause we're just
| | 01:22 |
focused on a visible portion of the
shape.
| | 01:26 |
And I'll click right about there.
Make sure not to click on existing points.
| | 01:30 |
Because if you do that, then Illustrator
thinks you want to modify the point like so.
| | 01:34 |
So instead, you want to click on a
segment in order to add a real line.
| | 01:37 |
Somehow I managed to add some color as
well.
| | 01:40 |
I'm not sure why that is.
So, I'll press control z, or command c on
| | 01:42 |
the Mac, to undo that change.
And I'll try clicking overe here instead.
| | 01:47 |
And that adds the top line that I'm
interested in.
| | 01:49 |
I want another line just right below it.
So, I'll click right about there to add it.
| | 01:54 |
And then we need some lines up here, but
we've got these points in the way and I
| | 01:56 |
can't click here because that will give
us a column line as apposed a row line.
| | 02:00 |
So let's add a few more column lines
first by clicking right about there in
| | 02:03 |
order to add a point and that added some
color as well, which is a little bit
| | 02:06 |
bewildering, not sure exactly why this is
happening, so press Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on the
| | 02:10 |
Mac to undo that change and I'll try
clicking here instead and I'm still
| | 02:12 |
adding a little bounce of color.
I guess I added a white point at this
| | 02:19 |
location because my foreground color is
white.
| | 02:23 |
So what I'm going to do is take a moment
to change the color by pressing the Eye
| | 02:25 |
key to get my eyedropper.
Then I'll just click and some obviously
| | 02:29 |
red portion of the shape like so to
switch the foreground color to red.
| | 02:33 |
So it stops adding those highlights,
which apparently is done in a few
| | 02:35 |
locations because we have a little
highlight drift right there.
| | 02:38 |
But we'll resolve that later.
I'll go ahead and press U key to switch
| | 02:41 |
back to the mesh tool, and I'll click
here in order to set a column and here as
| | 02:45 |
well to set another one.
And then I'll click up near the top of
| | 02:49 |
this column line right about there to add
a row line near the top of the shape, and
| | 02:52 |
I'll add another one right about there.
Now if you think better of one of your
| | 02:57 |
lines, you don't like it, like this one's
slightly off, then just press the Alt key
| | 03:00 |
or the Option key on a Mac and click a
segment In order to get rid of in this
| | 03:03 |
case that row line.
And I'll click right there in order to
| | 03:08 |
add a new one.
All right just couple of others I need
| | 03:11 |
another column line right about there
because I want to create a highlight at
| | 03:13 |
that location and then I want to create
some shadow right at that location so
| | 03:16 |
I'll add another column line.
All right.
| | 03:20 |
Now, let's modify a few colors.
I'll press the A key in order to switch
| | 03:23 |
to the line arrow tool.
And then I'll go ahead and zoom in on my path.
| | 03:26 |
And I'll marquee those two points.
I'll shift marquee this guy.
| | 03:30 |
Go ahead and shift click on a few points
like so.
| | 03:33 |
Watchout for the square points you don't
want to select those and I"m not sure if
| | 03:35 |
that's what that is or not.
It is that is a square point thats on its
| | 03:39 |
side looking like a little diamond.
That's not going to communicate color so
| | 03:42 |
we don't want it and I'll go ahead and
Shift click on these two points as well
| | 03:45 |
to selec tthem.
And then I'll zoom out a little bit and
| | 03:49 |
I'll press the I key to get the
eyedropper, and I'll click, as opposed to
| | 03:52 |
lifting a color from the template, I'll
just click inside the forward gradient
| | 03:55 |
mesh in order to bring up some color from
it, and then I'll switch over to the HSB sliders.
| | 04:02 |
You sometimes have to do that repeatedly
becasue if you deselect a shape and then
| | 04:05 |
reselect it, then Illustrator will
automatically switch back to RGB because
| | 04:08 |
this is an RGB document.
And I'll go ahead and crank the
| | 04:12 |
brightness up to 100 for this, and I'll
take the saturation value down to say,
| | 04:16 |
40, it should work out pretty nicely.
And then I want to add some highlight
| | 04:21 |
here too, so I'll go ahead and press the
Ctrl key or the Cmd key on the Mac, to
| | 04:24 |
temporarily get the wide arrow tool, and
then I'll Ctrl+Shift+Click or
| | 04:27 |
Cmd+Shift+Click on this point to select
it and I'll once again lift a highlight
| | 04:31 |
color like so And I might actually make
this even more intensely bright so we
| | 04:34 |
could have kind of a pop going, at this
location.
| | 04:40 |
In which case, might revisit these two
anchor points.
| | 04:43 |
We're sort of making this up on the fly
by the way.
| | 04:45 |
And I'll go ahead, and increase the
saturation and decrease the brightness a little.
| | 04:50 |
So we have something resembling some,
volumetric roundness there.
| | 04:54 |
All right, now I'm going to zoom out a
little bit, and I'll go ahead and press
| | 04:57 |
the Control key or the Command key on a
Mac, and click on this anchor point,
| | 05:00 |
shift-click on this one, shift-click on
this one as well to select them.
| | 05:06 |
Let's go ahead and lift a bright color by
clicking with the eyedropper someplace
| | 05:09 |
inside a bright portion of the pepper.
Take out the brightness value, take down
| | 05:14 |
the saturation value like so And at a
point you may notice, oh wait, I lost my stroke.
| | 05:19 |
I need to get my stroke back.
Well what you don't want to do is switch
| | 05:22 |
over to the appearance panel and apply a
stroke for a mesh point.
| | 05:26 |
Because a, that's impossible.
Notice the icon is dimmed down there in
| | 05:29 |
the bottom left corner.
But also if you try to select a stroke,
| | 05:32 |
it just won't apply.
Because you can't stroke independent
| | 05:35 |
anchor points.
So what you do instead is you press the V
| | 05:37 |
key to switch to the black air tool.
Then I'll click somewhere on the outline
| | 05:41 |
of the shape to select the entire thing.
And then I'll drop down to the lower left
| | 05:44 |
corner of the appearance panel and click
on the add new stroke icon in order to
| | 05:47 |
add a default 1 point stroke which is
exactly what I'm looking for.
| | 05:52 |
All right now I'll press the 8 key to
switch back to the wide arrow tool and
| | 05:56 |
I'll click on some of these points and
maybe shift marquee as well along the
| | 06:00 |
left side of the shape like so.
And I want to add some highlights to
| | 06:05 |
these areas too, so I'll press the I key
to get my eyedropper, click in the
| | 06:08 |
highlight in the front pepper shape in
order to select it, switch over to my fill.
| | 06:13 |
Notice that my stroke is active because I
just added a stroke from the Appearance panel.
| | 06:17 |
And increase the brightness, then I'll
take down the saturation value.
| | 06:21 |
Just some rough changes that I'm applying
here.
| | 06:24 |
Then I'll go ahead and Control click on
this point, that'd be Command click on
| | 06:28 |
the Mack, in order to select it, it'll
Control Shift click.
| | 06:33 |
On this anchor point right there, which I
believe is already bright.
| | 06:36 |
But want to make sure both of these have
a little brightness associated with them,
| | 06:40 |
so I'll go ahead and click with the eye
dropper in some bright region here inside
| | 06:43 |
the forward pepper shape.
All right, now let's go ahead and Add some
| | 06:49 |
Shadow, specifically to these Points
right there.
| | 06:53 |
Going Control Click on one, that's
Command Click on a Mac, Control Shift or
| | 06:56 |
Command Shift Click on the other and
then, instead of using the Eye Dropper.
| | 07:00 |
I'll just go ahead and reduce the
brightness to something pretty darn dark
| | 07:04 |
like that, and then I'll crank up the
saturation to 100%.
| | 07:08 |
It might be a little too dark, so well,
actually that looks pretty good.
| | 07:11 |
I just don't want it getting too black.
And then I'll go ahead and Ctrl+click and
| | 07:15 |
Ctrl+shift+click on these two points,
that's Cmd+click, Cmd+shift+click on a
| | 07:18 |
Mac, crank up the saturation, crank down
the brightness Maybe not quite that much.
| | 07:24 |
To about there looks pretty darn good.
And then I'll press CTRL H, or CMD H on
| | 07:28 |
the Mac, so I can check out my work, and
that looks pretty darn good.
| | 07:32 |
I think we'll need some additional
highlight right here in this location, so
| | 07:35 |
I'll press CTRL H, or CMD H on the Mac,
in order to bring back my anchor points,
| | 07:39 |
that is, so I can see them, and I'll just
press the A key in order to get the Wide
| | 07:42 |
Arrow tool.
And I think the points I want, gets a
| | 07:47 |
little confusing after a while.
I'll go ahead and click on this guy and
| | 07:51 |
shift-click on these two because I
believe they're going up this edge here.
| | 07:55 |
And I might select these two points as
well.
| | 07:58 |
Let's see how that goes.
And I'll take the saturation down, and
| | 08:01 |
I'll increase the brightness fairly
significantly as we're seeing here.
| | 08:06 |
In order to create that bright highlight
edge at this location.
| | 08:10 |
All right, let's go and zoom out.
Press Control H, or Command H on the Mac
| | 08:13 |
to gauge the quality of your work.
looks pretty darn good to me.
| | 08:17 |
Very likely your results will vary.
But in any event, that's how you go
| | 08:21 |
about constructing a custom gradient
mesh.
| | 08:23 |
Right from the get go using the Mesh
tool.
| | 08:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Wrapping gradients around circles| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to add a
gradient mesh to a circle, two circles in fact.
| | 00:05 |
And the reason is, because circles are
about the easiest way to understand
| | 00:08 |
what's going on with gradient mesh.
Because if you select one of these
| | 00:13 |
circles in the background in the final
piece of art, you'll see that we end up
| | 00:16 |
with these latitude lines which are the
rows as well these longitude lines, the
| | 00:19 |
columns, traced around the surface of the
globe.
| | 00:24 |
I'll go ahead and switch over to my
illustration in progress.
| | 00:27 |
Twirl open the mesh peppers layer, and
then scroll down the list, and go ahead
| | 00:30 |
and lock down that last path that we
edited, and then unlock both of the
| | 00:33 |
circles below it.
And we'll start by selecting the rearmost
| | 00:37 |
circle here.
And then, you want to press the U key, to
| | 00:40 |
get the Mesh tool and click right in the
center if you like, in order to add a
| | 00:43 |
straight column line right down the
middle of the circle.
| | 00:49 |
And then click a little over to the left
of that.
| | 00:51 |
And this one has some bend associated
with it.
| | 00:53 |
Because it's starting to wrap around the
globe.
| | 00:56 |
And then I'll click right about there in
order to add another longitudinal column line.
| | 01:01 |
And then you want to click right about
there and a little farther down such as,
| | 01:05 |
bout here I think in order to add a
couple of curving latitude lines.
| | 01:11 |
If this were a globe, we're just focusing
our attention on the North Pole because
| | 01:14 |
after all that's the only part of the
circle that we can see.
| | 01:18 |
Now I'll press the A key in order to
switch to the Wide Arrow tool.
| | 01:22 |
And I'll go ahead and click and
shift-click on these anchor points, and
| | 01:24 |
by the way, if you ever have problems
selecting one, then just go ahead and
| | 01:27 |
zoom in farther.
Then notice my stroke is active, so I'll
| | 01:31 |
switch over to the fill, and I've got my
HSB values up onscreen, which is great.
| | 01:35 |
I'm just going to dial in some values
here.
| | 01:37 |
I'm going to take the saturation value
down to 35%, and I'm going to take the
| | 01:40 |
brightness value up to 100%, so we have
quite a bit of highlight.
| | 01:44 |
Then I'll go ahead and select these three
points here.
| | 01:47 |
And I'll take the brightness value down,
we don't want to go too low with it, but
| | 01:51 |
maybe something in a range of 63% looks
pretty good.
| | 01:56 |
And I'll go ahead and take the saturation
up a little bit as well.
| | 01:59 |
All right, now let's grab this guy by
pressing the V key to switch to the Black
| | 02:01 |
Arrow tool.
Go ahead and click on it to select it.
| | 02:04 |
And then I'll press the U key to switch
to the Mesh tool.
| | 02:07 |
And I'll click just a little bit left of
the center point in order to create a
| | 02:10 |
column line there.
And I'll create another one at this
| | 02:14 |
location and a third one right about
there.
| | 02:18 |
And then I'll drop down a little bit and
click here in order to add a latitude
| | 02:22 |
line, then probably right about there in
order to add another one.
| | 02:26 |
All right now I"ll press the A key to
switch back to the White Arrow tool and
| | 02:29 |
I'll go ahead and select these four
anchor points like so that make up this
| | 02:33 |
second row line.
And I'll take the saturation value down
| | 02:37 |
to, what the heck, 34% that's fine.
And I'll take the brightness value up to
| | 02:41 |
100% in order to produce this effect
here.
| | 02:44 |
Then I'll go ahead and select these two
anchor points, and I'll take the
| | 02:48 |
brightness value down quite a bit
actually, something like 55% should work
| | 02:51 |
pretty well.
And then I'll take the saturation value
| | 02:55 |
up to about 93, let's say.
And now I need to reinstate my strokes so
| | 02:59 |
I'll press the V key to switch back to my
Black Arrow tool.
| | 03:03 |
Click on one of these guys.
Shift click on the other one to select
| | 03:05 |
both of them.
Switch over to the appearance panel, and
| | 03:08 |
drop down to the Add New Stroke icon and
click on it or you can press a keyboard
| | 03:12 |
shortcut Ctrl Alt Slash, or Cmd Option
Slash on the Mac in order to reinstate
| | 03:15 |
those strokes.
And we end up with this effect here.
| | 03:20 |
I'll go ahead and zoom out in order to
check things out here, and it looks to me
| | 03:24 |
like I've got some lighter strokes than I
should.
| | 03:28 |
Some weak blacks for some reason, which
is weird because I'm working in the RGB mode.
| | 03:32 |
I'll just go ahead and marquee.
Oops, I've got some locked shapes.
| | 03:35 |
I'll switch over to the layers panel.
Unlock the top mesh, and then unlock the
| | 03:39 |
red mesh below it.
And go and ahead and try marqueeing these
| | 03:42 |
guys again in order to select them all.
And then I'll make sure my stroke is
| | 03:46 |
active, which it is.
And I'll just switch back to RGB here in
| | 03:49 |
the color panel.
And I'll click on black in order to set black.
| | 03:54 |
I don't know what that was about.
But now we have zero for each of our RGB
| | 03:57 |
values, which is essential if we want our
blacks to actually be black.
| | 04:02 |
So that's how you apply gradient mesh to
circles, inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:05 |
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
assign a gradient mesh to an object that
| | 04:09 |
curves like this, which as you'll see,
presents us with a special challenge.
| | 04:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with slender, bending shapes| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to work
with the gradient mesh inside of a
| | 00:03 |
slender, bending shape.
Because here's the deal, gradient mesh
| | 00:07 |
works beautifully inside of a circle.
It also works really well inside these
| | 00:11 |
gently curving sort of blobby forms that
make up the red pepper shapes.
| | 00:16 |
But once we have a path outline that
curves around onto itself like this That
| | 00:20 |
presents special challenges.
After all, we have to prepared for what
| | 00:24 |
begins as a column line going up the stem
is going to have to curve around to
| | 00:28 |
become a roll line that has column lines
tracing across it.
| | 00:32 |
And that's the point at which things get
pretty weird.
| | 00:36 |
So, what you want is a high degree of
patience and a willingness to modify the
| | 00:39 |
mass using the light arrow tool.
So, I'm going to go ahead and zoom in on
| | 00:44 |
the stem and twirl open the mesh
(UNKNOWN) layer go ahead and lock that
| | 00:47 |
top red mesh, unlock the stem and then
lock the other three red shapes as well,
| | 00:50 |
just to keep them out of the way.
And then I'll click on the stem to select
| | 00:56 |
it with the black arrow tool.
Next, I'll go ahead and select the mesh
| | 01:00 |
tool, which of course you can get by
pressing the U key.
| | 01:03 |
Now I want to create a total of seven
column lines, at least they start out as
| | 01:06 |
column lines, by clicking right about
here, in order to create that line that
| | 01:09 |
jumps sort of right there into the corner
and then it goes outside the shape for a
| | 01:12 |
moment and then it kind of ends right
there.
| | 01:17 |
Sort of an unusual location, but it will
serve us well and then, I'll click here
| | 01:21 |
to add another column line.
We want one right about here, and we want
| | 01:26 |
one here a little bit in right about
there as well.
| | 01:30 |
And we want three more, altogether, I'm
going to click right about there in order
| | 01:35 |
to create a column.
And then we want 1 about here, and
| | 01:39 |
another one farther in, right about at
this location if I can get it.
| | 01:43 |
And if you can't, then what you want to
do is zoom, because at this point, if you
| | 01:46 |
see the white arrow cursor with the
little grid next to it, that means that
| | 01:49 |
Illustrator presumes that you're
modifying control handles or anchor points.
| | 01:55 |
You need to see the plus sign if you're
going to add either a column line or a row.
| | 02:01 |
And one at about that location is
going to work great.
| | 02:03 |
So we have a total of seven of those.
And notice that they loop up to various
| | 02:07 |
locations at the top of the shape.
And they bend around to become row lines
| | 02:11 |
at a point, and they overlap into each
other.
| | 02:14 |
Which is the special weird challenge that
I was telling you about.
| | 02:18 |
Anyway, we'll take care of that in time.
Now I'm going to click over here in order
| | 02:22 |
to create a row at this location.
And then we want one, pretty much dead
| | 02:26 |
center right about there, and we want one
a little farther down, like so.
| | 02:31 |
And we're going to need to apply some
modifications, because these guys are a mess.
| | 02:36 |
So, I'll start things off by dragging
some of these points upward, and Ill do
| | 02:39 |
so by pressing the Shift key as I drag
with the Mesh tool in order to move these
| | 02:43 |
row lines along the column lines, so that
we're not modifying the column lines, and
| | 02:47 |
I want to take this guy up as well by
shift dragging.
| | 02:52 |
I know I've said this before, but I wish
you could modify multiple points at the
| | 02:55 |
same time.
But it's one by one where this tool's concerned.
| | 02:59 |
Now I'll take these guys up a little bit
as well.
| | 03:02 |
So they're more or less centered across
the length of this top portion of the stem.
| | 03:08 |
And take it up here, and then we want to
do something similar with this anchor point.
| | 03:14 |
want to take it up a little bit.
And take this one up as well.
| | 03:17 |
And they just basically all need to be
inside of the path outline instead of
| | 03:21 |
looping outside of it there.
And they don't have to be utterly and
| | 03:24 |
completely Smooth, in fact, that's
impossible.
| | 03:27 |
As witnessed, if I press the A key, to
switch to the wide arrow tool, and I'll
| | 03:31 |
go ahead and click here and I'll drag
these guys over a little bit.
| | 03:36 |
I might even just, modify this point, the
location of the point that is, manually
| | 03:39 |
I'll go ahead and drag these guys over
and I want to drag this guy too, and so
| | 03:43 |
far it looks like everybody's just a
straight forward smooth pointer and I'm
| | 03:46 |
not seeing any weird lockstep action.
But you may, you may see that the control
| | 03:53 |
handles are I lockstep with each other
but they may not be locked into absolute alignment.
| | 03:58 |
They may be locked into, a sort of corner
pattern, which there's not really too
| | 04:02 |
much you can do about.
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and drag
| | 04:05 |
this guy over here, and drag these guys.
There all in such good shape, maybe this
| | 04:09 |
guy is a problem.
He is, this is what I was talking about.
| | 04:12 |
I'll go ahead and zoom in on it so you
can see.
| | 04:14 |
Notice how we've got a little bit of a
bend here and the bend keeps on.
| | 04:18 |
We don't have two independent control
handles, we have two that are locked into
| | 04:22 |
this sort of bad orientation here.
And if you want to change that, you might
| | 04:27 |
be able to get away with trying out the
convert anchor point tool.
| | 04:31 |
Which you can get by pressing shift + C,
and I'll go ahead and drag, but notice
| | 04:34 |
what happens here.
I can't even really tell you actually I
| | 04:38 |
do know what's happening.
We've got a bend going this direction up
| | 04:42 |
and over (LAUGH) into some very elastic
territory there, which doesn't make
| | 04:47 |
really any sense.
Because that control handle down there
| | 04:51 |
isn't quite that long.
But anyway, and then we've got this other
| | 04:54 |
stuff going on right there.
So apparently we're not going to make
| | 04:58 |
things work.
I'll just go ahead and press Ctrl + Z or
| | 05:00 |
Cmd + Z on the mac, I'll go ahead and
press the a key to switch back to the
| | 05:03 |
wide narrow tool.
And it might move these guys around or
| | 05:06 |
maybe not, maybe I want that lump left in
there.
| | 05:09 |
Maybe that will lend a little volume to
the stem.
| | 05:12 |
Actually I'll drag that guy up as well,
so you can get as molecular as you like
| | 05:15 |
where this stuff is concerned.
All right, now I need to apply a few
| | 05:19 |
changes to the colors.
So I'll go ahead and click and shift
| | 05:22 |
click on these anchor points right there,
going all the way to this location.
| | 05:27 |
And then I'll switch up here in the color
panel to HSB.
| | 05:30 |
Notice, that everybody's by default set
to 75 degrees and 65 65.
| | 05:34 |
I'm going to go ahead and change the
saturation value in this case to 40%, and
| | 05:38 |
I'll raise the brightness value to 90% in
order to produce this highlight here.
| | 05:44 |
And then I'll go ahead and select this
row of points all the way to this
| | 05:47 |
location And I'll take the saturation
value this time up to 84%, I just played
| | 05:52 |
around with some values here, and I'll
take the brightness value down to 53%,
| | 05:56 |
and then I'll select these guys.
So, just a bunch of painstaking color modifications.
| | 06:04 |
As usual, you can go your own way with
this stuff, but I'm going to select these
| | 06:08 |
points all the way over to here, this
point I can barely see on screen In thin
| | 06:11 |
time, I'm just going to modify the
brightness value.
| | 06:15 |
I'll go ahead and take it down to, right,
it's 60% right there.
| | 06:19 |
All right, now let's check out the bottom
of the shape.
| | 06:21 |
I need to add a few row lines into place.
So, I'll once again press the U key in
| | 06:25 |
order to switch to the Mesh tool and I'll
click right about there in order to add a
| | 06:29 |
row, and I'll click up here to add
another row as well.
| | 06:35 |
And then I'll press the A key to switch
back to my white arrow tool because I
| | 06:38 |
want to make some changes to the colors
and I'll go ahead and select these two
| | 06:41 |
anchor points right there as well.
This guy, actually a third and I want the
| | 06:47 |
U value to be 75 degrees as usual.
And then I'll take the saturation value
| | 06:53 |
down to 32% and the brightness value up
to 92% and then I'll select these points
| | 06:57 |
those two right there as well as these
two anchor points over here on the left
| | 07:01 |
hand side.
I'll set the hue value to 75 degrees.
| | 07:07 |
I'll take the Saturation Value all the
way up to 100% and I'll take the
| | 07:10 |
Brightness Value down to 28% in order to
Create these richly saturated but very
| | 07:14 |
dark patches that you see here.
Right now I'll Select these points right here.
| | 07:21 |
Right in the central column.
And change the hue value to 75 degrees.
| | 07:26 |
The saturation value should be 86%, and
I'm going to take the brightness value
| | 07:30 |
down to 33%.
To produce that region of darkness, let's
| | 07:33 |
go ahead and select these three anchor
points.
| | 07:36 |
We're almost done, by the way.
Change the hue to 75 degrees as usual,
| | 07:39 |
change the saturation to 65%, and the
brightness to 43%.
| | 07:45 |
And then I'm going to go ahead and grab
these three points.
| | 07:47 |
This is the last, incidentally, and Hue
value I've got a reinstate 75 degrees.
| | 07:52 |
And then change the Saturation to 83%
this time, and I'll take the Brightness
| | 07:57 |
value down to 48%.
And we end up getting this effect here.
| | 08:02 |
So I'll go ahead and press Ctrl-H, or
Cmd-H on a Mac, so we can see that we're
| | 08:04 |
almost done, but we forgot about the
strokes.
| | 08:07 |
So I'll press the V key.
In order to swtich to the black arrow tool.
| | 08:10 |
Go ahead and reinstate the edges by
pressing control h, or command h again.
| | 08:15 |
Switch over to the appearence panel after
clicking on the shape and then add a new stroke.
| | 08:20 |
And of course, let's change that stroke
to real black by clicking on a little
| | 08:23 |
black swatch, here inside the color panel
which will reduce the brightness value to 0%.
| | 08:29 |
We don't care about the other values.
All right, and we end up with this effect
| | 08:32 |
right here.
But we do have a problem.
| | 08:35 |
Even after all that work, notice these
hard jagged transitions.
| | 08:39 |
And that's a function of the way that
these various column lines are
| | 08:42 |
overlapping each other.
And I'll show you how to deal with that
| | 08:45 |
issues, in the very next movie.
| | 08:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating soft and sharp transitions| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
soften transitions inside of a very
| | 00:03 |
complicated gradient mesh pattern.
And I'll also show you how to sharpen
| | 00:07 |
transitions, in case that's what you
want to do.
| | 00:10 |
Now in our case, the reason things are so
weird.
| | 00:14 |
I'll just click off the shape here for a
moment so I can show you.
| | 00:17 |
Notice that we have these little slivers
of color.
| | 00:20 |
And that's the function of the fact that
the various call lines are overlapping
| | 00:23 |
each other in an unfortunate way.
So, this guy that starts is the third to
| | 00:29 |
last column line ends up overlapping the
last two and then going back to its
| | 00:33 |
proper location and then the second to
last line tucks in between the other two
| | 00:37 |
and then the very last one goes ahead and
travels all the way up above the other
| | 00:42 |
two and a little bit to the left.
So, we need to take care of that problem,
| | 00:49 |
and there's a couple ways to do that.
One, of course, is to switch to the wide
| | 00:53 |
arrow tool by pressing the A key, and
I'll click on an anchor point here in
| | 00:55 |
order to select it independently of the
other ones.
| | 00:59 |
And then I'll go ahead and drag this guy
down like so in order to bring it out, so
| | 01:03 |
that even though it exceeds the confines
of the shape, it no longer overlaps the
| | 01:07 |
other two column lines.
And then I'll grab the next guy in which
| | 01:12 |
I missed, so I'll have to click on the
path outline again to select it, then
| | 01:15 |
I'll select this anchor point right
there, and I'll go ahead and bring it
| | 01:18 |
down as well.
Now, you can give yourself even more
| | 01:23 |
control, if you want to, by adding an
anchor point.
| | 01:26 |
And you can do that by switching over
here from the last pen-like tool that I
| | 01:30 |
used, which was the convert anchor point
tool.
| | 01:33 |
You don't switch to the Pen tool which
allows you to add points to ordinary segments.
| | 01:38 |
Instead you have to select the add anchor
point tool which you can get by pressing
| | 01:41 |
the Plus key.
And then you would just click on a
| | 01:44 |
segment at some location.
And notice that selects all the anchor points.
| | 01:48 |
So you have to press the A key to switch
back to the wide arrow tool and click on
| | 01:51 |
an anchor point to select it.
Now, I'll click on this one to select it independently.
| | 01:56 |
It's not a color-bearing point, so you
can't assign a color to it here inside
| | 01:59 |
the color panel.
It says it's white, but it's really not
| | 02:01 |
any color whatsoever.
But you can use it to redirect the paths,
| | 02:05 |
so I could move it down like so, and then
I could lift up on this control handle
| | 02:08 |
and theoretically, that would help, but
it's actually not really producing any effect.
| | 02:14 |
So I'll go ahead and drag this guy up a
little bit instead, and it looks like
| | 02:18 |
that's going to more or less do the trick
for now, although I might want to go
| | 02:21 |
ahead and select the final column line,
and move it down a little bit, that is,
| | 02:25 |
bring its control handle in.
And then I'll click on this guy which is
| | 02:32 |
the third inside and I'll go ahead and
move it up like so, and then I need to
| | 02:35 |
take it down where the top control handle
is concerned, or at least in or something.
| | 02:43 |
Maybe I'll add another anchor point by
pressing the Plus key, to get my add
| | 02:45 |
point tool.
And I'll just click at this location,
| | 02:48 |
switch to the white arrow tool, click on
that anchor point to select it
| | 02:50 |
independently of the others.
And just drag that guy upward a little bit.
| | 02:56 |
All right, so that should have the effect
of softening things.
| | 02:59 |
We are definitely getting softer
transitions as you can see here, with a
| | 03:02 |
little bit of sharpness at various
locations, but that's actually okay.
| | 03:05 |
I like that sharp transition right there.
It looks stem-like to me.
| | 03:10 |
All right, so I'll press Ctrl H or Cmd H on
the Mac in order to bring back the points
| | 03:13 |
and handles and then I'll click on this
anchor point and I think I went too far
| | 03:17 |
with that modification, so switch back to
the HSB sliders, which is something you
| | 03:20 |
have to do on a fairly regular basis,
unfortunately, and then I'll take the
| | 03:23 |
saturation value down to 84% and I'll
raise the brightness to 53% and that will
| | 03:27 |
just take some of the darkness out of
this region.
| | 03:34 |
All right, now let's say having modified
all this stuff and softened the
| | 03:38 |
transitions, you want a sharp transition
elsewhere inside the gradient.
| | 03:44 |
Well then, the trick is to add another
row or column or what have you, and then
| | 03:48 |
move the points together or even, if
you're feeling daring, overlap the points.
| | 03:55 |
So what I'm going to do is press the U
key to once again switch to the mesh tool.
| | 03:59 |
And I'm going to add a row right here
that cuts pretty close to the last row.
| | 04:05 |
And then I'll press the A key in order to
switch to my Wide Arrow tool.
| | 04:09 |
And I'll go ahead and select these three
anchor points right here, that you can
| | 04:13 |
see selected on screen, one, two, three.
And then I'll go ahead and modify their
| | 04:19 |
HSB values, and the reason I keep losing
the hue value, is because even though
| | 04:22 |
it's very close to 75 degrees for each
one of these points, when you add more
| | 04:25 |
points after you've modified colors, each
point ends up with an independent
| | 04:28 |
intermediate color that Illustrator
assigns automatically.
| | 04:34 |
And so, essentially all three points have
different colors associated with them,
| | 04:37 |
which wipes out the values.
Anyway, I'll change the saturation to 50%
| | 04:41 |
and the brightness to 70% so we have a
little bit of a light bounce right there.
| | 04:46 |
Now I'll just check these points to make
sure they're what I need them to be.
| | 04:50 |
And they almost are.
I'll go ahead and shift click on these
| | 04:53 |
two guys so that these three points are
selected.
| | 04:56 |
I have to change the hue value back to 75
degrees and I want a saturation value of
| | 05:00 |
60% along with a brightness value or 59
or so, that's fine.
| | 05:06 |
And now, I'll select these anchor points
right here starting with this one in the
| | 05:10 |
second to last row, as you can see, the
second to bottom row that is.
| | 05:14 |
And I'll go ahead and select I think a
total of one, two, three, four, five
| | 05:18 |
anchor points.
And I'll change the saturation value this
| | 05:22 |
time to 81, and I'll take the brightness
down to 44 in order to produce this
| | 05:26 |
shadow here.
And now, if you want to harshen the
| | 05:30 |
transition then you would just move the
anchor points together like so.
| | 05:35 |
And if you wanted to soften things up a
little bit you would move them back.
| | 05:39 |
I want things to pretty harsh right
there, so I'll press the U key to switch
| | 05:42 |
back to my mesh tool, and I'll Shift-drag
this anchor point to about this location
| | 05:46 |
so we have a nice sharp edge right there
at the top of the stem.
| | 05:52 |
All right, I'll go ahead and zoom back out
so that we can take in more of the
| | 05:55 |
artwork at a time.
Really, I just want to see the entire stem.
| | 05:59 |
And I'll go ahead and press Ctrl Shift A,
or Cmd Shift A on a Mac, in order to
| | 06:02 |
deselect the artwork.
And that is not only the finished stem,
| | 06:06 |
but that altogether takes care of our
pair of peppers.
| | 06:11 |
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
convert a traditional gradient to a
| | 06:14 |
gradient mesh.
| | 06:16 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting a linear gradient to a mesh| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
convert a linear gradient to a gradient mesh.
| | 00:05 |
And along the way, we'll go ahead and
convert a linear gradient that we have
| | 00:09 |
going in the background into this kind of
tabletop effect right here.
| | 00:14 |
So, I'll go ahead and switch over to my
illustration in progress, and then I'll
| | 00:17 |
press Ctrl+0, or Cmd+0 on the Mac, to
zoom out and I'll turn on this gradients layer.
| | 00:22 |
And you can see that it contains a
vertical linear gradient in the background.
| | 00:26 |
Now, you never know how gradients are
going to turn out when you convert then
| | 00:29 |
to gradient meshes, and so it's always a
good idea to keep a copy or your original
| | 00:33 |
gradients around just in case the
frustration factor becomes a little too great.
| | 00:38 |
So, I'll go ahead and grab that gradients
layer and drag it and drop it onto the
| | 00:42 |
little page icon to create a copy of it.
Then I'll turn off the original gradients
| | 00:46 |
layer very important, because otherwise
you'll be selecting the shapes in the background.
| | 00:51 |
Then double-click on the copied layer,
and let's go ahead and call this one mesh
| | 00:55 |
shadows, and I'll change the color to
grass green which will stand out nicely.
| | 01:00 |
All right now what we want to do is select
the rectangle here in the background, and
| | 01:03 |
it's the same size as the art board, and
notice that I'm selecting it with the
| | 01:07 |
black arrow tool.
Then you want to go up to the Object
| | 01:10 |
menu, and this time you don't choose
Create Gradient Mesh, because if you do
| | 01:13 |
that, you'll go ahead and lift your last
settings as you can see here, but you
| | 01:16 |
will replace all the existing colors
inside the gradient which is no good, so
| | 01:19 |
go ahead and press the Escape key if you
are following along with me.
| | 01:25 |
Then return to the Object menu and choose
the Expand command.
| | 01:28 |
And you have one of two options when
expanding a gradient.
| | 01:31 |
You can specify a number of steps.
And what's going to happen in this case
| | 01:34 |
is you're going to covert the gradient to
an object blend.
| | 01:37 |
What we want though is gradient mesh,
quite obviously.
| | 01:40 |
So go ahead and select it and then click
OK.
| | 01:43 |
Now what we should see here are at least
some row lines, but we're not seeing
| | 01:46 |
anything, and that's because if we take a
look at far left side of control panel
| | 01:49 |
you'll see the word group.
So this is one of those infamous
| | 01:54 |
occasions when Illustrators decide to
group everything which is a big problem.
| | 01:58 |
So go ahead in twirl open the mesh
shadows layer, notice we have a group
| | 02:01 |
right there, twirl it open, inside that
we have a clipping group.
| | 02:06 |
I'll twirl it open.
And what we're doing is we're clipping a
| | 02:09 |
rectangle inside of a rectangle.
Which is not the least bit necessary or desirable.
| | 02:14 |
So grab this guy, that's the mesh.
And if you were to meatball it, you'd see
| | 02:18 |
the word mesh on the far left side of the
control panel.
| | 02:22 |
Go ahead and grab it and drag it and drop
it out of the group, so that you see the
| | 02:25 |
mesh floating freely.
And you'll also see a couple of row lines.
| | 02:29 |
Turns out there's a couple of hidden ones
that we need to get rid of as well.
| | 02:33 |
And then, go ahead and meatball that
group, that contains really nothing of
| | 02:36 |
merit anymore, and then press the
Backspace key, or the Delete key on a Mac
| | 02:39 |
to get rid of it.
All right, now click on the mesh in order
| | 02:43 |
to select it, and I'm going to press the
Ctrl and Space Bar keys, that's Cmd and
| | 02:47 |
Space Bar on a Mac, and drag around this
bottom corner so that you can see that
| | 02:50 |
we've got an extra row line right there.
And we've got an extra row line at the
| | 02:56 |
top of the star and artwork as well.
So what you need to do to get rid of it,
| | 02:59 |
is just go ahead and get your White Arrow
tool, then select that point right there.
| | 03:05 |
Go ahead and zoom back up by pressing
Ctrl+0, or Cmd+0 on the Mac, and press
| | 03:08 |
Shift Up Arrow a few times to raise it.
Now press the U key in order to switch to
| | 03:13 |
the Mesh tool, and then press the Alt key
or the Option key on the Mac, and click
| | 03:16 |
on that row line to get rid of it.
All right, we need to do the same thing
| | 03:22 |
up here at the top, so Ctrl + spacebar
or Cmd + spacebar drag, around the top
| | 03:25 |
left corner of the art work.
Press the a key to switch to the White
| | 03:29 |
Arrow tool, click on that anchor point
right there to select it.
| | 03:32 |
Press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on a Mac to zoom
back out, press Shift down arrow a few
| | 03:36 |
times in order to scoot that line down.
Press the U key to switch back to the
| | 03:41 |
Mesh tool.
And then press the Alt key, or the Option
| | 03:44 |
key on a Mac, and click on that row line
to get rid of it.
| | 03:48 |
And now we have a clean gradient mesh
that we can actually work with.
| | 03:52 |
All right, now let's apply a few
modifications.
| | 03:54 |
I'll press the A key to switch back to my
White Arrow tool.
| | 03:56 |
I'll click on this upper right point, and
this top left point as well, to select
| | 04:00 |
both of them.
And I'm going to change their colors a
| | 04:03 |
little bit, using the HSB sliders.
Specifically, I'm going to increase the
| | 04:07 |
saturation value to 20%.
So you want both of those top anchor
| | 04:11 |
points to be selected.
Now, click this one, and Shift click on
| | 04:14 |
this guy here.
We're going to make a pretty big
| | 04:17 |
modification to it.
I'm going to change the hue value from 45
| | 04:19 |
degrees to 180 degrees.
So we're completely transforming that
| | 04:23 |
color there.
This row of colors just fine, but we need
| | 04:26 |
to Add another Row.
By Pressing the U Key to Switch to the
| | 04:30 |
Mesh tool, and I'll Click right about
there in order to (LAUGH) add an
| | 04:34 |
unfortunately sloping line.
To this location.
| | 04:39 |
All right.
I'll press the A key to switch to the
| | 04:40 |
White Arrow tool and then I'll go ahead
and select this guy.
| | 04:44 |
And what we want to do is make sure these
two line up, so I'll press Ctrl+R, Cmd+R
| | 04:47 |
in a Mac, in order to bring up my rulers.
And I'll drag a guideline to snap into
| | 04:52 |
alignment with this anchor point over
here.
| | 04:55 |
And then I'll go ahead grab this guy and
shift drag him up until it snaps into alignment.
| | 05:01 |
And I think we can, oh, well, I
accidentally selected the wrong object,
| | 05:04 |
so I'm just going to go ahead and lock
down that mesh peppers layer.
| | 05:08 |
And I'll click on this point once again
to select it, and I'm going to drag its
| | 05:12 |
control handle all the way in, just to
get rid of it.
| | 05:16 |
And I'll do the same thing over on this
side as well.
| | 05:19 |
So that we have a truly straight line.
All right now press Ctrl+R, Cmd+R on a Mac,
| | 05:23 |
followed by Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on a Mac in
order to recenter my artwork, and I'll
| | 05:27 |
also go up to the View menu.
And choose Guides, and then choose Clear
| | 05:32 |
Guides, in order to get rid of that
guideline.
| | 05:34 |
because I don't want it anymore.
We do still have a row at this location,
| | 05:37 |
it just have a little bit of screen
artifacting going on.
| | 05:41 |
I need to add a couple of columns.
So press the U key to switch to the mesh
| | 05:44 |
tool, and click about an inch, is that,
inwards from the left hand side, and I'll
| | 05:48 |
do the same over here on the right hand
side as well.
| | 05:53 |
In order to create two column lines at
those locations.
| | 05:56 |
And I don't want these new points to
have new colors, so I'll press the A key
| | 05:59 |
to switch to the White Arrow tool, and
I'll Shift click on this anchor point, so
| | 06:03 |
both of these are selected.
And they ought to be the color of this
| | 06:08 |
anchor point.
What is it?
| | 06:10 |
I have to look it up now.
I'll go ahead and select it and switch to HSB.
| | 06:14 |
190, 35 and change, 70, alright, fine.
So, 190, 35, and 70.
| | 06:19 |
Go ahead and select these two anchor
points again.
| | 06:22 |
And dial in those values if I can
remember them.
| | 06:26 |
190, 35, and 70, as I recall.
And that gives us a pretty good match.
| | 06:30 |
And then I'll go ahead and select this
entire row of points here.
| | 06:35 |
And I'll just click on white, to make
them white as you see.
| | 06:39 |
Then I'll shift click on these two anchor
points to deselect them.
| | 06:42 |
I'll go ahead and drag these guys down,
while pressing the Shift key, into about
| | 06:46 |
this location, pretty close to the bottom
of the artwork.
| | 06:50 |
And I want this edge to be straight,
instead of having this bell curve.
| | 06:53 |
So, I'll go ahead and drag this control
handle in.
| | 06:56 |
And I'll drag this control handle in as
well.
| | 06:59 |
You may get some wavering there.
And as you do so, go ahead and drag this
| | 07:02 |
guy in.
And here's my favorite (LAUGH) drag this
| | 07:05 |
control handle in and notice that we've
got this sort of wonky thing where the
| | 07:09 |
segment comes back out.
That's because if you click on that
| | 07:13 |
segment there, it's control handle's
going in entirely the wrong direction.
| | 07:17 |
So, we need to bring him home by just
dragging him in and letting it snap into
| | 07:21 |
alignment with that anchor point.
And now we get this wonderful tabletop
| | 07:26 |
effect in which we have this sort of
focus drift over here on the sides of the
| | 07:30 |
table, which I think works out really
nicely.
| | 07:35 |
So there you have it folks, one use at
least for converting a linear gradient
| | 07:39 |
into a gradient mesh, here inside
Illustrator.
| | 07:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting a radial gradient to a mesh| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
convert a pair of radial gradients to
| | 00:03 |
gradient meshes, so that we can turn
these elliptical gradients underneath the
| | 00:07 |
peppers into these more credible drop
shadows that you see in the final version
| | 00:10 |
of the art work.
Go and switch over to my illustration in
| | 00:16 |
progress and I'm going to marquee this
gradient right here to select it.
| | 00:20 |
And I just want to change this angle for
aesthetic reasons, so I'll press the R
| | 00:23 |
key to switch to the rotate tool.
Then just go ahead and drag down and to
| | 00:27 |
the left a little bit.
And then I'll press Shift + Right Arrow,
| | 00:31 |
I don't know three times in a row in
order to scoot that guy over.
| | 00:35 |
Maybe nudge it up a little bit as well.
All right, having done that I'm going to
| | 00:38 |
press the V key to switch to my black
arrow tool and I want you to see
| | 00:41 |
something about these gradients here.
If I select them both and then I press
| | 00:45 |
the G key in order to switch to the
gradient tool so that I can see the
| | 00:48 |
gradient annotator, notice that the
beginning of the gradients are off center.
| | 00:55 |
So they start left of center and continue
all the way to the edge as you see here
| | 00:58 |
in the case of both of those gradients.
And the reason that's important is
| | 01:02 |
because we're going to loose that
information.
| | 01:04 |
So when you convert a radial gradient to
a gradient mesh, it ends up being centered.
| | 01:08 |
So you might as well not do this kind of
stuff in the first place.
| | 01:11 |
All right.
I'll press the V key to switch back to
| | 01:13 |
the black arrow tool.
And then I'll go up to the Object menu
| | 01:16 |
and choose the Expand command.
And I'll make sure expand gradient fill
| | 01:20 |
is set to gradient mesh.
Obviously we're expanding the fill as well.
| | 01:23 |
And then click Okay in order to create
those gradient mesh objects.
| | 01:28 |
And notice at the beginning of the
gradients each one of them has shifted to
| | 01:31 |
the center of the ellipse.
But the elliptical shape of the gradients
| | 01:35 |
has been maintained.
So that's the good news.
| | 01:38 |
All right now we have the usual groups.
So notice the word group over here on the
| | 01:42 |
left side of the control panel.
So step one is to go up to the Object
| | 01:45 |
menu and choose the Ungroup command.
And then we end up with clipping groups.
| | 01:50 |
So return to the Object menu, drop down
to Clipping Mask and choose Release.
| | 01:55 |
And that will end up generating the
objects you see onscreen.
| | 01:58 |
Go ahead and twirl open the mesh shadows
layer and meatball that top empty path as
| | 02:01 |
well as the other empty path right there.
So go ahead and Shift Meatball it.
| | 02:07 |
And then press the Backspace key or the
Delete key on a Mac to get rid of those
| | 02:09 |
extraneous objects.
Now, notice here, that we have an opaque
| | 02:14 |
shadow, which is no good.
And the reasons that's happening is
| | 02:17 |
because, this is a kind of brownish to
white gradient that was previously set to
| | 02:21 |
the multiply and blend modes so that the
two shadows interacted with each other.
| | 02:26 |
And we've gotten rid of the blend mode,
now if I click on the word Opacity up
| | 02:29 |
here on the control panel, you can see
that it's returned to normal.
| | 02:33 |
Now I could just apply multiply to the
entire object, or I could do something
| | 02:37 |
more interesting which is to apply
opacity values to the specific control handles.
| | 02:43 |
And in order to pull that off, I'll press
the A key in order to switch to the white
| | 02:46 |
arrow tool.
Then I want you to notice something about
| | 02:49 |
radial gradients.
Notice that we've got what is this a row line?
| | 02:53 |
Because you always have row and column
lines when you're working with gradient meshes.
| | 02:57 |
But this row line ends up going all the
way around and reconnecting with itself.
| | 03:02 |
Well, no.
That's not the way things work with
| | 03:04 |
gradient meshes.
You don't reconnect.
| | 03:07 |
So, you've got a seam at some point.
And it's generally over here on the right
| | 03:12 |
hand side of the gradient as you're
seeing in this case.
| | 03:16 |
So, unless you want to create a Pac Man,
or something along those lines, then you
| | 03:19 |
don't want these seams coming apart, you
want the appearance to be one of continuity.
| | 03:25 |
So I'll press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on a Mac,
three times in a row, in order to
| | 03:28 |
reinstate things there.
And instead I'll go ahead and marquee
| | 03:32 |
what is actually four anchor points, two
pairs of coincident anchor points.
| | 03:38 |
And that ends up selecting the other
shadow in the background.
| | 03:40 |
So I'll just go ahead and lock it down
for now, in order to make sure it's out
| | 03:43 |
of the way.
And I also want to Shift marquee this two
| | 03:46 |
anchor points, as well as these down
here.
| | 03:49 |
And these guys as well.
And we want to change their colors from
| | 03:52 |
white to this brownish color.
So I'll press the I key in order to
| | 03:55 |
switch to the eyedropper.
And I'll click inside this central
| | 03:59 |
ellipse, in order to apply a flat color
to the entire gradient.
| | 04:04 |
Now, go up to the control panel, and
change the opacity value to 0%, in order
| | 04:09 |
to reduce the opacity of these control
handles.
| | 04:13 |
And you may say, well, this area, then,
is completely wasted.
| | 04:17 |
Well, that's true, but it's an area that
Illustrator created for me.
| | 04:21 |
It actually wasn't part of my original
ellipse.
| | 04:23 |
So it went ahead and added a concentric
ring farther outside of my original gradient.
| | 04:29 |
So, you know what I'm going to do, I'll
press the A key in order to switch to the
| | 04:32 |
white arrow tool.
And I'll go ahead and marquee these
| | 04:36 |
anchor points here and Shift marquee the
other ones, of course, and then I'll
| | 04:39 |
change the opacity value for these guys
to 10%, so that they're serving some kind
| | 04:43 |
of purpose where the mesh is concerned.
All right, now let's apply a few more modifications.
| | 04:50 |
I'm going to press the V key to switch to
the black arrow tool.
| | 04:53 |
Select this entire thing, and drag it so
it's a little better centered underneath
| | 04:57 |
the pepper.
And then I'll go ahead and zoom in on it.
| | 05:00 |
And I'll press the A key to switch back
to my white arrow tool.
| | 05:02 |
I'll click on this anchor point right
there to select it, and I'll drag it in,
| | 05:06 |
and what I want to do is simulate the
bottom of the pepper shape a little
| | 05:09 |
better, so that we're tracing around that
shape.
| | 05:14 |
Now, always bear in mind you've got two
coincident points over here, so you need
| | 05:17 |
to marquee them and move them together.
And then, edit these anchor points
| | 05:21 |
independently, because you don't really,
truly have a smooth point now.
| | 05:25 |
You've got two control handles that are
out of step with each other.
| | 05:29 |
And we can just move this guy up a little
bit as well.
| | 05:33 |
Now, what we're ending up doing is
bending the spoke lines right here.
| | 05:37 |
And we're really bending it in the case
of this one.
| | 05:40 |
Turns out we don't really need those
spoke lines.
| | 05:42 |
They're not really contributing anything
to the mix.
| | 05:44 |
So I'll press the U key to switch to the
mesh tool.
| | 05:48 |
And I'll press the Alt key, or the Option
key on a Mac, in order to get my minus cursor.
| | 05:53 |
And then I'll click on that line to
delete it, click on this one to delete
| | 05:56 |
it, and click on this one too.
You've got to leave these guys because
| | 06:00 |
they represent the seam.
But now notice if I switch back to my
| | 06:04 |
white arrow tool that I've lost my anchor
points.
| | 06:07 |
They totally disappeared.
So somehow, Illustrator is creating this
| | 06:10 |
blobby nebulous shape using just a
combination of two coincident anchor points.
| | 06:15 |
It's actually, fundamentally impossible.
Well, they're kind of there, they're just hidden.
| | 06:20 |
To find them again and remake them so
that you have control over your shape,
| | 06:23 |
switch from the pen tool here to the add
anchor point tool, which you can get by
| | 06:26 |
pressing the plus key.
Then you see the imaginary points, but
| | 06:31 |
you gotta add them back in by clicking on
them.
| | 06:33 |
So, click on this anchor point, then
click on this one, and then click on this one.
| | 06:39 |
And now, if you press the A key to switch
back to the white error tool, they are
| | 06:42 |
miraculously there.
And I'll go ahead and click off the shape
| | 06:45 |
and then re-click on it, and now I can
drag them around if I need to apply
| | 06:48 |
further modification.
Now I want to do these same things to the
| | 06:53 |
other shadow.
So, I'm going to lock down the one I'm
| | 06:55 |
working on, unlock the one that I haven't
modified yet.
| | 06:58 |
Press the V key in order to switch to the
black arrow tool.
| | 07:00 |
Use that little square below and to the
right of the cursor in order to find
| | 07:04 |
where the shape is.
Click on it to select it.
| | 07:08 |
And then let's go ahead and drag it over,
like so.
| | 07:11 |
And then I'll press the U key to switch
to the mesh tool, and I'll Alt click on
| | 07:15 |
every one of the spoke lines I don't
want, including this guy, this guy, and
| | 07:18 |
this guy.
That would be an option click on the mac,
| | 07:22 |
and we have to leave these two spoke
lines that represent the seam.
| | 07:26 |
Then I'll press the A key to switch back
to my wide-arrow tool.
| | 07:29 |
I'll click on the interior shape, oh
that's right, I lost my anchorpoint.
| | 07:32 |
So I have to press the plus key in order
to bring up the add anchor point tool and
| | 07:36 |
click on each one of these anchor points
to bring them back to life.
| | 07:40 |
Then press the A key to switch to my wide
arrow tool.
| | 07:43 |
Go ahead and drag these guys to new
locations like so, in order to better
| | 07:46 |
match the form of the pepper here.
And I might be going a little too far, so
| | 07:51 |
I'll grab these guys.
I've got to marquee them to select them
| | 07:55 |
both, and I'll drag this bottom control
handle outward like so.
| | 07:59 |
And I'll drag this upper control handle a
little bit farther up.
| | 08:03 |
And I'll go ahead and move this guy to a
better location.
| | 08:06 |
And I might bring this control handle
back like so.
| | 08:11 |
So we end up with this kind of weird
blobby shape here.
| | 08:13 |
All right, now you want to go ahead and
marquee these sets of anchor points.
| | 08:18 |
Press the I key to bring up the
eyedropper.
| | 08:21 |
Click inside the shape in order to lift
that color, which isn't right at all actually.
| | 08:28 |
What is the color of these points?
I'll go ahead and click on one.
| | 08:31 |
So that I can see.
That doesn't convey the color.
| | 08:34 |
These guys, right there, convey the
color.
| | 08:36 |
And so, if I switch my HSB Vales.
They are 5, 65, and 50.
| | 08:42 |
All right, so I'll go and marquee these
ones.
| | 08:44 |
5, 65, and 50.
I will dial in for these.
| | 08:47 |
I'm not sure why that got lifted wrong.
And then, I'll change to opacity of those
| | 08:52 |
points to 0%, like so, and I'll marquee
these guys and I'll change them to 10%.
| | 08:59 |
So they're making a similar contribution
to the effect we're seeing in the
| | 09:02 |
left-hand shadow.
And that, folks, is how you go about
| | 09:06 |
converting radial gradients to gradient
mesh objects that you can modify on a
| | 09:11 |
molecular basis, here inside Illustrator.
| | 09:15 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using gradients to cast shadows| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to take
our expanded radial gradients and turn
| | 00:03 |
them into more credible cast shadows.
As in the case of this final version of
| | 00:08 |
the artwork.
All right, so here's my illustration in progress.
| | 00:12 |
I'm going to twirl open the Mesh Shadows
layer, and I'm going to unlock the
| | 00:15 |
left-hand shadow so that I can gain
access to both of them.
| | 00:19 |
And I'll go ahead and meatball, and shift
meatball the two meshes, just because
| | 00:23 |
that's the easier way to work.
It's very difficult to marquee the two objects.
| | 00:28 |
Now, the first thing I want to do, I'll
go ahead and zoom in here, is change the
| | 00:31 |
color, because I don't think this
brownish color quite makes sense.
| | 00:36 |
And I can do that to both of the objects
at the same time, by modifying the HSB
| | 00:39 |
values here inside the Color panel.
So, I'll change the Hue Value to 15
| | 00:43 |
degrees, which makes the shadows a little
more yellow.
| | 00:47 |
If we go any further the map, then it
start looking kind of greenish by
| | 00:51 |
contrast to the very red highly saturated
peppers.
| | 00:56 |
Then I'll take the Saturation Value down
to 50% and I'll reduce the brightness to
| | 01:00 |
35% in order to produce what looks to me
to be a more organic color for the shadow.
| | 01:06 |
All right, now I'll go ahead and shift
meatball at the bottom of the two meshes
| | 01:10 |
here inside the Layers panel to turn it
off.
| | 01:14 |
And I might as well lock it as well just
so I can work on the left-hand mesh independently.
| | 01:19 |
Now, I need to essentially reduce the
size of the shadow a little bit, reduce
| | 01:22 |
its footprint.
And I'm going to do that by pressing the
| | 01:26 |
U key to get the Mesh tool, and I'm going
to click inward, like so, in order to
| | 01:29 |
create a smaller shape.
And it again, has no anchor points, just
| | 01:33 |
these too coincident ones.
But you can modify the shape just using
| | 01:37 |
these two control handles here, by
pressing the a key to get the Wide Arrow tool.
| | 01:42 |
And notice now, that this one control
handle has an amazing effect on this
| | 01:45 |
shape here, that could just flop it all
over the place here.
| | 01:49 |
So, I'll go ahead and drag this guy
inward a little bit and then I'll drag
| | 01:52 |
this guy downward as well.
It's the only case, anywhere in
| | 01:56 |
Illustrator (LAUGH) where these two
control handles represent this shape
| | 02:00 |
right there.
It's just amazing.
| | 02:03 |
Anyway, I'm going to marquee these two
anchor points and I'm going to take the
| | 02:06 |
Opacity value down to 95%.
In order to reduce the opacity of this
| | 02:11 |
shadow just an inkling.
Then I'll marquee these two anchor
| | 02:14 |
points and I'll take their Opacity value,
this is going to make a bigger
| | 02:17 |
difference, down to 75% in order to
produce this effect here.
| | 02:22 |
Now, we want to shadow the cast in that
direction.
| | 02:25 |
And so, I'll marquee these two pair of
coincident anchor points, and then I'll
| | 02:30 |
drag them down like so.
So, I'm going down into the left as if
| | 02:34 |
there's a light source that's up and sort
of centered on the peppers.
| | 02:40 |
And you don't want to take it too far by
the way, you don't want the ellipse to
| | 02:43 |
cross the other shapes.
Because then you'll get a very harsh
| | 02:46 |
transition at the beginning, you just
wanted to come very close to them.
| | 02:51 |
So, we have a little bit of sharpness
there, but not too much.
| | 02:54 |
And then, I'll marquee these two anchor
points and drag them down like so, and
| | 02:57 |
that's going to make only a modest
contribution.
| | 03:00 |
But you can see it looks pretty darn
good.
| | 03:02 |
All right, now let's go ahead and do the
same thing to the right-hand pepper.
| | 03:06 |
So I'll lock down the left-hand shadow,
unlock the right-hand one.
| | 03:09 |
Try to find the shape with the Wide Arrow
tool.
| | 03:12 |
I don't know if that's going to work, so
I'll just go ahead and meatball this mesh
| | 03:15 |
in order to select it.
Then I'll press the U key to switch to
| | 03:19 |
the Mesh tool, and I'll go ahead and
click right about there in order to add
| | 03:22 |
another floppy shape.
And I'll press the A key to switch to the
| | 03:26 |
Wide Arrow tool.
Go ahead and move this shape around,
| | 03:29 |
using the mysteriously powerful control
handles.
| | 03:33 |
And then, I'll marquee these two anchor
points right there, actually I'll marquee
| | 03:36 |
these two anchor points for starters.
And I'll change their Opacity to 75%.
| | 03:42 |
And that way, you can better see what's
going on when I take the Opacity at these
| | 03:46 |
two anchor points down from 100%.
Watch the shadow there, down to 95%.
| | 03:52 |
It just takes a little bit of the weight
out of that shadow, and I think produces
| | 03:55 |
a more naturalistic effect.
All right, now marquee these two pair of
| | 04:00 |
coincident anchor points and let's drag
them down and to the right.
| | 04:04 |
So, this shadow is splaying outward from
the other one.
| | 04:07 |
Again, we don't want this ellipse to
cross this shape or we're going to get
| | 04:10 |
some very harsh transitions.
And then go ahead and marquee this point
| | 04:14 |
right there, these two anchor points
actually, and drag them down and to the
| | 04:18 |
right as well.
All right, so that's it.
| | 04:21 |
I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+0, or Cmd+0
on a Mac, in order to zoom out from my artwork.
| | 04:25 |
And I'll also turn on this text that I
have ready and waiting, at the top of the
| | 04:29 |
layers stack.
Now, if you take a close look at the
| | 04:33 |
shadows on screen here, you may notice at
certain zoom ratios that we've got a
| | 04:36 |
little bit of banding going on.
But that is merely a screen re-draw
| | 04:41 |
artifact inside of Illustrator.
If you were to export this artwork as a
| | 04:45 |
TIFF image for example, and open it up in
Photoshop as I have done in advance, then
| | 04:49 |
you'll see that we have absolutely smooth
shadows.
| | 04:54 |
And just so you can see the artwork in
more detail, I'll press the F key a
| | 04:58 |
couple of times and zoom on in.
And that, friends, is how you take full
| | 05:04 |
advantage of the remarkable power of
Gradient Mesh inside Illustrator.
| | 05:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
36. Opacity MasksBlack conceals, white reveals| 00:01 |
In this chapter, we take on Opacity
Masks, which I hazard to say, are one of
| | 00:04 |
the least known features in Illustrator.
What they allow you to do is paint in
| | 00:09 |
transparency, either in an object or a
group or a layer.
| | 00:14 |
And they're best understood in the
context of Photoshop.
| | 00:17 |
So if you know Photoshop, you might know
about layer masks, which allow you to
| | 00:20 |
paint transparency into a layer using a
black brush stroke, for example.
| | 00:26 |
And the same holds true inside
Illustrator.
| | 00:28 |
If you assign an opacity mask to a layer,
and then you add a black object to the
| | 00:32 |
mask, then that black object will create
a hole or a conceal, if you will.
| | 00:38 |
A white object inside of an opacity mask
creates a reveal, so that you can see the
| | 00:42 |
contents of the layer, and then a gray
object is going to make that portion of
| | 00:46 |
the layer translucent.
So, you can create a fade effect.
| | 00:52 |
You can fade a layer in by adding a
gradient to an opacity mask.
| | 00:56 |
Now frankly, it's not a hard feature, you
just need to know it's there.
| | 01:00 |
So here, let me show you where it is.
| | 01:03 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing opacity masks| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll introduce you to the
opacity mask feature and I'll also show
| | 00:04 |
you a couple of uses for it.
So let's say that I want to take the
| | 00:07 |
submarine and cut a hole in it.
Because in the back of the sub if I turn
| | 00:10 |
the sub layer off, you can see the word
love, and I want to go ahead and reveal that.
| | 00:15 |
So I'll turn the sub layer back on.
One way to work, would be to take this
| | 00:19 |
rounded rectangle here that I've created
in advance.
| | 00:23 |
And combine it with this compound shape
in the background, in order to create a hole.
| | 00:28 |
And you can do that by bringing up the
Path Finder panel, and then because we're
| | 00:31 |
working with the compound shape, you have
to press the Alt key, or the Opt key on
| | 00:34 |
the Mac, and click on the minus front
icon, in order to produce this effect here.
| | 00:41 |
The interesting thing to note, though, is
this is not a pure hole.
| | 00:44 |
What we're doing is carving a hole in the
path outline and then Illustrator is
| | 00:48 |
turning around and stroking the inside of
that hole as well.
| | 00:53 |
What if we want to create a hole in
everything.
| | 00:56 |
In all of the attributes, for example,
both fill and stroke.
| | 01:00 |
Well in that case you need to use a
opacity mask.
| | 01:03 |
So I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z or
Cmd+Z on the Mac in order to undo that change.
| | 01:07 |
And then I want to go up to the Window
menu and choose the Transparency command
| | 01:10 |
in order to bring up the transparency
panel.
| | 01:14 |
Mine's already up over here on the right
hand side of the screen.
| | 01:17 |
Next, you need to expand the panel by
clicking on this up-down arrow icon a
| | 01:21 |
couple of times.
We don't need the check boxes but we do
| | 01:24 |
need a little more room on screen, so I'm
going to click, yet again, in order to
| | 01:27 |
hide those.
This central area right here is where you
| | 01:31 |
make and modify the opacity mask,
starting by clicking on make mask.
| | 01:36 |
When you do that, you go ahead and turn
the top object in the selection into the
| | 01:40 |
mask, and then it masks everything else
that was selected as well.
| | 01:45 |
Now by default, white represents a
reveal, which is why we can only see the
| | 01:49 |
portion of the sub inside the rounded
rectangle, and everything outside the
| | 01:53 |
rectangle is clipped away, as indicated
by this clip check box.
| | 01:59 |
If you turn the clip box off then you
reveal everything outside the shape as well.
| | 02:04 |
If you want to turn white into a
concealing agent instead, that is white
| | 02:08 |
cuts holes, whereas normally black does.
Then you turn on the invert checkbox, and
| | 02:13 |
you'd end up with this effect here.
And then if for whatever reason you
| | 02:17 |
decide you want to clip away everything
outside the rectangle you would turn the
| | 02:21 |
clip checkbox back on.
So I just want you to see all these variations.
| | 02:26 |
Now coming to terms with these checkboxes
can be a little confusing at first, when
| | 02:29 |
you start using an opacity mask, which is
why we'll revisit this topic in future movies.
| | 02:35 |
But for now, I'm going to turn clip off
and leave invert mask turned on.
| | 02:40 |
I want you to notice something about the
mask.
| | 02:42 |
Notice how it's cutting a hole inside the
shape, and it's not getting stroked this
| | 02:46 |
time around.
Now, if you want to modify the location
| | 02:50 |
of that rectangle, as I do just to make a
point here, then you want to switch to
| | 02:53 |
the opacity mask, And you do that by
clicking on this right hand thumbnail
| | 02:57 |
inside the transparency panel.
And that will make the opacity mask active.
| | 03:03 |
I also want you to notice what happens to
the layers panel.
| | 03:06 |
As soon as I click on the right hand
thumbnail, Illustrator goes ahead and
| | 03:09 |
hides all my layers and shows me just the
opacity mask.
| | 03:13 |
And notice, it even tells me that's the
case at the top of the layers panel.
| | 03:16 |
And you can add as many path outlines as
you like to this opacity mask.
| | 03:20 |
However, you cannot divide the mask into
layers, as indicated by the dimmed icons,
| | 03:24 |
down here at the bottom.
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and take
| | 03:28 |
this guy and move it upward so that you
can see that it's not only cutting a hole
| | 03:32 |
in the path outline, but it's also
cutting a hole in the fill and stroke attributes.
| | 03:37 |
And that's the difference with opacity
mask.
| | 03:40 |
Also it turns out they're way flexible as
we'll see in future movies.
| | 03:44 |
Anyway, I'm going to press Ctrl+Z, or
Cmd+Z on a Mac, to reinstate the position
| | 03:47 |
of that rectangle.
If you want to return to your
| | 03:51 |
illustration, you just go ahead and click
on the left-hand thumbnail up here in the
| | 03:54 |
Transparency panel, and then you'll
regain access to all your layers once again.
| | 04:00 |
All right, so I think that's pretty
illuminative, but it's not very practical.
| | 04:04 |
So, I've got another example in here.
If you twirl open this fab four layer,
| | 04:07 |
you'll see that there's this path
outline, it's really a rectangle.
| | 04:11 |
Go ahead and turn it on if you're working
along with me.
| | 04:13 |
And then, I'll go ahead and click on it
to select it so that you can see that
| | 04:16 |
I've added a bunch of anchor points here
It's here using the add anchor points
| | 04:19 |
command and I want to be a wavy mask as
well, so that these guys look like
| | 04:22 |
they're coming out of the water.
First thing you need to do is select all
| | 04:27 |
the objects that you want to mask and you
do that by clicking in the top right
| | 04:30 |
corner of this layer and then I will
select all the contents of the layer as
| | 04:33 |
you can see.
And then the top path outline is going to
| | 04:38 |
become the opacity mask as soon as you
click on Make mask.
| | 04:42 |
Now remember how I was telling you that
white reveals, black conceals, so we're
| | 04:45 |
going to clip away their feet.
We're also clipping everything outside
| | 04:49 |
the shape, because the clip checkbox is
turned on.
| | 04:52 |
So we need to turn that off in order to
produce this effect here.
| | 04:56 |
Then click on the right hand thumbnail.
So that we can edit the path outline.
| | 05:01 |
And go into the effect menu.
Choose distort and transform.
| | 05:05 |
And choose zigzag.
And turn on the preview check box to see
| | 05:08 |
what's going on.
Obviously, that's not the wavy pattern
| | 05:11 |
I'm looking for.
So I'll go ahead and switch the point
| | 05:14 |
setting to smooth.
And then, I'll take the size option down
| | 05:17 |
to two points, and I'll change the number
of ridges per segment to two as well, in
| | 05:21 |
order to produce this effect here.
Then click okay, and now you can exit the
| | 05:27 |
opacity mask.
By clicking on the left-hand thumbnail.
| | 05:31 |
And now I'll press control shift A, or
command shift A on a Mac, so you can see
| | 05:34 |
what's happened.
Now let's say I don't really want that
| | 05:37 |
hole that's carved into the sub.
I just want to show you one more thing
| | 05:40 |
you can do here.
I'll click on the sub to make it active.
| | 05:43 |
And notice the button that was formerly
called make mask is now called release.
| | 05:48 |
And all you have to do is click on it and
then the mask goes away.
| | 05:51 |
And for my part, I figured I'll just go
ahead and turn that white rectangle off,
| | 05:55 |
because at this point we no longer need
it.
| | 05:58 |
And for the sake of the illustration,
I'll go ahead and twirl open the sea and
| | 06:01 |
sky layer.
Scroll down to this group object right
| | 06:04 |
here, go ahead and meatball it to select
it, and then drag this little blue square
| | 06:08 |
up to the sublayer.
So that the word love appears in front of
| | 06:13 |
the sub, where it really belongs.
And that friends, is my introduction to
| | 06:17 |
opacity masks inside Illustrator.
We'll see lots more uses for them in
| | 06:22 |
future movies.
| | 06:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assigning an empty opacity mask to a layer| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
create an Empty Opacity Mask and that
| | 00:03 |
might sound strange, but it's a really
common way to work and it requires a
| | 00:06 |
different approach.
In over the course of the few movies,
| | 00:10 |
we're going to create this fading
reflection using a Gradient Opacity Mask.
| | 00:15 |
So, I'll go ahead and turn off the
reflection layer, so that we can recreate it.
| | 00:20 |
And now, let's make a copy of this bulb
and lines layer by selecting it of
| | 00:23 |
course, here inside the layers panel, and
then bringing up the flyout menu and
| | 00:26 |
choosing Duplicate Bulb Lines.
And now, I'll go ahead and double-click
| | 00:31 |
on this layer, in order to bring up the
layer options dialog box.
| | 00:35 |
I'll call this guy reflection 2, and I'll
change the color to orange, because it
| | 00:39 |
shows up well against this green artwork.
Then I'll click OK.
| | 00:43 |
And I'll grab reflection 2, and move it
below bulb and lines.
| | 00:48 |
All right.
Now I'll click in the upper right corner
| | 00:50 |
of the layer to select all of it's
content.
| | 00:52 |
And then, I'll switch from the Rotate
tool to the Reflect tool.
| | 00:56 |
And I'll Alt+click or Option+click just
little bit below the text, like so.
| | 01:01 |
Maybe right about there, in order to
bring up the Reflect dialog box.
| | 01:06 |
Now most likely, if you've been working
along with me, your axis is set to
| | 01:09 |
vertical, which is going to reflect the
art in the wrong direction.
| | 01:13 |
We want to flip the art across the
horizontal axis.
| | 01:15 |
So go ahead and select Horizontal.
If you have the Preview checkbox turned
| | 01:19 |
on, then you'll be able to see it happen.
We don't want to click Copy in this case,
| | 01:22 |
because we just made a copy of the layer.
You want to click OK instead.
| | 01:28 |
And then, if your letters are a little
too far apart, as mine are, just press
| | 01:31 |
the Up Arrow key a couple of times in
order to create just this kind of thin
| | 01:34 |
layer of glass or whatever the reflective
surface is.
| | 01:39 |
Just to indicate that there's some sort
of surface involved.
| | 01:42 |
And next I'll zoom back out.
Now what we want to do at this point is
| | 01:46 |
make an opacity mask of course.
But if I click on the make mask button,
| | 01:50 |
you can see that I have converted
something into an opacity mask.
| | 01:54 |
And if you want to see what it actually
looks like as opposed to just editing it,
| | 01:58 |
then you press the Alt key or Option key
on a Mac, and click on the right hand thumbnail.
| | 02:04 |
And then you will see what's at work.
Although, in my case I can't see what it
| | 02:08 |
is because it's white on white.
So I'd have to change the color of this
| | 02:12 |
to black by going up to the control
panel, and changing the first color
| | 02:15 |
swatch to black like so.
And I can see it's my text.
| | 02:19 |
And the reason Illustrator threw my text
into the opacity mask, is because it was
| | 02:23 |
the top object in the stack.
Obviously, that's not what I want.
| | 02:28 |
Not even sort of.
I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z
| | 02:30 |
on the Mac a couple of times in order to
back up to the point before which I
| | 02:33 |
created the mask.
When you're creating an empty mask, as we
| | 02:38 |
are here, you typically want to target an
entire, big object.
| | 02:42 |
That is, to say, a group for example, or
in our case we want to target the entire layer.
| | 02:48 |
So go ahead and click on the meatball to
the right of refection 2, if you're
| | 02:51 |
working along with me, to target the
layer instead of the objects on the layer.
| | 02:56 |
And now click Make Mask and you will
create an empty mask.
| | 03:00 |
Now, notice that it appears black.
But if I Alt+click or Option+click on it.
| | 03:04 |
It's not actually black, it's just
showing me black because that clip check
| | 03:07 |
box is turned on.
If I turn clip off it suddenly turns white.
| | 03:12 |
Well that brings up an interesting topic.
I'm going to press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the
| | 03:16 |
Mac once again, a couple of times to back
out here.
| | 03:19 |
If you're familiar with Photoshop, then
an opacity mask here in illustrator is
| | 03:23 |
pretty much the same thing as a layer
mask inside Photoshop except that you
| | 03:27 |
build the opacity mask using vector
artwork.
| | 03:31 |
But one of the big differences is that in
Photoshop, the layer mask initially comes
| | 03:35 |
in as white whereas in Illustrator the
layer mask initially comes in is black.
| | 03:40 |
That is to say everything gets concealed.
If you don't want to work that way by
| | 03:44 |
default here's what you do.
Here inside the transparency panel, go to
| | 03:47 |
the flyout menu and turn off this weirdly
named command here.
| | 03:51 |
New opacity masks our clipping, and that
will ensure that in the future, you're
| | 03:55 |
revealing everything.
You're leaving everything visible when
| | 04:00 |
you go ahead and click Make Mask.
And notice by default, the Clip checkbox
| | 04:03 |
is now turned off.
And I prefer to work this way because
| | 04:07 |
it's much easier to see the contents of
the layer if it's visible, if
| | 04:10 |
everything's not immediately getting
hidden.
| | 04:14 |
Notice one last thing here, how
reflection 2 has an underline.
| | 04:18 |
Whether you see a flat underline or a
dashed one, that indicates that there's
| | 04:21 |
an opacity mask applied to that layer,
which is very handy, because that way you
| | 04:25 |
know what's going on, where the
transparency is coming from, when you go
| | 04:28 |
to Edit to file later on, because,
otherwise, this kind of artwork can get a
| | 04:31 |
little bit confusing.
All right.
| | 04:37 |
So that's how you assign in an empty
layer mask to an entire layer.
| | 04:40 |
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
draw inside that mask.
| | 04:44 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing inside an opacity mask| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to draw
directly inside an opacity mask.
| | 00:04 |
Now notice here inside the transparency
panel, I can't see my opacity mask, and
| | 00:08 |
that's because all the artwork is
deselected.
| | 00:11 |
Now you might be tempted at some point,
knowing just by looking at this underline
| | 00:15 |
here, that this layer does contain and
opacity mask.
| | 00:19 |
You might assume that you could click in
the upper right corner of the layer to
| | 00:22 |
select all the artwork on the layer, but
that's not enough to gain access to the
| | 00:26 |
opacity mask.
Notice there's no right hand thumbnail
| | 00:30 |
here inside the transparency panel, and
that's because I didn't apply the mask to
| | 00:34 |
the contents of the layer.
I applied it to the layer itself.
| | 00:38 |
And so what you need to do is target the
layer by clicking on its circular
| | 00:41 |
meatball, and then you'll be able to see
the opacity mask thumbnail.
| | 00:46 |
Next I'll go ahead and click on it to
select it, and then I'll scroll down
| | 00:49 |
here, so that I can see this light bulb.
And the reason things are turning gray at
| | 00:54 |
a point is because this artwork extends
out into the art board.
| | 00:57 |
I'll go ahead and grab my Rectangle tool,
although you can use any tool you like.
| | 01:01 |
So you can use the Pen tool, you can use
editable text as an opacity mask.
| | 01:06 |
The only limitation is that they've all
got to be organized on a single layer.
| | 01:11 |
Anyway, I'll go and select that Rectangle
tool.
| | 01:13 |
And then I'll drag, like so, inside the
light bulb.
| | 01:17 |
And notice what we end up getting here.
If you zoom in a little bit and press
| | 01:21 |
Ctrl+H, or Cmd+H on the Mac, in order to
hide the selection edges, you can see
| | 01:25 |
that I've got this transparent outline
around the rectangle, but I'm not hiding
| | 01:29 |
anything in the rectangle.
And that's because I've got a white fill,
| | 01:34 |
which reveals, and a black stroke which
is concealing.
| | 01:38 |
I'll go ahead and increase that line
weight value to 20 points so you can see
| | 01:41 |
what I mean.
So we're cutting completely through that
| | 01:44 |
artwork, like so.
Now, I regard it personally as quite
| | 01:47 |
dangerous to use strokes to mask objects
inside of an opacity mask.
| | 01:53 |
I try to avoid it, because it's just a
lot more predictable if you work without strokes.
| | 01:57 |
So I'm going to go ahead and change the
stroke from black to none, like so, and
| | 02:01 |
then I'll go ahead and change the fill
from white to black.
| | 02:07 |
And notice by the way, that this is a
standard weak black.
| | 02:10 |
I'll go ahead and Shift click on that
first swatch in the Control panel.
| | 02:13 |
And you can see that the CMY values are
all set to 0, and the K values are at
| | 02:16 |
100%, which works just fine.
That is an absolute whole, by the way, so
| | 02:21 |
you don't need a rich black to pull this
off.
| | 02:24 |
Now let's say that you want to draw on
opacity.
| | 02:27 |
I'll go ahead and switch to the Ellipse
tool this time around, and I'll go ahead
| | 02:29 |
and draw out from the center, while
pressing the Shift and Alt keys, so I'm
| | 02:32 |
creating a circle in this case.
This would be Shift and Option on the Mac.
| | 02:36 |
And notice that the darn thing disappears
right after I draw it.
| | 02:39 |
That's because I've hidden the selection
edges.
| | 02:42 |
So, I'll press Ctrl+H, or Cmd+H on the
Mac, in order to bring it back.
| | 02:46 |
And now, I'll go up to the control panel,
click on the first swatch, and change it
| | 02:49 |
to white.
And that's all there is to it.
| | 02:52 |
Now I'm creating a reveal once again, and
I'm allowing the contents of the layer to
| | 02:55 |
show through.
Now, you can fill a shape with any color
| | 02:59 |
you like.
So if I were to draw yet another circle
| | 03:02 |
from the center outward like so, a little
smaller this time around, I could change
| | 03:06 |
it to something like red, and I'm
going to create some translucency, as you
| | 03:09 |
can see here.
The problem is, with working with colors,
| | 03:14 |
it's very difficult to predict the
outcome.
| | 03:16 |
Notice if I switch to yellow, things are
almost completely revealed.
| | 03:20 |
But if I switch to cyan, they grow a
little dimmer.
| | 03:22 |
And it has nothing to do with the various
inks, by the way.
| | 03:26 |
Because you're not hiding one ink and
revealing another.
| | 03:28 |
Illustrator's just calculating a
grayscale version of that color, and
| | 03:32 |
using it to mask the scene.
What you're better off doing is working
| | 03:37 |
with these gray values right here.
So let's say you want to create a half reveal.
| | 03:41 |
Then you would switch to this guy right
here, which is K 50%.
| | 03:45 |
That's the most important part of it.
And now you're dimming the contents of
| | 03:48 |
the layer by half.
If you wanted to dim it by more, than you
| | 03:51 |
would increase the black value, in this
case to 80%.
| | 03:55 |
If you wanted to reveal more, than you
would decrease the K value.
| | 03:59 |
In this case I'm taking it down to 20%.
Another way to work, if you prefer, is to
| | 04:04 |
stick with 100% black, like so, which
goes ahead and applies another conceal.
| | 04:09 |
And then if you want to let off a little
bit, then reduce the opacity value.
| | 04:14 |
For example, if I take it down to 50%,
then I've got a 50% reveal going as well.
| | 04:19 |
Which in my opinion makes things a little
easier to predict.
| | 04:22 |
All right notice, if I twirl open this
item, the opacity mask, I reveal all my
| | 04:26 |
path outlines.
And you can even name them.
| | 04:29 |
So I could call this guy square for
example.
| | 04:32 |
Or you could go ahead and turn them off
if you want to keep them around, but get
| | 04:34 |
rid of their contribution to the mask,
and you can even rename the mask if you'd like.
| | 04:39 |
I'm going to go ahead and call mine fade,
because eventually that's what I'm
| | 04:42 |
looking for, Then when you're done, just
go ahead and click on the left-hand
| | 04:46 |
thumbnail in order to return to your
layered illustration.
| | 04:50 |
And that's how you draw directly inside
an opacity mask, here inside Illustrator.
| | 04:56 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fading artwork with a gradient opacity mask| 00:00 |
In this movie we'll assign a gradual fade
to our artwork by adding a gradient to
| | 00:04 |
the opacity mask, and this has to be one
of the best uses for opacity masks that
| | 00:08 |
there is.
Press Ctrl zero to zoom out here a little
| | 00:13 |
bit so I can take in more of my artwork,
and then I'll go ahead and switch over to
| | 00:16 |
the rectangle tool.
I'll Meatball the layer, like so, and
| | 00:21 |
then I'll click on the thumbnail in order
to switch to the opacity mask.
| | 00:26 |
And I'll draw a rectangle about yea big,
just so it's big enough to cover all of
| | 00:30 |
the layer here inside the art board.
I notice that my object has a stroke, so,
| | 00:35 |
I'll go ahead and set the stroke to None.
And my fill is solid white as by default.
| | 00:41 |
I'll go ahead and switch over to the
gradient panel here.
| | 00:43 |
And you can see I have a white to black
gradient as by default.
| | 00:47 |
I'll just go ahead and click on it to
apply it to my artwork.
| | 00:50 |
Now, it's currently at the wrong angle,
and I want to make another adjustment as well.
| | 00:54 |
I'm going to go ahead and expand the
gradient panel like so.
| | 00:58 |
And I'll click on the reverse gradient
icon, so that the gradient starts black
| | 01:01 |
and ends white, which is the way that I'd
prefer to work.
| | 01:05 |
Now I'll go ahead and zoom back in a
little bit here.
| | 01:07 |
And I'll press the G key to switch to the
gradient tool, so that I can see my
| | 01:11 |
gradient annotator on screen, and I'll go
ahead and drag from the bottom of the art
| | 01:15 |
up to the top of the upside down letters
right there.
| | 01:21 |
And I'm pressing the Shift key as I do,
and then as soon as I release, notice
| | 01:24 |
that I create this nice gradual fade from
full opacity up here at the top, to
| | 01:28 |
absolute transparency at the bottom.
Now I am leaving some of my artwork
| | 01:35 |
revealed down here in the art board, but
it's not going to print, so that doesn't
| | 01:38 |
bother me.
Right now I'll go ahead and center my
| | 01:41 |
artwork and press the V key to switch
back to the black arrow tool.
| | 01:45 |
The last thing I want to do is reduce the
opacity of this layer to about 50% so we
| | 01:49 |
can see through even the most opaque
elements.
| | 01:54 |
Thing is though, you don't want to change
the opacity value up here in the control
| | 01:58 |
panel, or over here in the transparency
panel, because if you do, if I change one
| | 02:02 |
of those values to 50%, notice that I
actually make the artwork more opaque
| | 02:05 |
than it was before, and that's because
I'm not reducing the opacity of the
| | 02:09 |
artwork, of the layer itself, I'm
reducing the opacity of the opacity mask.
| | 02:18 |
And that may seem a little twisted,
although it's exactly what we did in the
| | 02:20 |
previous movie.
And what it means is you're actually
| | 02:23 |
reducing the density of the mask so that
you're revealing more of the layer itself.
| | 02:28 |
Now that can be very useful, but it's not
what we want in this case, so I'm going
| | 02:32 |
to change the opacity value back to 100%
and then I'll go ahead and click on the
| | 02:36 |
left hand thumbnail to return to my
layered artwork, and now I'll change the
| | 02:39 |
opacity value for the targeted layer to
50% in order to produce this effect here.
| | 02:48 |
And I'll press Ctrl Shift A or Cmd Shift
A in a Mac to deselect the artwork.
| | 02:52 |
And that's all there is to it, friends.
That's how you fade an entire layer of
| | 02:56 |
artwork by assigning a gradient to an
opacity mask here inside Illustrator.
| | 03:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Nesting one opacity mask inside another| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to take
advantage of a nested opacity mask,
| | 00:04 |
applied to a single object inside a
layer.
| | 00:07 |
What this will allow us to do, is to
assign an additional fade to just the
| | 00:11 |
reflected text.
So I'll start things off by clicking
| | 00:15 |
inside that reflected text.
If you're working along with me, you
| | 00:19 |
should see an orange base line above the
letters because, after all, they are reflected.
| | 00:24 |
Then go to the transparency panel, and
just FYI, another way to make a mask is
| | 00:28 |
to double-click in the right hand thumb
nail.
| | 00:31 |
And you'll end up not only creating an
empty mask, but selecting it, as well.
| | 00:36 |
Now, I'll go ahead and zoom out here a
little bit, and I'll press the M key to
| | 00:39 |
switch to the rectangle tool.
And I'll draw a rectangle like so around
| | 00:44 |
that bottom type.
And then I'll switch over to my Gradient
| | 00:47 |
panel once again.
And click inside the gradient slider in
| | 00:50 |
order to apply that default, white to
black gradient.
| | 00:54 |
And then I'll click the Reverse Gradient
button in order to send it in the other direction.
| | 00:58 |
And now we'll go ahead and zoom back in
here.
| | 01:01 |
And I'll press the G key in order to
switch to the Gradient tool and bring up
| | 01:04 |
my gradient annotator.
And I'll go ahead and drag from about
| | 01:09 |
here to here while pressing the Shift key
in order to create a strictly vertical
| | 01:13 |
gradient and that ends up creating this
effect here.
| | 01:18 |
So what I have, once again, is a nested
opacity mask, because we're assigning an
| | 01:22 |
opacity mask to the text and then the
text exists inside of a layer that has
| | 01:26 |
its own opacity mask.
In any event, go ahead and switch back to
| | 01:32 |
the transparency panel, and then click on
the left-hand thumbnail in order to
| | 01:36 |
switch back to the layer document.
And the reason the left-hand thumbnail is
| | 01:41 |
exclusively white, by the way, is because
the text is white.
| | 01:45 |
So we're just seeing white text on a
white background.
| | 01:47 |
Now I want you to know a couple of things
here.
| | 01:50 |
Notice if I twirl open the reflection
tool layer that this top object which is
| | 01:53 |
named for the text itself, green light
clean light, has an underline indicating
| | 01:57 |
that it employs an opacity mask.
So again both the layer, and this object
| | 02:03 |
use a mask.
I'll go ahead and twirl that closed for a
| | 02:06 |
second and compare that to the old
version of that layer.
| | 02:10 |
Notice that its first layer does not have
an underline, and therefore does not use
| | 02:14 |
an opacity mask.
So what's going on?
| | 02:16 |
Well I'll go ahead and turn that layer
on, turn this one off.
| | 02:19 |
There is a fade going on inside this text
but I handled it differently.
| | 02:23 |
I'll go ahead and press the V key to get
my black arrow tool, click on a text to
| | 02:26 |
select it, and press the G key to switch
to the Gradient tool.
| | 02:29 |
You can see the culprit is a gradient
that I assigned to the fill of the text
| | 02:32 |
from the appearance panel.
And so, if I double-click on this color
| | 02:37 |
stop here, you can see that its opacity
value is set to 50%, so the gradient
| | 02:40 |
itself contains the translucency
information.
| | 02:45 |
So, you can work it any way that you
like, I just want you to bear in mind
| | 02:48 |
that the underline, again, whether solid
or dashed, is a dead giveaway that you
| | 02:51 |
have an opacity mask assigned.
All right I'll go ahead and turn that layer
| | 02:56 |
off, and I'll turn my new layer on.
Just one more thing, because we have an
| | 03:01 |
opacity mask assigned to the entire
layer, as well as reduced opacity value,
| | 03:05 |
any object I add to this layer will be
affected by both the mask and the opacity setting.
| | 03:12 |
So for example, I'll just go ahead and
draw a rectangle.
| | 03:15 |
Currently it's filled with a white to
translucent gradient so that's not really
| | 03:17 |
not going to give us a good sense of
what's going on.
| | 03:20 |
I'll press the comma key in order to
assign a solid fill.
| | 03:24 |
And then I'll change that fill color to
let's say, bright red just so that it
| | 03:28 |
stands out.
And you can see that this red rectangle,
| | 03:31 |
even though its blend mode is normal and
its opacity value is 100%, is fading
| | 03:35 |
across the art work.
And if I were to move it down by pressing
| | 03:40 |
the V key to switch to the black arrow
tool and then of course dragging the
| | 03:43 |
rectangle, you can see that it fades even
more toward the bottom of the layer,
| | 03:47 |
thanks to that whole layer opacity mask.
All right, I'll go ahead and delete that
| | 03:53 |
object and press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on the
Mac in order to center my artwork, and
| | 03:56 |
there you have it.
A few different but highly effective ways
| | 04:01 |
to employ opacity masks here inside
Illustrator.
| | 04:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
37. Liquify and EnvelopeTwo ways to apply free-form distortions| 00:00 |
In this chapter, we'll take a look at two
methods for applying free form
| | 00:03 |
distortions inside of Illustrator.
The liquifying tools and the envelope commands.
| | 00:08 |
The liquifying tools allow you to paint
distortions directly into the document window.
| | 00:14 |
Thing is, there's static distortion.
So in other words, you're permanently
| | 00:17 |
modifying the path outlines.
Now among the things you can do is shove
| | 00:21 |
stuff around using the warp tool like so.
You can also inflate certain regions
| | 00:26 |
using the blow tool.
And you can take a standard star and turn
| | 00:30 |
it into a dramatic starburst using the
crystallize tool.
| | 00:34 |
Meanwhile, you've got the dynamic
envelope commands, which allow you to
| | 00:38 |
distort objects with a little more
control.
| | 00:43 |
So you can take bunch of objects and
place them inside of an envelope, and
| | 00:46 |
then you distort the envelope without
harming the original objects, which you
| | 00:50 |
can get to any time you like.
Plus, they're both a whole lot of fun, as
| | 00:55 |
you'll learn in the following movies.
| | 00:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing the Warp tool| 00:00 |
All right, here's the final version of
the artwork, just so you can see it on screen.
| | 00:03 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to use
the foremost of the Liquify tools.
| | 00:08 |
Which is the Warp tool.
I'll go ahead and switch over to this
| | 00:11 |
base version of the artwork.
Which contains a place piece of imagery
| | 00:15 |
that I created in Photoshop.
And if you're wondering how I made this
| | 00:19 |
silhouette of a horse with wings, you can
check out Deek's Techniques 041, which is
| | 00:23 |
called Putting Wings on a Horse.
What we're going to do is convert the
| | 00:28 |
horse to vector art using Illustrator's
image trace feature.
| | 00:32 |
And then, we'll use the Warp tool in
order to modify the path outlines.
| | 00:36 |
So the first thing you want to to do is
go up to the Control panel and click on
| | 00:40 |
the Image Trace button.
In order to trace the artwork, if you get
| | 00:45 |
this alert message that badly advices you
to lower the resolution of your artwork,
| | 00:48 |
just go ahead and click OK.
Its telling you that the tracing might
| | 00:53 |
take a long period of time, all of like
two seconds, as you can see here.
| | 00:57 |
Now, Illustrator seemed fit to trace both
the black portions and the white portions
| | 01:01 |
of the artwork.
That's not what I'm looking for.
| | 01:05 |
I want to drop the whites out.
So I'll go up to the Control panel, and
| | 01:08 |
click on the Image Trace panel icon, in
order to bring up that panel.
| | 01:12 |
And then, I'll go ahead and twirl open
Advanced, and I'll drop down to this
| | 01:16 |
check box Ignore White, and turn it on.
In order to get rid of the whites in the
| | 01:22 |
background, so we just see the black
horse set against transparency.
| | 01:27 |
The hairs and the tail and the mane are a
little bit fragile for our purposes, so
| | 01:31 |
I'm going to increase the threshold
value.
| | 01:34 |
So that we're tracing more the dark
colors inside the artwork, and that's all
| | 01:37 |
there is to it.
Now you can go ahead and close the Image
| | 01:41 |
Trace panel in order to get it off
screen.
| | 01:43 |
All right, I'll go ahead and press
Ctrl+Shift+A or Cmd+Shift+A on a Mac to
| | 01:47 |
Deselect my artwork.
And then, I'll switch to the first of the
| | 01:51 |
Liquify tools, as I was saying, called
the Warp tool.
| | 01:54 |
And the Liquify tools are strangely
located over here with the Width tool.
| | 01:59 |
So if you click and hold on the Width
tool, which is not a Liquify tool, nor is
| | 02:03 |
it a Distortion tool of any kind, then
you'll see right below, is a list of all
| | 02:07 |
seven Liquify tools, from Warp all the
way down to Wrinkle.
| | 02:12 |
And you may wonder why I call them the
Liquify tools, when the world liquify
| | 02:15 |
doesn't appear anywhere inside of
Illustrator.
| | 02:19 |
The reason is that's what they're called
in the help documentation.
| | 02:22 |
So I'm going to go ahead and release on
this flat out bar here, in order create a
| | 02:26 |
little liquify toolbox.
And I'll switch to the second tool over
| | 02:30 |
which is a Warp tool.
And now notice if I start dragging inside
| | 02:33 |
the artwork, for example I drag over that
star, I end up warping the star.
| | 02:38 |
So, ultimately the Warp tool allows you
to smear paths around, which is great if
| | 02:42 |
you want to take geometric paths, like
this star here, and give them a little
| | 02:46 |
bit of wave, or actually paint with them
as well.
| | 02:50 |
I could also paint along this ground in
order to give it a bit of wave.
| | 02:56 |
But you may notice all the while here,
what I'm not warping is either the horse
| | 03:00 |
or the text, and that's because you can
just warp standard path outlines.
| | 03:06 |
You cannot warp specialty objects, such
as the live trace object, which is the
| | 03:10 |
horse, or the editable text.
Notice also, as I'm dragging here, I'm
| | 03:15 |
warping not only the ground, but I'm also
warping the sky in the background.
| | 03:20 |
You can control exactly what gets warped
and what doesn't by selecting your artwork.
| | 03:25 |
So, if I press the Ctrl key, or the Cmd
key on the Mac, to temporarily get my
| | 03:29 |
Black Arrow tool, and I click on, for
example, the ground and then I release
| | 03:32 |
the Ctrl or Cmd key, and I start
dragging, once again, over the ground,
| | 03:36 |
notice this time I'm warping the ground
exclusively and I'm not warping the sky
| | 03:39 |
at all.
So, let's say I want to warp the horse,
| | 03:45 |
which is eventually what I want to do
here.
| | 03:47 |
I'll go ahead and Ctrl click or Cmd click
on its outline and I'll start dragging
| | 03:52 |
inside of it, and Illustrator tells me
that the selected artwork contains play start.
| | 03:58 |
True.
Which must be embedded prior to using the
| | 04:00 |
Liquify tools.
Also true, but terrible advice.
| | 04:04 |
The reason is, even though you can use
the Liquify tools.
| | 04:07 |
On embedded pixel based images.
It is a very arduously slow process.
| | 04:12 |
It's painfully slow.
And so, if you're going to Liquefy a
| | 04:15 |
pixel based image, you're better off
doing that using the Liquify Filter
| | 04:18 |
inside Photoshop.
If you're going to Liquify the artwork in
| | 04:22 |
Illustrator, you want to convert it to
path outlines first.
| | 04:25 |
And that's what I'm going to do.
So, I'll go ahead and click OK, in order
| | 04:28 |
to hide that message, and then I'm
going to press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the
| | 04:32 |
Mac, as many times as it takes to get rid
of all the liquification I've done so far.
| | 04:39 |
So if you've been working along with me
just make sure that your star looks
| | 04:42 |
normal again, and that the horse is still
traced as it is now in my case.
| | 04:47 |
Then go ahead and twirl open the horse
layer and meatball that image tracing
| | 04:51 |
right there.
We want to keep it, we don't want to get
| | 04:54 |
rid of it, so press Ctrl+C or Cmd+C to
copy it and then turn off the original.
| | 05:00 |
And then press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on the
Mac, in order to paste the copy.
| | 05:05 |
Then go on to the Expand button in the
Control panel, and click on it, and
| | 05:08 |
that'll go ahead and convert the tracing
to a group of paths as you can see here.
| | 05:13 |
Now we've got both the black paths and
the transparent paths.
| | 05:17 |
The ones that were formerly traced around
the wide areas.
| | 05:19 |
We want to get rid of the transparent
ones.
| | 05:21 |
So go ahead and twirl open the group,
scroll your way down to the end of the
| | 05:25 |
group list.
You'll see this compound path right here,
| | 05:28 |
that doesn't have any fills associated
it, it's just a bunch of outlines.
| | 05:32 |
Go ahead and Meatball it.
Like so, and then go up to the Control
| | 05:35 |
panel, click this Down Pointing
Arrowhead.
| | 05:38 |
Make sure it's set to All.
And assuming it is, go ahead and click in
| | 05:41 |
the Select Similar Objects icon in order
to select all the Transparent Paths, and
| | 05:44 |
then press the Backspace key or the
Delete key on the Mac to get rid of them.
| | 05:51 |
Now we have a few other weird little
paths here.
| | 05:54 |
They all occur in the tail, so I'm going
to go ahead and zoom in here.
| | 05:56 |
And notice, if I meatball this guy, we've
got this tiny little path right there.
| | 06:03 |
And it should be united with the big one
next to it, as is the case for this next
| | 06:06 |
path down, this little guy right there.
This path is a little different.
| | 06:12 |
I'll go ahead and meatball it, and notice
that it's a little disconnected from things.
| | 06:17 |
So press the A key.
In order to get my White Arrow tool.
| | 06:19 |
And I'll go ahead and drag it up and to
the right just a little bit so it's
| | 06:22 |
overlapping the rest of the tail.
Then you want to meatball the entire
| | 06:26 |
group in order to select the whole darn
thing.
| | 06:28 |
Bring up the Path Finder panel, which you
can also get by choosing the Path Finder
| | 06:33 |
command from the Window menu, and click
on Unite, in order to fuse everything
| | 06:37 |
into a single compound path.
Which is going to be the easiest thing to
| | 06:43 |
work with.
Then go ahead and double-click on its
| | 06:45 |
name, and change the name of the path to
horse.
| | 06:48 |
And now let's keep a copy of it, since we
had to do a little bit of work on it, by
| | 06:51 |
pressing Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on the Mac.
Turn off the original and press Ctrl+F,
| | 06:57 |
or Cmd+F on the Mac, to paste a copy.
And let's go ahead and call this guy
| | 07:02 |
liquified, because eventually he will be
liquified, after all.
| | 07:06 |
And then I'll press Ctrl+0, or Cmd+0 on
the Mac, in order to center my zoom.
| | 07:10 |
And now notice with the horse selected.
If I switch back to that Warp tool, I can
| | 07:15 |
now warp it as much as I want just by
dragging inside the shape.
| | 07:21 |
Now, obviously, that's not the effect I'm
looking for, so we'll go ahead and press
| | 07:24 |
Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on the Mac, a few times
in order to reinstate the good version of
| | 07:28 |
my horse.
In any case, that's how you go about
| | 07:32 |
using the Warp tool, as well as, how you
go about using any of the other Liquify
| | 07:37 |
tools; by dragging directly inside the
document window, to modify static path outlines.
| | 07:44 |
In the next move we'll makes some actual
aesthetically pleasing modifications to
| | 07:48 |
the artwork.
| | 07:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Brush size, Detail, and Simplify| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to adjust
the preference settings associated with
| | 00:04 |
the Liquify tools in order to achieve the
best possible results.
| | 00:08 |
And along the way we're going to bulk out
this winged horse so it looks more like
| | 00:11 |
the true Pegasus.
Which after all it's not a variety of
| | 00:15 |
creature its more analogous to a Greek
god, it's one of Medusa's kids.
| | 00:20 |
At least, that's what it says on
Wikipedia.
| | 00:23 |
So, I'll switch back to my illustration
here.
| | 00:26 |
And I'm going to zoom in on the animal's
head for a second, and I'm also going to
| | 00:30 |
turn on this layer called Guides and Eye,
and it contains the guide that we're
| | 00:34 |
trying to match.
So I want to basically drag the head up
| | 00:39 |
in order to match that cyan guideline.
And I think I zoomed in a little too far,
| | 00:45 |
so I'll take it down just a little bit
here.
| | 00:47 |
And now what I'm going to do is modify
the size of my brush.
| | 00:51 |
So all of the Liquify tools share a
common brush size and you can change it
| | 00:55 |
by double-clicking on any one of them.
So I'll double-click on the Warp tool, in
| | 01:00 |
order to bring up the Warp tool Options
dialog box, and notice that you can
| | 01:03 |
modify the width and height settings
independently, so you can create an
| | 01:06 |
elliptical brush.
You can also adjust the angle of that
| | 01:11 |
brush if you like.
I'm going to be sticking with circular
| | 01:14 |
brushes for what it's worth.
It's just easier to get this stuff done.
| | 01:17 |
So I'm going to change the Width value to
300 points and Height value to 300 points
| | 01:21 |
as well and then I'll click OK in order
to create this ginormous brush and now
| | 01:25 |
I'll press the Ctrl key or the Cmd key on
the Mac, to get my black arrow tool.
| | 01:31 |
Now click on the outline on the horse in
order to select it, in that we'll only
| | 01:35 |
distort the horse and now I'll drag up on
it.
| | 01:40 |
And notice how extremely gooey it's
getting.
| | 01:42 |
We're losing all kinds of definition
because we're losing a lot of anchor
| | 01:46 |
points as I move things around here.
That's a big problem.
| | 01:51 |
So I'm going to go ahead and press Ctrl+Z
or Cmd+Z on a Mac, as many times as it
| | 01:54 |
takes to regain my original horse.
And then I'll double-click on the Warp
| | 01:59 |
tool icon once again.
In order to bring back that dialog box.
| | 02:04 |
Now, the thing you need to know is,
anything you modify up here at the top of
| | 02:07 |
the dialog box, where it says Global
Brush Dimensions.
| | 02:11 |
That affects every single one of the
Liquefy tools.
| | 02:15 |
So any time you modify these settings for
one of the Liquefy tools, you do so for
| | 02:19 |
the other ones as well.
Everything below that area, from Warp
| | 02:23 |
Options down, affects just the active
tool.
| | 02:26 |
And notice things start off with detail
and then we have simplify.
| | 02:30 |
And the idea behind these options is that
if you crank up detail, then you're
| | 02:34 |
allowing finer and finer control.
So you have less space between each one
| | 02:39 |
of the final anchor points.
Doesn't really seem to matter much though
| | 02:44 |
in the case of Warp.
Now you can play with this option if you
| | 02:47 |
want to, but I'm going to advise that you
just leave it alone.
| | 02:51 |
Whereas, Simplify which is just supposed
to just get rid of extraneous anchor
| | 02:54 |
points that don't serve any purpose is
actually the one that's doing a big
| | 02:57 |
number on our path outlines.
It's the one that's removing anchor
| | 03:01 |
points like crazy.
You can crank it down if you want to.
| | 03:05 |
To a lower value or you can just turn the
darn thing off.
| | 03:08 |
I recommend you turn it off.
And you'll see that as a result, we're
| | 03:11 |
going to get a ton of anchor points, but
we're also going to get a much better
| | 03:14 |
looking result.
And we can always go back and simplify
| | 03:18 |
our final path outline with way better
control later on down the line.
| | 03:23 |
So for now, I just recommend you turn
Simplify off.
| | 03:26 |
And then click OK.
And now notice when you drag the horse's
| | 03:29 |
head up, we're still stretching it and
all that good stuff.
| | 03:33 |
But it's turning into a long, gooey piece
of taffy anymore.
| | 03:37 |
We've got a lot more anchor points to
work with.
| | 03:40 |
Now I don't want to keep dragging around
with such an enormous brush.
| | 03:43 |
So I need to modify its size.
Well you don't want to have to revisit
| | 03:46 |
the dialog box every time you want to
change a brush size.
| | 03:49 |
So instead, here's what you do.
You press the Alt key, or the Option key
| | 03:53 |
on a Mac, and you drag to the left to
make the brush skinnier.
| | 03:57 |
Then you drag to the right to make it
wider.
| | 04:00 |
If you drag down while you have the Alt
or Option key pressed, you're going to
| | 04:03 |
make the brush shorter.
If you drag up, you're going to make it taller.
| | 04:08 |
I want to control its size
proportionally, so in that case you
| | 04:11 |
want to add the Shift key.
So if you Shift+Alt+drag down-left,
| | 04:15 |
you'll make the brush smaller.
If you Shift+Alt or Shift+Option drag up-right.
| | 04:20 |
You'll make the brush bigger.
I want to make it smaller, and I'm just
| | 04:23 |
going to adjust it's size on the fly.
I don't really care exactly what size it
| | 04:27 |
is, and then I'll start dragging down on
these portions of the jaw line,
| | 04:31 |
associated with the horse.
And we don't want this much sort of
| | 04:35 |
droopiness on the mouth, I don't think so
I'll go ahead and drag this up.
| | 04:40 |
And I might reduce the size of my brush
even further.
| | 04:43 |
And do this kind of work here.
Now, it's not necessary that you exactly
| | 04:46 |
match the guide if you're working along
with me.
| | 04:50 |
The guide is just here for guidance,
after all.
| | 04:53 |
And in fact, if you leave some rough
patches here and there.
| | 04:56 |
Then you'll be able to take greater
advantage of the other tools that we'll
| | 04:59 |
use in the following movie.
So, I'll go ahead and zoom out I'll
| | 05:02 |
Shift+Alt+drag or Shift+Option+drag
upright in order to make my brush bigger.
| | 05:08 |
And I'll drag out the mane and I'll drag
up this region as well in order to
| | 05:12 |
increase the size of that fore wing.
So the idea is what we're seeing here.
| | 05:18 |
Is this little hump of wing goes with
this wing over in this area.
| | 05:22 |
And then this guy is part of the forward
wing I suppose.
| | 05:26 |
So I guess this one that I'm working on
right now is the rear wing.
| | 05:31 |
Now, looks like I'm trying to work too
quickly here, because, you know, you're
| | 05:35 |
watching me and stuff, it makes me
nervous, but I'll go ahead and try to
| | 05:38 |
calm down and do a better job on this
stuff.
| | 05:42 |
This looks pretty good, I think.
And now, I'll increase the size of my
| | 05:45 |
brush, so it's really a matter of going
back and forth.
| | 05:48 |
Now, I'm going to leave these wing
details for now, because we'll come back
| | 05:51 |
to them, because there's another way to
work that's going to give us some good
| | 05:54 |
control, but I will increase the size of
my brush and drag these guys out.
| | 05:59 |
Come on, all of you, come, come, come.
It's just these top wing details, these
| | 06:02 |
feathers up here that are going to give
us problems.
| | 06:05 |
Or so I thought, because I'm having
problems all over the place.
| | 06:08 |
Anyway I'll go ahead and reduce the size
of my brush again Shift+Alt+drag, or
| | 06:11 |
Shift+Option+drag down to the left.
And then I'll make my brush bigger and
| | 06:16 |
drag these details up like so.
And again you don't have to get
| | 06:21 |
everything exactly right, just look at me
after all, I'm making all kinds of weird
| | 06:25 |
decisions right, left and sideways here.
And I've been through this many times,
| | 06:30 |
this particular piece of artwork.
So I should be well versed in it after all.
| | 06:35 |
All right, anyway.
I'll go ahead and take these guys up as well.
| | 06:39 |
We're down here at the haunches on the
rear legs, that is to say.
| | 06:42 |
And I'll go ahead and move this up and
move these portions of the feet and legs
| | 06:47 |
up as well.
And we'll come back to some of these
| | 06:50 |
details, because we can take advantage of
the other tools in order to basically
| | 06:55 |
finesse our results and get things
exactly the way that we want them to be.
| | 07:02 |
All right, these guys can come out just a
little more I think, and then we've got
| | 07:04 |
the front legs to worry about.
And you know, if you're getting tired of
| | 07:08 |
watching this video, by all means go
ahead and skip to the next one, and I'll
| | 07:11 |
just be working away on this one.
I just want to give you sense that all
| | 07:15 |
this is possible, I don't.
Want to cop out here and just leave you
| | 07:19 |
wondering how in the world I managed to
get to the very bitter end.
| | 07:23 |
And it also gives you a chance to see
sort of what's going on with these tools,
| | 07:26 |
and why they might be useful.
And I think I might be making them look
| | 07:30 |
like something of a chore but I really
like them.
| | 07:33 |
I think they're really great.
Just think if you had to sit there and
| | 07:36 |
hand draw all these various anchor points
and control handles here it would take a
| | 07:40 |
much longer time and.
Based on my experience with hand drawing
| | 07:46 |
paths with the pen tool, it's a lot more
of a chore.
| | 07:49 |
It not only takes longer, but it's less
pleasant over the long haul, even though,
| | 07:52 |
I must admit, I do that kind of stuff all
the time.
| | 07:57 |
All right, let's go ahead and take this up,
and it looks like, over the course of my
| | 08:00 |
mindless chatter, that I've managed to do
a halfway decent job.
| | 08:05 |
So that's it.
That's one way, anyway, to warp a path
| | 08:07 |
outline to make it better fit your needs.
That's also how you adjust the Liquefy
| | 08:12 |
tool Preference settings in order to
achieve the best possible results here
| | 08:16 |
inside Illustrator.
| | 08:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Liquifying an isolated portion of a path| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
selectively liquefy some portions of a
| | 00:03 |
path outline independently of others,
with the help of the Lasso tool.
| | 00:08 |
So you may recall that I didn't really
get these top feathers into place.
| | 00:14 |
So I'll press the Shift and Alt keys, or
Shift and Option on the Mac, in order to
| | 00:16 |
make my brush bigger.
And I'll press the V key, to temporarily
| | 00:20 |
switch to the black arrow tool.
Click on the path outline to deselect it,
| | 00:24 |
and then switch back to the Warp tool
here.
| | 00:28 |
And then I'll go ahead and drag these
details up.
| | 00:31 |
And even if I try very hard to make sure
that I'm getting things into alignment,
| | 00:35 |
I'm going to have problems with these
bird fingers, or whatever they are,
| | 00:39 |
basically separating away from each
other.
| | 00:44 |
And moving independently, and then I'll
end up warping them incorrectly with
| | 00:47 |
respect to each other.
Now I could get some of the work done
| | 00:51 |
while everything in the path is selected,
just by working with a smaller brush.
| | 00:56 |
But you may find it easier to select some
of the segments independently of others.
| | 01:03 |
Now the thing that you have to watch if
you go that route, is that you don't
| | 01:05 |
introduce little weird crimps into your
path outline, because that's the biggest
| | 01:09 |
thing that can end up going wrong.
Anyway, I'm trying to get some of the
| | 01:14 |
work done upfront her before I switch to
selecting individual segments using the
| | 01:18 |
Lasso tool.
Because you really want to do as much
| | 01:22 |
work as possible on a whole path basis.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and take these guys
| | 01:27 |
up and down and so forth until things
look like they're aligning pretty well.
| | 01:32 |
Now let's focus on the top portion of
this wing, here.
| | 01:36 |
Notice then, I've gotten the crook, right
here, into the right place, and I'll go
| | 01:40 |
ahead and drag some of these details in
as well.
| | 01:44 |
And now let's imagine, after fooling
around down here a little bit, I want to
| | 01:48 |
get that top finger, the top right
finger, if you will.
| | 01:53 |
I don't know if it's really a finger or
not.
| | 01:55 |
But I want to be able to modify it
independently.
| | 01:58 |
Well then, you can select the individual
segments that you want to modify.
| | 02:02 |
You could do so using the white arrow
tool, but because we have so many
| | 02:05 |
segments to select, and they're right
next to each other, it's easier to use
| | 02:08 |
the Lasso tool.
So I'll go ahead and grab that Lasso tool
| | 02:13 |
there, from the top of the toolbox, and
then I'll drag around this detail right
| | 02:17 |
here in order to select it.
As soon as I release, I'll end up
| | 02:21 |
selecting some of the star in the
background as well.
| | 02:25 |
And that's because the Lasso tool is
going to select everything inside the
| | 02:28 |
lassoed region that falls on any unlocked
layers.
| | 02:31 |
So, all we need to do to correct the
problem is lock down that evening layer
| | 02:35 |
like so.
And now, switch to the Warp tool, over
| | 02:38 |
here in the tear off toolbox.
And I'll go ahead and drag these details up.
| | 02:44 |
And you can see that even if I drag over
here, I'm not modifying the next door
| | 02:48 |
finger, I'm just modifying this guy right
there.
| | 02:53 |
And then if it turns out I want to modify
one side independently of the other, I
| | 02:56 |
can just select that side as well.
For example, I could switch back to the
| | 03:00 |
Lasso tool, and I'll tell you, if you
work this way, you're really going to
| | 03:03 |
save yourself a lot of headache if you
memorize two keyboard shortcuts.
| | 03:08 |
One of them is Q for Lasso tool.
So even though the Lasso tool comes to us
| | 03:12 |
from Photoshop, and it's got a keyboard
shortcut there of L, just remember you're
| | 03:16 |
using the key that looks like a lasso,
which is a Q, in order to select the tool
| | 03:19 |
in Illustrator.
And then, to switch back to the Warp
| | 03:25 |
tool, it's Shift+R.
Just in case you want to know.
| | 03:28 |
And so I could just lasso this region
right there, press Shift+R in order to
| | 03:31 |
switch back to the Warp tool, and just
scoot it over a little bit.
| | 03:35 |
So you have an incredible amount of
control when you're using these tools.
| | 03:39 |
All right, I press the Q key once again, to
switch to the Lasso tool.
| | 03:42 |
And I'm going to go ahead and lasso this
region here, and then press Shift+R in
| | 03:46 |
order to switch back to the Warp tool.
And I'll go ahead and move these guys in
| | 03:50 |
like so.
Now you have to be careful about the
| | 03:53 |
transition between the selected and
deselected points, because if you make
| | 03:57 |
huge modifications at that one area right
there, you're going to get a very sharp corner.
| | 04:03 |
As you see indicated here.
Which can be useful.
| | 04:06 |
I'm going to press Ctrl+Z, because I
don't want it.
| | 04:08 |
But you may find it useful under other
circumstances.
| | 04:11 |
Now, somehow, these points are selected.
Oh, I know why.
| | 04:14 |
When you press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on a Mac,
all the points become selected.
| | 04:20 |
So, we'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z again, in
order to undo that recent change.
| | 04:25 |
I'll zoom out a little bit, and I'll
press the Q key in order to switch to the
| | 04:28 |
Lasso tool.
And I'll go ahead and marquee all these
| | 04:32 |
points down to, lets say about there.
And I'll press Shift+R to switch back to
| | 04:37 |
the Warp tool, and I'll go ahead and move
these guys in.
| | 04:40 |
This guy goes up.
This guy goes over.
| | 04:43 |
I'm bringing too much of that right-hand
side, I'll take care of that problem in
| | 04:46 |
just a moment, and that moment is now.
Go ahead and press the Q key in order to
| | 04:50 |
switch to the Lasso tool, lasso these
guys right there, press Shift+R to switch
| | 04:54 |
back to the Warp tool, and move it out.
Then press the Q key again, in order to
| | 05:00 |
switch to the Lasso tool.
So, at this point, I'm just doing the
| | 05:04 |
same thing, over and over again, by the
way.
| | 05:07 |
So, a lot of repetition, but I do want
you to see how it works, and how it is
| | 05:11 |
possible to get this stuff done pretty
quickly.
| | 05:15 |
Now, I say pretty quickly, because it
does take some time.
| | 05:17 |
These are manual edits, after all,
they're not commands that you apply or
| | 05:21 |
other kinds of dynamic modifications like
that.
| | 05:24 |
These are old school, static, painterly
modifications.
| | 05:28 |
But you may find them to be very helpful,
depending on how you work inside the program.
| | 05:33 |
All right, I'm going to go ahead and move
these guys up a little bit, like so.
| | 05:38 |
There may come a time where this just
doesn't seem to be working the way that
| | 05:42 |
you want it to.
For example, I could, at this point right
| | 05:46 |
there, just decide that, you know, I'm
motoring through it, I'm going to keep
| | 05:50 |
making this Warp tool work under any and
all circumstances.
| | 05:55 |
But really what you might want to do, on
some occasions, is just go back to the
| | 05:59 |
old way, by pressing the A key, for
example, to get the white arrow tool.
| | 06:05 |
And then you can just marquee those
points that are going to be difficult to
| | 06:07 |
shove back in there.
Press the Backspace key, or the Delete
| | 06:10 |
key on the Mac, to get rid of them.
Press the P key to switch to the Pen tool.
| | 06:15 |
And just go ahead and connect these guys
together the old-fashioned way.
| | 06:19 |
All right, I'm also going to
old-fashionably get rid of this anchor
| | 06:22 |
point right there, because I don't need
it.
| | 06:26 |
And I'll zoom back out, and I'll switch
back to the Lasso tool by pressing the Q key.
| | 06:32 |
And I'll go ahead and marquee these
details right there.
| | 06:36 |
Just make sure I got everybody selected,
I did.
| | 06:37 |
Press Shift+R in order to switch to the
Warp tool.
| | 06:41 |
And I'll increase the size of my brush,
because I really want to take this guy in.
| | 06:45 |
(LAUGH) And I think this is going to be
another one of those losing battles here,
| | 06:49 |
where I just take in that tendril out too
far.
| | 06:52 |
And I'm not going to be able to get it
back in there without making it all lumpy.
| | 06:56 |
But we'll see.
Might as well try.
| | 06:58 |
And I'll go ahead and move these guys in.
Now, you'll notice this mass
| | 07:02 |
prolifiration of anchor points here, and
that is not something to worry about at
| | 07:06 |
this point in time.
We'll deal with it in a future movie,
| | 07:11 |
because this many anchor points crammed
in this small space can present you with
| | 07:14 |
problems later, especially when you're
trying to edit the path outlines.
| | 07:19 |
But Illustrator thankfully includes a
Simplify command that works much better
| | 07:23 |
than the Simplify option that we saw in
the previous movie.
| | 07:27 |
All right, I'm going to go ahead and zoom
in here, reduce the size of my cursor,
| | 07:30 |
and I'm going to paint these guys out.
So you can see, it's really analogous to
| | 07:36 |
smearing the path outline around.
Very much like liquefying inside of Photoshop.
| | 07:42 |
But again, we're able to do it inside the
Document window, instead of having to
| | 07:46 |
work inside of a filter.
Just a few modifications left to go here.
| | 07:51 |
I'll press the Q key in order to switch
to the Lasso tool.
| | 07:55 |
I'll go ahead and marquee, hmm, these
anchor points right there.
| | 07:59 |
Press Shift+R, in order to switch back to
the Warp tool, go ahead and drag these
| | 08:04 |
details down, like so.
And smear this guy back in, to the best
| | 08:10 |
of my ability here.
And go ahead and take this down as well.
| | 08:15 |
Just go ahead and zoom in a little bit,
reduce the size of the brush, and go
| | 08:20 |
ahead and move these guys out.
And we'll take that up as well.
| | 08:25 |
Notice at this point, the deselected
anchor point is turning into a cusp.
| | 08:29 |
So it's important to note that it's the
deselected point that turns into a corner
| | 08:33 |
on you.
So I'll go ahead and press Q key, and
| | 08:36 |
select those guys again, and just see
what we can do by pressing Shift+R.
| | 08:40 |
So we're making some pretty darn detailed
changes here.
| | 08:43 |
And go ahead and move these guys out.
And then finally, I'll just press the V
| | 08:46 |
key to switch to the black arrow tool.
Select the entire path outline, like so.
| | 08:51 |
Switch back to the Warp tool by pressing
Shift+R, and I'll see if I can very
| | 08:56 |
carefully modify those details to get rid
of the lumps.
| | 09:01 |
(LAUGH) And you can see now, we have just
a ton of anchor points.
| | 09:04 |
Again, we will be taking care of that
problem later.
| | 09:07 |
But they seem to proliferate, by the way,
on a bigger basis when you're using a
| | 09:11 |
smaller brush.
So, you seem to get a lot more anchor
| | 09:15 |
points when you're using smaller brushes,
and when you're zoomed in, as well.
| | 09:19 |
So again, something to bear in mind.
Now I don't need to match my guide this carefully.
| | 09:23 |
So I'll just go ahead and zoom out at
this point.
| | 09:25 |
And take in the big picture, and I think
everything's looking pretty darn good.
| | 09:30 |
Press Ctrl+Shift+A, or Cmd+Shift+A on a
Mac, in order to deselect the path outline.
| | 09:35 |
And that, friends, is how you
painstakingly liquefy one portion of a
| | 09:38 |
path outline independently of another,
using a combination of the Lasso tool
| | 09:43 |
along with the Warp tool, here inside
Illustrator.
| | 09:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Twirl, Pucker, and Bloat tools| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to work
with the next three Liquify tools, Twirl,
| | 00:04 |
Pucker and Bloat.
We'll start things off with the Twirl
| | 00:08 |
tool, and I'll just demonstrate how it
works here for starters here.
| | 00:12 |
Then I'll show you a really great use for
it.
| | 00:14 |
So, I'm Shift Alt dragging, or Shift
Option dragging, in order to increase the
| | 00:17 |
size of my brush.
And then I'll go ahead and switch to the
| | 00:20 |
next tool over, the Twirl tool.
And notice that none of the rest of the
| | 00:23 |
Liquify tools offers a keyboard shortcut
by default, although you can give them
| | 00:27 |
one using the keyboard shortcuts command
if you like.
| | 00:32 |
Anyway I'm going to switch over to Twirl,
and then I'll press the Ctrl key or the
| | 00:35 |
Cmd key on the Mac to temporarily get my
Black Arrow tool, and I'll go ahead and
| | 00:38 |
click on the horse to select it.
And now notice if I Click and Hold, well
| | 00:44 |
that works way too quickly, doesn't it?
So, I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z or
| | 00:49 |
Cmd+Z on the Mac to Undo that change.
And I'll double-click on the Twirl tool,
| | 00:53 |
or you can just press the Enter key or
the Return key on the Mac as well, in
| | 00:56 |
order to bring up the Twirl tool options
dialog box.
| | 01:01 |
And I want you to drop down to one of
the tool specific options here, Twirl Rate.
| | 01:06 |
And go ahead and take it down to 1%,
because otherwise things happen way too quickly.
| | 01:13 |
And also go ahead and turn off the
Simplified check box while we're here,
| | 01:16 |
and then click on the OK button.
And now notice if I Click and Hold that
| | 01:21 |
things twirl counterclockwise if, while
clicking and holding I press the Alt key
| | 01:25 |
or the Option key on the Mac, then I
twirl in a clockwise direction.
| | 01:31 |
And that's very important to note,
because if you have the Alt key down
| | 01:35 |
before you start dragging, then you end
up changing the brush size, instead of
| | 01:39 |
rotating in either direction.
So, what you want to do if you want to
| | 01:44 |
twirl in the clockwise direction is Click
and Hold for starters, and then press the
| | 01:48 |
Alt key or the Option key on the Mac, in
order to reverse the direction of the twirl.
| | 01:54 |
That still happens too quickly for my
taste, so I'm going to once again
| | 01:57 |
double-click on the Twirl tool, and I'm
going to change the intensity to 10%.
| | 02:02 |
Now, it's a crying shame that this
particular option affects all of the
| | 02:05 |
tools at once, because 50% intensity
works great for the Warp tool, but it
| | 02:09 |
doesn't work very well for any other
tools.
| | 02:14 |
Anyway, I'll go ahead and take it down to
10 and then I'll click OK.
| | 02:17 |
The portion of the horse that we really
need to twirl is the tail here.
| | 02:21 |
And so I'll go ahead and increase the
size of the brush a little bit more.
| | 02:24 |
And then I'll click, and it looks to me
like I want to go in the other direction.
| | 02:29 |
So, as I'm Clicking and Holding, I'll
press the Alt key or the Option key on
| | 02:31 |
the Mac in order to give the tail a
little bit of a counterclockwise twirl.
| | 02:37 |
Next comes the Pucker tool, and this time
around, you want to double-click on the
| | 02:40 |
tool icon.
And you want to take the intensity down
| | 02:44 |
to 2%, is typically what works best, 1 or
2% in my experience.
| | 02:49 |
And then turn off the simplify check box
once again, and go ahead and click OK.
| | 02:54 |
And now I'll zoom in down below the tail,
and I'll reduce the size of my cursor
| | 02:57 |
quite a bit by Shift+Alt dragging down
right just Shift+Option drag on a Mac and
| | 03:01 |
Pucker's going to do what you think.
It's going to go ahead and pucker the
| | 03:07 |
selected details inward, which is going
to allow me to displace this corner to a
| | 03:11 |
better location.
And notice, if I click outside, I'll go
| | 03:15 |
ahead and increase the size of my brush,
if I click outside then I will actually
| | 03:19 |
bloat the shape instead of pucker.
So, you click inside with Pucker in order
| | 03:25 |
to pucker things, you click outside with
a smaller brush, I think, in order to
| | 03:29 |
bloat like so.
And so Pucker can be pretty useful
| | 03:33 |
especially with small brushes for
creating little corners at a specific
| | 03:36 |
location as I'm doing here.
The opposite tool is Bloat, so it's
| | 03:40 |
really up to you which tool you use,
because you can really get the job with either.
| | 03:46 |
But I'll go ahead and double-click on the
Bloat tool, and turn off the simplify
| | 03:49 |
check box.
Because you have to do that for each and
| | 03:52 |
every tool independently, and then click
OK.
| | 03:56 |
And now notice if I click inside the
shape then I nudge the details outward.
| | 04:02 |
I'll go ahead and do so with a bigger
brush like so, and you can also drag with
| | 04:05 |
the tool if you want to, in order to
paint outward as you drag.
| | 04:10 |
As I'm doing here, or if you want to move
a detail inward, as I'll do with these
| | 04:14 |
guys, then you click outside the selected
shape that is, in order to bloat the
| | 04:18 |
negative space essentially.
So, this is looking pretty good.
| | 04:24 |
This guy, this element right there wants
to go in, so does this, this one can go
| | 04:27 |
outwards, so you can see, you can get
worked up pretty quickly with this tool.
| | 04:32 |
It's actually, probably, the best tool,
other than the Warp tool in terms of
| | 04:36 |
getting practical work done very quickly.
And I'll go ahead and move this detail
| | 04:41 |
here in, I'll move this out.
This obviously needs to go out quite a
| | 04:45 |
bit here, so I'll go ahead and click
inside this foreleg or whatever it is,
| | 04:49 |
it's actually one of the rear legs.
And I'll go ahead and click down here to
| | 04:53 |
move these details outward, and maybe
click in there to raise the negative space.
| | 04:58 |
So again, you don't have to exactly match
the guideline, it's just there to provide
| | 05:03 |
you with an idea of what I've done
before.
| | 05:07 |
And of course, I'm not matching my
guidelines all that well, at this point
| | 05:10 |
in time either, so I don't expect you to
do it.
| | 05:14 |
If you're working along with me, of
course, you may not be, you may be
| | 05:17 |
working on your own file to try to see
what you can do with it.
| | 05:21 |
I'll go ahead and click a few times over
here in what is now actually the foreleg.
| | 05:25 |
I kind of like this little dip in the
hoof there, so I think I'll leave that.
| | 05:29 |
And I'll click in order to, increase the
size of these details, and click and drag
| | 05:33 |
to move this stuff out.
Gone too far with this detail, and I
| | 05:37 |
don't know if I'm going to be able to
smooth it or not here.
| | 05:41 |
Sometimes what you can do with the Pucker
tool, is reduce the size of the cursor
| | 05:45 |
and then drag down a region in order to
smooth things out.
| | 05:49 |
That may work for you, or it may not, in
my case I think it's made kind of a mess
| | 05:53 |
of things.
Think I'll just go ahead and Undo by
| | 05:56 |
pressing Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Mac, and
press the Q key to switch to my Lasso
| | 05:59 |
tool and marque those anchor points right
there.
| | 06:03 |
Then grab the Bloat tool again, maybe,
increase it's size this time and just
| | 06:07 |
move that stuff out.
That looks pretty good to me.
| | 06:10 |
All right, let's go ahead and select
everything, once again and then move the
| | 06:12 |
knee out a little bit.
And I selected everything, by the way, by
| | 06:16 |
pressing the Ctrl key or the Cmd key on
the Mac in order to get the Black Arrow
| | 06:19 |
tool and then clicking on the path
outline.
| | 06:23 |
And I'll go ahead and move these guys out
and go ahead and tuck these details in.
| | 06:27 |
Again, depending on the size of your
brush you may end up getting kind of
| | 06:30 |
lumpy details.
Larger brushes are less likely to give
| | 06:33 |
you lumpy details but They also mean that
you're modifying more of the path outline
| | 06:37 |
at a time, so you end up with less
control.
| | 06:41 |
All right let's go ahead and zoom out, we
don't need to be this close I don't think.
| | 06:45 |
Increase the size of the brush as well,
I'll go ahead and move this guy in.
| | 06:49 |
Really want to move these neck details
out so that the animal has a big, thick neck.
| | 06:54 |
And let's see what else we have.
This is getting a little bit lumpy there,
| | 06:57 |
so I think I'll attack it with a smaller
brush.
| | 07:00 |
I want to move the jaw out, so I'll go
ahead and Click and Hold right around
| | 07:04 |
these areas here.
And I think I want the ears to be a
| | 07:08 |
little thicker as well, so I'll go with
this ear in particular with a smaller
| | 07:13 |
brush in order to thicken it up.
And finally, this guy looks like he wants
| | 07:19 |
to go out, that is finally where the
head's concerned.
| | 07:22 |
Now we need to deal with some details
here inside the wing, specifically this
| | 07:26 |
little crook right here needs to be a
little smoother.
| | 07:29 |
And it needs to move out as well, so I'll
go at it with a smaller brush, and then
| | 07:33 |
I'll attack this area right here with a
larger brush, reduce the size of my brush
| | 07:37 |
again and move this down.
So, that Shift+Alt or Shift+Option key
| | 07:43 |
trick for changing the size of the brush
comes in really handy.
| | 07:47 |
I'm now looking at the left hand side of
the wing, and there's just this little
| | 07:50 |
detail that I want to scoot over.
Then I think I might do that with the
| | 07:53 |
everyday average Warp tool.
Although, notice now what's happening,
| | 07:57 |
because I reduce that intensity value to
2%, the Warp tool isn't doing anything.
| | 08:02 |
So, I'll press the Enter or the Return
key on the mac in order to bring up the
| | 08:05 |
Warp tool options dialog box.
And I'll restore the intensity value to
| | 08:10 |
50%, which, as I say, works great for the
Warp tool.
| | 08:13 |
It's way too much for the other tools,
however.
| | 08:15 |
And I'll reduce the size of my cursor a
little bit, maybe scoot these guys out if
| | 08:18 |
I can.
And that's looking, pretty darn good.
| | 08:24 |
So, that's the kind of very selective
changes that you can make using the
| | 08:27 |
Twirl, Pucker and Bloat tools.
In the next movie, we'll take on the
| | 08:32 |
three remaining Liquify tools, which are
Scallop, Crystallize, and Wrinkle.
| | 08:37 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Scallop, Crystallize, and Wrinkle tools| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show how to work with
the 3 remaining liquify tools which will
| | 00:04 |
Scallop, Crystallize and Wrinkle.
I'll demonstrate things along the
| | 00:09 |
underside of the horses neck here and
I'll start by switching over to the scale
| | 00:12 |
tool and I'll increase the size of my
cursor so that you can really see to
| | 00:15 |
what's going on.
So, notice, if I drag inside the selected
| | 00:20 |
shape, then I get this pattern of
scallops that are moving inward toward my cursor.
| | 00:26 |
And if I press Ctrl Z, or Cmd Z, on a Mac
and drag outside the shape, the scallops
| | 00:30 |
are still bending out toward my cursor.
So they're always bending toward that
| | 00:35 |
cross shape, right there in the middle of
the brush.
| | 00:38 |
However, they're now moving out of the
shape instead of inward.
| | 00:42 |
Go ahead and press Ctrl Z, or Cmd Z
again, and switch over to the Crystallize tool.
| | 00:46 |
This time, if I drag inward, then I'm
forcing spikes outward like so.
| | 00:53 |
But notice that they still have that
same sort of scallop shape associated
| | 00:56 |
with them.
But instead of the scallops moving inside
| | 00:59 |
the shape, the spikes move out.
And then if I press Ctrl Z and drag out
| | 01:04 |
of the shape like so, then I force the
spikes inward away from my cursor.
| | 01:09 |
So they're really very similar tools in
that regard because they're creating the
| | 01:13 |
same shapes as you drag along.
The difference is this, I'll go ahead and
| | 01:18 |
press Ctrl Z or Cmd Z on a Mac, and I'll
double-click on the scallop tool in order
| | 01:22 |
to bring up the options dialog box
here.
| | 01:25 |
And notice these check boxes down here.
Notice that the brush effects in tangent
| | 01:31 |
handles and out tangent handles.
In case you're wondering what in the
| | 01:34 |
world Illustrator is talking about,
tangent handles is yet another name for
| | 01:38 |
Bezier control handles, meaning that
we've got the handles that are going into
| | 01:41 |
an anchor point and out of an anchor
point, so we're affecting the handles and
| | 01:45 |
not the points themselves.
Even though we're generating points all
| | 01:50 |
over the place.
And notice that the anchor points option
| | 01:53 |
is dimmed.
Well if you turn off either of the other
| | 01:55 |
two check boxes, then it lights up.
And then you can turn it on and the other
| | 02:00 |
one dims.
So you can only have two out of three of
| | 02:02 |
these check boxes selected.
At any given time.
| | 02:05 |
Why is beyond me, but I just want you to
know that's true.
| | 02:09 |
I'm going to cancel out here.
And then, I'll double-click on the
| | 02:12 |
crystalize tool, and you can see that it
by default just affects anchor points and
| | 02:16 |
it doesn't affect handles at all.
So as a result, let me show you what that
| | 02:22 |
looks like.
If I drag outside the shape.
| | 02:25 |
Notice that I'm forcing those spikes in
continuous directions away from my cursor
| | 02:28 |
so they're always moving away from the
cursor.
| | 02:32 |
I'll press Ctrl Z or Cmd Z on a Mac to
undo that change and now I'll grab the
| | 02:35 |
scallop tool and drag with it and notice
that this time we have more leeway in
| | 02:39 |
terms of the angle at which the scallop's
moving.
| | 02:44 |
As opposed to necessarily moving toward
the cursor, they're moving in the angle
| | 02:48 |
of my drag.
So notice that I'm the smushing scallops
| | 02:51 |
away from my brush as I paint.
All right, I'll go ahead and Ctrl Z, or Cmd
| | 02:55 |
Z on a Mac, in order to undo that change.
So, for what it's worth.
| | 03:00 |
That's what's going on, sort of a very
tiny little difference between those
| | 03:03 |
tools, but it can make a difference in
terms of the appearance of your modified art.
| | 03:09 |
I generally prefer to use the
Crystallized tool of the two of them.
| | 03:13 |
Now I'll grab the Wrinkle tool, which is
just a wacky tool.
| | 03:16 |
And what it does is notice it kind of,
does this sine wave thing as you're
| | 03:20 |
dragging along the path outline.
So it's creating this almost audio wave.
| | 03:26 |
And the reason it's wrinkling the path in
that direction, is I'll go ahead and
| | 03:29 |
press Ctrl Z or Cmd Z on the Mac, so I
can demonstrate the difference, is
| | 03:32 |
because of an option that's a work by
default.
| | 03:37 |
I'll go ahead and double-click.
On the Wrinkle tool.
| | 03:39 |
And you can see that the Wrinkle options
by default have horizontal set to zero,
| | 03:43 |
and vertical set to a 100.
If I were to crank horizontal up to a 100
| | 03:47 |
as well, and click the OK button, then
you can see that I'm wrinkling the path
| | 03:51 |
outline all over the place.
So you have that kind of control if you
| | 03:56 |
want it.
Now we don't want anything like that
| | 03:58 |
where this artwork is concerned.
So I'll just go ahead and press Ctrl Z,
| | 04:02 |
or Cmd Z on a Mac, to undo that change.
What I decided to do, you don't really
| | 04:06 |
need to, but I thought it lended the
creature a little bit of variety where
| | 04:09 |
the edge detail was concerned.
I went ahead and grabbed the crystal tool
| | 04:14 |
and double-clicked on it.
And I'm going to reduce the intensity to 10%.
| | 04:19 |
And I'm not going to worry about the
other options.
| | 04:21 |
We'll visit them in the next movie.
And I'll click OK.
| | 04:25 |
And now of course I'll reduce the size of
my cursor, and I'll just go ahead and
| | 04:28 |
drag right along there.
Now what you want to make sure you don't
| | 04:32 |
do is what I just did.
You want to make a decision about which
| | 04:35 |
side of the path outline you're going to
be on.
| | 04:38 |
You don't want to cross the path outline
because then you'll change suddenly from
| | 04:42 |
the spikes going outward to the spikes
going inward, so I'll press Ctrl +Z or
| | 04:45 |
Cmd + Z on the Mac, and then drag like so
in order to move those spikes outward
| | 04:48 |
right next to the ear.
And I can't say they look exactly like hair.
| | 04:55 |
But again we end up getting some
variation in the edge detail which I
| | 04:59 |
think can help out here especially when
we're viewing the art work form further
| | 05:03 |
away and we are not this close.
There is of course the viewer will not be
| | 05:08 |
when they actually see the art work for
themselves and it also helps take care of
| | 05:12 |
weird details like this where we just
have rectangles that were created by the
| | 05:16 |
image tracing feature.
So again it just gives us some variation.
| | 05:25 |
And also you might find that it helps in
stylizing your artwork.
| | 05:29 |
That's good enough for there.
Let's move on to the other hairy part of
| | 05:32 |
the animal.
Which is the tail.
| | 05:35 |
So I'm going to drag around here in order
to add just a little bit of
| | 05:38 |
crystallizing, might increase the size of
my cursor a little bit which will result
| | 05:42 |
in bigger spike, as you can see here.
And I'll go ahead and move down to this
| | 05:48 |
region as well, might as well spike this
area up, although, cross the path, not
| | 05:52 |
good, undo.
Go ahead and drag, like so, maybe spike
| | 05:56 |
up some of this a little bit and, you
know, you can do anything you like.
| | 06:04 |
It's really not an experiment in realism
as I think is fairly evident at this point.
| | 06:09 |
So, just cross the path outline, gotta
pay more attention to what I'm doing.
| | 06:13 |
You can't just free-form it like that.
How to stay on the inside if I'm going to
| | 06:17 |
get consistent results, or on the outside
if I want scalloping, but of course I don't.
| | 06:22 |
So I'll go ahead and drag along here, and
I don't think I want to drag along its butt.
| | 06:27 |
But this looks pretty good.
Go ahead and zoom in.
| | 06:30 |
Maybe we want just a little bit of hair
detail along the bottom, like so, and
| | 06:34 |
maybe toward the front of the animal.
After all, it's a mammal, so it's got.
| | 06:39 |
Hair all over its body.
I kind of like him having a little bit of
| | 06:42 |
burns, you know, sideburns, if we go down
his jawline here, because they're all the
| | 06:46 |
rage even for horses.
So I think that pretty well takes care of
| | 06:51 |
the horse, and you have a sense of whats
going on at least with the Scallop,
| | 06:54 |
Crystallize, and Wrinkle tools.
In the next movie, I'll show you a way to
| | 06:59 |
use a Crystallize tool to create an
awesome custom starburst effect.
| | 07:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Simplifying a path; creating a custom starburst| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to do a
couple of things.
| | 00:02 |
First we'll simplify the path outline for
the horse and then I'll show you how to
| | 00:06 |
create a really great custom star-burst
effect using a combination of the
| | 00:10 |
Crystallize and Scallop tools.
So, if you're working along with me,
| | 00:16 |
twirl open the guides and eye layer, and
then, turn on this path, which represents
| | 00:20 |
the creature's eye, and turn off warped,
which is that custom guideline.
| | 00:25 |
And then you can twirl that layer closed.
Then as long as we're here, go ahead and
| | 00:29 |
unlock the evening layer.
Now press the V key to switch to the
| | 00:33 |
Black Arrow tool.
And notice that we have a weak black, I
| | 00:36 |
need to take care of that.
So I'll go ahead and click on the horse's
| | 00:39 |
path outline.
Shift+Click on the black swatch up here
| | 00:42 |
in the control panel.
And switch over to CMYK in the flyout menu.
| | 00:47 |
And I'll dial in 50% for the C, M, and Y
values, in order to produce the rich
| | 00:50 |
black you see on screen.
All right, notice that we have way too many
| | 00:55 |
anchor points at work here.
And that's a function of having turned
| | 00:59 |
off the Simplify checkbox for the various
Liquefy tools that we used.
| | 01:03 |
Now, that Simplify checkbox doesn't give
you very much control, and it happens on
| | 01:07 |
the fly.
It's a static control instead of allowing
| | 01:10 |
you to see it happen on the fly, which is
the entire function of the Simplify command.
| | 01:16 |
To get to that command, go up to the
Object menu, choose Paths, and then
| | 01:19 |
choose Simplify.
And you can see, for what it's worth, if
| | 01:23 |
you loaded D keys, I gave you a keyboard
shortcut of mash your fist C.
| | 01:27 |
Go ahead and choose the command.
And notice that curved position by
| | 01:31 |
default is set to 50% which completely
and utterly ruins the path outline.
| | 01:36 |
Now the good news is it takes the number
of anchor points down from 3,003 in my
| | 01:39 |
case, to 2,014.
But the price is way too high.
| | 01:43 |
What I recommend you do with this command
is max it out.
| | 01:46 |
Just go ahead and crank that curve
precision value up to its utter maximum
| | 01:49 |
which is 100% and notice that still
reduces the number of anchor points by
| | 01:53 |
almost a factor of two thirds which is a
pretty huge saving.
| | 01:58 |
And then you want to nudge the value
down.
| | 02:01 |
Now, you can go down to as low as
something like 90%, and you are going to
| | 02:04 |
really get rid of a lot of anchor points
there, but, you're also going to get rid
| | 02:07 |
of a lot of definition too, and you don't
want that to happen.
| | 02:11 |
You only want to get rid of the
unnecessary anchor points, not the
| | 02:14 |
necessary ones.
And in the case of my artwork, that
| | 02:18 |
happens about 96%.
You might be able to take it down to 95
| | 02:21 |
or 94%, if you like, you can try that out
and see what happens.
| | 02:25 |
But in my case, I've reduced the points
from 3,000 plus to 995.
| | 02:30 |
So I'll go ahead and click OK, in order
to accept that change and then you want
| | 02:33 |
to check around those crystallized
details and the hair, to make sure that
| | 02:36 |
nothing's gone wrong with the control
handles.
| | 02:40 |
because sometimes, the control handles
can leap away from a cusp point and
| | 02:43 |
you'll have some weird details inside of
your final artwork.
| | 02:47 |
But in my case everything looks good.
You'll want to check the tail too by the way.
| | 02:52 |
All right now that we've done that let's
check out the custom star burst.
| | 02:55 |
I'll go ahead and zoom out, quite a bit
actually, from my artwork and I'll click
| | 02:58 |
on the star to select it.
This is a standard 12 pointed star with a
| | 03:02 |
center point that I added from the
Attributes panel, using this icon.
| | 03:06 |
And because the star has an even number
of spikes, that center point is accurate.
| | 03:10 |
I'll go ahead and hide the Attributes
panel.
| | 03:13 |
And we want to create a copy of this
shape so we don't ruin the original, by
| | 03:16 |
pressing Ctrl+C, or Cmd+C on a Mac, then
twirl open the evening layer, and turn
| | 03:19 |
off the original star, just so it's
protected.
| | 03:23 |
And then press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on a Mac
to paste in that copy.
| | 03:27 |
Next double-click on the Crystallize tool
icon in order to bring up its options,
| | 03:31 |
and dial in a width and height value of
700 points each.
| | 03:36 |
So we're going to have a huge brush.
Now notice we've got this complexity setting.
| | 03:40 |
It's related to detail.
The detail value, if we raise it, will
| | 03:43 |
give us more points in our Custom Star
effect.
| | 03:47 |
So will complexity but complexity does so
with a little more variety which is why I
| | 03:50 |
like it better for this effect.
So I'm going to take the complexity value
| | 03:55 |
up to four.
And then, click OK.
| | 03:57 |
The other values are fine as is.
And then click and hold inside the star
| | 04:01 |
until the shape grows like so.
I don't want it to grow that much so
| | 04:05 |
press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on a Mac, to undo
that change.
| | 04:09 |
And I'll just click until every other
spike is a slightly different length.
| | 04:14 |
And then you want to click and hold again
until the thing grows almost to its
| | 04:18 |
maximum size.
So two click and holds in order to create
| | 04:21 |
this effect here, and then reduce the
opacity value to 25%.
| | 04:26 |
Now press Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on the Mac, to
paste another copy of that star, and
| | 04:29 |
let's reduce the size of the brush this
time.
| | 04:33 |
By double-clicking on the tool and
reducing both the height and width values
| | 04:36 |
to 500 points.
Notice the intensity is set to 10%, as it
| | 04:39 |
was in a previous movie.
Go ahead and click OK.
| | 04:42 |
And now, click and hold in the star
shape, a couple of times once again, in
| | 04:46 |
order to produce this effect here.
And reduce the opacity value to 50%.
| | 04:52 |
Now you want to press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F, to
paste another copy of the star.
| | 04:56 |
This is our third copy.
Click and hold as long as it takes to
| | 04:59 |
make that star nice and big.
You'll notice it kind of stops moving at
| | 05:02 |
a point.
Then switch over to the Scallop tool,
| | 05:05 |
and double-click on it, and change its
complexity to four once again.
| | 05:10 |
Click OK.
And then, click and hold inside the star
| | 05:13 |
in order to produce this effect.
And your results may vary slightly.
| | 05:17 |
That's totally fine.
Go ahead and change the opacity value,
| | 05:20 |
this time to 75%, and then press Ctrl+F
or Cmd+F for the last time to paste in a
| | 05:24 |
fourth copy of the star, and just click
and hold for a second or two in order to
| | 05:28 |
produce this effect here.
Now get the Black Arrow tool and marque
| | 05:34 |
like so in order to select all four of
the star shapes.
| | 05:39 |
Now that also selects the big rectangle
around the entire art board.
| | 05:43 |
So shift click on it to deselect it.
So you should see the red of the bleed
| | 05:46 |
without seeing a rectangle on top of it.
And then you want to go up to the Object
| | 05:51 |
menu, choose Blend, and then choose Make.
Or you can press Ctrl+Alt+B, or
| | 05:56 |
Cmd+Option+B on the Mac.
And that'll add a single step in between
| | 05:59 |
each one of the custom star shapes.
And then you can click off the shapes in
| | 06:04 |
order to deselect them and end you up
with this amazing custom star burst
| | 06:07 |
effect here.
Which would be a real chore to create
| | 06:11 |
with a Pen tool or any other of the other
drawing tools inside of Illustrator, but
| | 06:16 |
is amazingly easy to create using a
combination of a star along with just two
| | 06:20 |
Liquefy tools, Crystallize and Scallop.
| | 06:25 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying an envelope-style distortion| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll introduce you to
envelope distortions, which we'll use in
| | 00:04 |
order to create this rolling grass
effect.
| | 00:07 |
It's also affecting the live editable
type as well, as you can see right here.
| | 00:12 |
So I'll go ahead and switch over to our
illustration in progress and then I'll
| | 00:15 |
select this gradient rectangle toward the
bottom of the document and I'll
| | 00:18 |
Shift+click on the text to select it as
well.
| | 00:21 |
Now we're going to create an envelope
style distortion based on a common
| | 00:24 |
warping effect.
So just to give you a sense for the
| | 00:28 |
differences between the warp styles
inside of illustrator, I'll go up the
| | 00:32 |
Effect > Warp > Arc Upper.
And I'll go ahead and dial in a bend
| | 00:37 |
value of 25% and turn on a Preview
checkbox.
| | 00:40 |
And you can see, that that goes ahead and
dynamically bends both the rectangle and
| | 00:44 |
the text on the fly, which is a really
great thing.
| | 00:48 |
But when you are applying a dynamic war,
you only have so many styles to choose from.
| | 00:53 |
What if you want to use this Arc Upper
Effect as a jumping off point for your
| | 00:56 |
own custom distortion.
In that case, you need to apply an
| | 01:01 |
envelope style distortion, which is also
dynamic by the way, just a little more
| | 01:05 |
difficult to use.
So I'll go ahead and cancel out of here.
| | 01:09 |
And I'll go to the Object > Envelope
Distort > Make With Warp, which as you
| | 01:14 |
can see, Adobe has given a keyboard
shortcut of mash your fist W.
| | 01:20 |
And as soon as I bring up this dialog box
here, it's very much like what we were
| | 01:23 |
seeing a moment ago.
It'll come up with Arc selected by
| | 01:27 |
default, just so happens I last applied
Arc Upper and I went ahead and set the
| | 01:31 |
bend value to 25%, as we just saw a
moment ago.
| | 01:35 |
Now I'll turn on a Preview checkbox and
we end up achieving the exact same effect.
| | 01:39 |
Now click OK in order to apply that
effect to the illustration.
| | 01:44 |
And so the great thing about this style
of warp is that we can customize it using
| | 01:48 |
the White Arrow tool.
So I'll go ahead and scroll down a little
| | 01:52 |
bit here, and I'll press the A key to
switch to the White Arrow.
| | 01:56 |
And notice that we have a sequence of
anchor points around the envelope.
| | 02:01 |
So basically what Illustrators done is
it's taken the rectangle in the text and
| | 02:05 |
placed it inside of an envelope.
And we now have the option of modifying
| | 02:09 |
the shape of the envelope and that will
affect its contents and kind.
| | 02:14 |
So I'll go ahead and click on this anchor
point right there.
| | 02:17 |
And it's very important that you click on
it first to select it.
| | 02:20 |
You can't just start dragging it.
And then I'll drag it upward while
| | 02:23 |
pressing the Shift key until I get to
about this point, and I'll drag this
| | 02:27 |
control handle down.
So what we're modifying, by the way, is a
| | 02:32 |
mesh, just like the mesh that we saw back
in the gradient mesh chapter.
| | 02:37 |
The only difference is that it affects
the shape of the stuff inside of it, not
| | 02:41 |
the color.
Now, I'll go ahead and drag this anchor
| | 02:44 |
point down to about here.
And it's not really important that you do
| | 02:47 |
exactly what I'm doing, but it is a
little hard to predict the results.
| | 02:51 |
You will have to play around in order to
get effects that look something like mine.
| | 02:56 |
And now I'll go ahead and drag this down
but unfortunately I dragged down an
| | 02:59 |
unfortunate anatomical detail here inside
the horse.
| | 03:03 |
So I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z or
Cmd+Z on the Mac to undo that change.
| | 03:07 |
And I'll lock down the horse layer like
so.
| | 03:10 |
And then, I'll go ahead and fish around
for an anchor point on my envelope.
| | 03:14 |
And if you can't find it, all you need to
do is press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a Mac, and
| | 03:18 |
then you'll actually see the shape of
your envelope on screen.
| | 03:23 |
And this is the point I'm looking for.
And now I'll drag it down to here, and
| | 03:27 |
I'll go ahead and drag the control handle
up like so.
| | 03:30 |
So I'm trying to create a kind of rolling
hill effect.
| | 03:33 |
And I'll press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a Mac
so you can see the effect that that has
| | 03:36 |
on the contents of the envelope.
And I'll go ahead and drag this guy
| | 03:41 |
upward and drag this control handle down
and I'm grabbing the star this time,
| | 03:45 |
which I definitely don't want to do.
So I'll twirl open the evening layer and
| | 03:50 |
I'll lock down that blend as well.
All right.
| | 03:54 |
Having locked down everything I think
might get in the way, I'll click here on
| | 03:57 |
this curving envelope segment, and then
I'll grab that anchor point and drag it
| | 04:00 |
down to this location.
So we're just trying to get a general
| | 04:04 |
rolling hill effect.
You can mess around with it a little more
| | 04:07 |
if you'd like.
And if you feel like the text is starting
| | 04:10 |
to bend inwards, which sometimes it looks
like it's trying to do, then you can just
| | 04:13 |
drag one of the anchor points out a
little bit, as I've done here.
| | 04:18 |
All right, so that's how you apply a
custom envelope style distortion based on
| | 04:22 |
a pre-existing warp effect.
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
| | 04:27 |
modify the contents of the envelope, so
that, for example, the text isn't nearly
| | 04:32 |
so squished.
| | 04:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing the contents of an envelope| 00:00 |
In this move, we'll edit the contents of
our envelope distortion.
| | 00:03 |
To create this kind of crabgrass effect
along the top of the rolling hills as
| | 00:07 |
well as squish the type.
So it appears to be the proper height.
| | 00:12 |
I'll go ahead, and switch over to my
document in progress here.
| | 00:14 |
And I'll press the V key, to switch from
my black arrow tool.
| | 00:17 |
And I'll click on the envelope to select
it like so.
| | 00:20 |
Now, I want to draw your attention to
these two icons, up here at the beginning
| | 00:24 |
of the control panel.
One says Edit Envelope and it's currently
| | 00:28 |
active, meaning that we're editing the
shape of the envelope.
| | 00:32 |
And the other one reads Edit Contents,
which will allow us to the edit stuff
| | 00:35 |
that's inside the envelope.
I'm going to go ahead and switch over to
| | 00:39 |
that option.
And notice now that the rectangle and the
| | 00:43 |
text are selected.
And they've been nudged over slightly to
| | 00:46 |
the left.
And that's a function of having nudged
| | 00:49 |
that anchor point in the upper left hand
of the envelope.
| | 00:53 |
And it's not really a problem for our
purposes because as long as text looks to
| | 00:56 |
be centered on screen, then everything is
fine.
| | 01:00 |
Now let's say you want to modify these
objects.
| | 01:02 |
Well, unfortunatly, if I click off one
and click on one again, for example this
| | 01:06 |
rectangle, I end up selecting both of
them.
| | 01:09 |
As long as I'm using the black arrow
tool, anyways.
| | 01:12 |
So the easiest way to gain access to one
object or the other is to go ahead and
| | 01:15 |
twirl open a layer and then you'll see
this envelope item.
| | 01:19 |
And you can twirl it open, as well, to
gain access to each of it's contents, but
| | 01:22 |
I want you to notice something.
This little twirly triangle and your
| | 01:27 |
ability to twirl open the envelope, are
not consistent.
| | 01:30 |
That option is only available when you're
editing the contents.
| | 01:34 |
If you switch over to Edit Envelope, then
your ability to twirl open this envelope
| | 01:38 |
object inside the Layers panel
disappears, I can't defend that.
| | 01:42 |
I have to say, it's just the way it is.
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and switch
| | 01:46 |
over to Edit Contents again.
And notice now, I get the little twirly
| | 01:50 |
guy, and it automatically twirls open in
my case, because that's the way I left it.
| | 01:55 |
And now I'll go ahead and select the
rectangular path by meat balling it here
| | 01:58 |
inside the Layers panel, and that selects
it independently.
| | 02:02 |
To add the crabgrass, or whatever the
grass effect might be I use the
| | 02:06 |
Crystallize tool, so you can combine
these various distortion functions as
| | 02:09 |
much as you like.
I'll go ahead and double-click on the
| | 02:13 |
Crystallize tool to bring up its options.
Notice, in advance here I've changed the
| | 02:18 |
width and height of the brush to 100
points each.
| | 02:21 |
I've set the intensity to 10%, the
complexity is set to two, and that's
| | 02:25 |
about it.
All right, now I'll go ahead and click OK,
| | 02:28 |
and I'll brush quickly along the text
like, so to create some broadly separated
| | 02:32 |
grass, and then I'll brush back the other
direction to add some additional grass
| | 02:36 |
blades in between, and if you want to go
ahead and brush some more by all means,
| | 02:40 |
you're welcome.
Now notice, because I went ahead and
| | 02:46 |
brushed in some crystallization over
here, in the upper right and the upper
| | 02:50 |
left-hand corners I've managed to squish
the actual effect on screen inward.
| | 02:56 |
And obviously I don't want that to
happen.
| | 02:58 |
So I'll go ahead and grab my scale tool,
and I'll Alt + Click or Opt + Click down
| | 03:01 |
here at the bottom about at the center of
the shape.
| | 03:06 |
And now we'll bring out the scale
dialog box, and these are the values
| | 03:08 |
that came up with.
Non uniform, a horizontal value of 100%,
| | 03:12 |
and a vertical value of 120%.
But even though that's what I came up
| | 03:17 |
with before, apparently that's not what's
going to work this time around.
| | 03:21 |
And so, depending on the shape of your
envelope, things are going to be
| | 03:24 |
different for you.
So you're just going to have to come up
| | 03:26 |
with values that work.
I'll go ahead and try horizontal value of
| | 03:29 |
120% and that has not done enough,
either.
| | 03:32 |
I'll try 140% instead, and it looks to me
like I'm not getting anywhere, because
| | 03:37 |
I'm trapped inside of my envelope.
All I'm doing Is reducing the size of the text.
| | 03:45 |
All right, so I'll cancel out.
If changing the size of the rectangle
| | 03:48 |
doesn't do the trick, as it's not in my
case, why then let's change the size of
| | 03:52 |
the envelope instead.
So I'll go back and switch to edit
| | 03:56 |
envelope, like so.
And notice that It's kind of shifted
| | 04:00 |
around on screen.
That's fine.
| | 04:01 |
I'll go ahead and Alt + Click or Opt +
Click around the bottom of the envelope
| | 04:05 |
this time around in order to bring up the
scale dialog bog.
| | 04:10 |
There was a little bit of a lag there,
and this time my value seemed to have worked.
| | 04:14 |
So I've got a horizontal value of 110% a
vertical value of 120% I'm not sure if I
| | 04:18 |
want that vertical value, let's try
taking it out, because I'm not sure
| | 04:21 |
that's something that I need.
Actually, that looks pretty darn good to
| | 04:27 |
me, we're only going to know if we go for
it so, horizontal 110%, vertical just
| | 04:33 |
100%, click OK.
And now, let's try editing the text and
| | 04:38 |
see what we come up with.
I'll switch over to edit contents up here
| | 04:42 |
in the Control panel, and by the way I
know a lot of you don't like the keyboard
| | 04:45 |
shortcuts, but a lot of you do and I just
want you to know there's a shortcut for
| | 04:48 |
switching back and fourth, and you can
find it in the Object menu.
| | 04:53 |
If you go down to envelope distort,
you'll see edit content its Ctrl + Shift
| | 04:56 |
+ P, which is the last consonant in
envelope or Cmd + Shift + P on the mac,
| | 04:59 |
so its there if you want it anyway.
Those icons are pretty handy, so I'm not
| | 05:05 |
sure that ones worth remembering.
Anyway, now I can gain access to the
| | 05:08 |
text, which is what I'm looking for.
And I'm going to try scaling the text
| | 05:12 |
dynamically, by going up to the effect
menu.
| | 05:15 |
Choosing distort and transform, and
choosing the transform command or if you
| | 05:19 |
loaded the keys this is a great shortcut,
Ctrl + E or Cmd + E on the Mac.
| | 05:23 |
And now I'm just going to dial in some
settings I wrote down for all the good
| | 05:26 |
they're going to do me, probably.
I'll go ahead and turn on the preview
| | 05:29 |
check box after changing the vertical
value to 133%, and I don't know, that's
| | 05:33 |
not bad.
Let's see if I can take it up without
| | 05:36 |
completely ruining everything.
I'll take it up to 140%, gosh, you know what?
| | 05:41 |
I'm feeling bold, I'll take it to 150%
and see what I come up with.
| | 05:44 |
That looks pretty good to me.
And now I'm going to change the vertical
| | 05:47 |
move value to negative fifteen points.
And I'm just looking to keep things
| | 05:52 |
pretty evenly spaced, so we have roughly
the same amount of space on the right
| | 05:55 |
hand side, and on the left hand side of
the text as well as down here at the bottom.
| | 06:00 |
It looks like I'm a little tighter on the
left than I am on the right so let's try
| | 06:04 |
a horizontal move value of negative 5 and
see what happens when we do this.
| | 06:09 |
That's over compensating, so let's try
negative 2.
| | 06:12 |
I'm just winging it here, obviously,
folks.
| | 06:14 |
Usually, I have settings written down,
but they're not working.
| | 06:17 |
And they won't work for you either, so I
might as well encourage you to play
| | 06:19 |
around here.
Anyway, for me these values look great.
| | 06:24 |
Now, I'm going to go ahead and click OK
in order to apply those changes.
| | 06:27 |
And then, you know what?
I think that gradient on the background
| | 06:30 |
there, on the rectangle, could use some
darkening up.
| | 06:34 |
So I'll go ahead and select that
rectangle.
| | 06:36 |
Now, we have to be careful because notice
that it's up now above the background
| | 06:41 |
rectangle, they both employ the same
gradient.
| | 06:45 |
They both start at the same point, and
they don't start transitioning til pretty
| | 06:48 |
high up.
So everything should be okay, but you
| | 06:51 |
want to avoid adding a seem at this
location.
| | 06:54 |
In any event press the G key to switch to
the gradient tool, and you'll see that
| | 06:57 |
gradient annotator there.
Notice, that even though the gradient
| | 07:01 |
begins all the way at the bottom, that's
where the first color stop appears.
| | 07:05 |
So we've got a good margin of error.
What we want to do is take this top
| | 07:08 |
downward and I'm going to do so while
pressing the shift key so I can strain
| | 07:11 |
the angle of that gradient to exactly
vertical.
| | 07:15 |
And I think that looks pretty good, that
looks a little different than my final
| | 07:18 |
effect so I might take it up a little
bit.
| | 07:20 |
Yeah, that looks great.
All right now I'll press the V key to
| | 07:23 |
switch back to the black arrow tool, and
also switch back to edit envelope and
| | 07:27 |
I'll click off of my shape in order to
deselect it.
| | 07:32 |
And that friends is how you edit the
contents of an envelope distortion,
| | 07:36 |
however precarious it may be, here inside
Illustrator.
| | 07:40 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Masking the contents of an entire layer| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to mask
the contents of an entire layer, which a
| | 00:03 |
lot of folks don't know you can do and
it's really actually very easy to pull off.
| | 00:08 |
And then we'll repurpose that mask to
create an opacity mask for the horse.
| | 00:13 |
So, first thing I want you to do is go
ahead and zoom out, a couple of clicks here.
| | 00:18 |
And grab the Rectangle tool.
And the idea is that even though I got a
| | 00:21 |
bleed, and I've got stuff extending out
into the bleed, I want to get a sense of
| | 00:24 |
what my artwork looks like when it
prints.
| | 00:28 |
And this is just a temporary thing, so I
can see what's going on.
| | 00:30 |
So, in other words, I want to mask away
the bleed and all the extra starburst,
| | 00:33 |
and stuff like that.
And so I'm going to create a rectangle
| | 00:36 |
that's exactly the size of the art board.
So if I press Shift+O in order to switch
| | 00:40 |
to the Art Board tool, I can see that
both the width and the height of this art
| | 00:44 |
board are 720 points.
So I'll just go ahead and press the Esc
| | 00:49 |
key to escape out, and I'll click any old
place inside the document window, and
| | 00:52 |
notice that I already have a rectangle
set up to 720 points wide.
| | 00:57 |
Ans 720 points tall.
So I'll go ahead and click OK in order to
| | 01:00 |
create that square and then I'll click on
the align icon up here in the control
| | 01:04 |
panel and change it to align to art board
if isn't already set that way and then go
| | 01:08 |
ahead and click on horizontal align
center in order to center the square in
| | 01:11 |
the art board and click on vertical align
center as well.
| | 01:18 |
Now we've got the thing exactly where we
want it.
| | 01:20 |
Now, because we're going to re-purpose
this rectangle, go up to the Edit menu
| | 01:23 |
and choose the Copy command in order to
create a copy of it.
| | 01:27 |
Or, of course, you can just press Ctrl C
or Cmd+C on a Mac.
| | 01:31 |
Now, notice that my squares come in at
the top of the evening layer.
| | 01:34 |
That's exactly what I want, because
that's where all the stuff extending out
| | 01:37 |
of the layer is located.
So with that path at the top of the stack
| | 01:41 |
doesn't matter what color is assigned to
it, it looks to me (LAUGH) like I got
| | 01:44 |
some sort of very light grey.
Interesting, I don't know where that's
| | 01:48 |
coming from.
But anyway, that doesn't matter.
| | 01:50 |
Just go ahead and make sure it's
selected.
| | 01:51 |
And drop down to the bottom of the Layers
panel and click on this icon right there,
| | 01:55 |
Make Release Clipping Mask.
And that'll go ahead and clip everything
| | 02:00 |
that's outside of that layer, just like
so.
| | 02:03 |
Oh, and as an aside, notice next door to
the clipping icon is a little search
| | 02:07 |
icon, and what that allows you to do,
I'll go ahead and unlock for example the
| | 02:10 |
horse layer, and I'll press the V key to
switch to my black arrow tool, and I'll
| | 02:13 |
click on the horse to select it.
If you then click on that little
| | 02:19 |
magnifying glass, Illustrator will
automatically find that selected object
| | 02:23 |
inside the Layers panel.
Which can be extremely handy indeed.
| | 02:29 |
So I just want to make sure that you know
about that one.
| | 02:32 |
Anyway, I'm going to twirl close the
evening layer.
| | 02:34 |
And I want to modify this guy a little
bit.
| | 02:37 |
This liquified horse.
So the first thing I'm going to do.
| | 02:40 |
because I just want to create some
interaction between him and the background.
| | 02:43 |
I'm going to set him back to a weak
black.
| | 02:45 |
By Shift+clicking on this first swatch up
here in the control panel.
| | 02:48 |
And I'll just dial back the c, m, and y
values to zero apiece.
| | 02:53 |
In order to get this very dark shade of
grey.
| | 02:55 |
And then, I'll go to my transparency
panel.
| | 02:58 |
And I'll go ahead and expand it so that I
can see the Opacity Mask options.
| | 03:02 |
And I'll also change the Blend mode from
normal to multiply so we'll end up with
| | 03:06 |
this effect here.
All right, now click on Make Mask in
| | 03:09 |
order to create an opacity mask as you
can see here.
| | 03:13 |
Clip should be turned off.
And then you want to click on the second
| | 03:17 |
thumbnail in order to activate the
opacity mask and press Ctr+-F, or Cmd+F
| | 03:21 |
on the Mac, in order to paste in that
very light grey square.
| | 03:27 |
Now make sure that your stroke is set to
None, which it is in my case, and then
| | 03:30 |
you want to tap the period key in order
to switch the fill.
| | 03:35 |
Which is active for me, it's very
important that it is active by the way
| | 03:38 |
for you as well.
To switch the fill to a gradient, and by
| | 03:42 |
default it should be white to black.
And hopefully it is for you as well,
| | 03:46 |
otherwise you'll have to modify your
color stops.
| | 03:49 |
Then go ahead and expand the Gradient
panel like so, and I'm going to press the
| | 03:52 |
G key to switch to my Gradient tool, and
I'm going to drag from the T down here at
| | 03:56 |
the bottom of the illustration.
Up until I'm about even with the bottom
| | 04:02 |
of that wing right there, and I'm
pressing the Shift key as I drag, so I'm
| | 04:05 |
constraining the angle of my gradient to
exactly vertical.
| | 04:09 |
That turns out to be exactly the opposite
of what I want, so I'll go ahead and
| | 04:12 |
click on the reverse gradient icon here
inside the gradient panel, to produce
| | 04:15 |
this effect here.
Now that's too much frankly, I'm going to
| | 04:20 |
go ahead and zoom in by the way, so I can
better see what I'm doing.
| | 04:24 |
But in other words I'm masking away too
much of the feet.
| | 04:27 |
So I'll switch over to the Transparency
panel, and I'll change the Opacity value
| | 04:31 |
to 50%, in order to reduce, not the
opacity of the horse, but rather, the
| | 04:35 |
density of the mask.
And now click on the thumbnail of the
| | 04:40 |
horse in the Transparency panel in order
to switch back to my layered document.
| | 04:44 |
And I'll press Ctrl+Shift+A, or
Cmd+Shift+A on the Mac to deselect everything.
| | 04:49 |
And that's how you mask the entire
contents of a layer.
| | 04:52 |
As well as repurpose that mask as a low
density gradient opacity mask.
| | 04:57 |
Here inside Illustrator.
| | 04:59 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
38. Pattern BrushesUp to five tiles per pattern brush| 00:00 |
Back in the advanced course, you may
recall that we took a look at three
| | 00:03 |
varieties of brushes.
Calliographic, scatter, and my
| | 00:07 |
favorite,the art brush.
Which allows you to stretch a collection
| | 00:11 |
of path outlines defined as a brush along
another path.
| | 00:15 |
In this chapter, we'll see a fourth
variety of brush, known as the pattern
| | 00:19 |
brush, which allows you to repeat a
series of tile patterns along the length
| | 00:23 |
of a path outline.
And the great thing about pattern
| | 00:28 |
brushes, is they give you a ton of
control.
| | 00:31 |
You can assign up to five different tiles
to a single pattern brush.
| | 00:36 |
Starting with the side tile, which
determines the appearance of the brush
| | 00:40 |
along segments, either straight or
curved, as well as smooth points.
| | 00:45 |
Then you can also assign up to two corner
tiles that'll appear at corner points.
| | 00:50 |
And you can assign a start and end tile
that will appear at end points in an open path.
| | 00:55 |
Which makes pattern brushes perfect for
creating framing effects inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:01 |
But you can also assign them the path
outlines and letter forms, as I'll
| | 01:04 |
demonstrate in the following movies.
| | 01:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a basic pattern brush| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
create a basic pattern brush that
| | 00:03 |
accomidates closed path outlines that
include only smooth points.
| | 00:08 |
So, no end points and no corner points.
I'll go ahead and switch over to my
| | 00:13 |
starter document here and I'll press
shift pagedown in order to advance to the
| | 00:16 |
second art board.
And you can see we've got this curving
| | 00:21 |
path outlined.
We'll come back to it in just a moment.
| | 00:23 |
First we need to make our pattern brush.
So I'll go ahead and zoom in by pressing
| | 00:27 |
Ctrl + Plus several times.
And then I'll grab my line tool and I'll
| | 00:31 |
click somewhere inside my Art Board to
bring up the dialog box.
| | 00:36 |
And I'll go ahead and enter these values
here.
| | 00:37 |
A link of 40 points and an angle of zero
degrees that is horizontal.
| | 00:42 |
And the reason I'm creating this line by
the numbers, is that'll give me more
| | 00:46 |
control as we get deeper into this
project.
| | 00:49 |
Now I'll go ahead and click OK to create
that new line.
| | 00:52 |
All right, I'll go ahead and move it more
or less into the center of the screen
| | 00:55 |
here, and then I'll change the line
weight to 2 points, and I'll click on the
| | 00:57 |
second swatch up here in the control
panel, and change the stroke to this green.
| | 01:03 |
Which is R32, G64 and B0.
And incidentally, I am working inside of
| | 01:09 |
an RBG document.
All right, I'll go ahead and press the Esc
| | 01:13 |
key in order to hide that panel.
Now, let's turn this into a double loop
| | 01:17 |
by assigning a couple of dynamic effects.
First, I'll go up to the Effect menu,
| | 01:22 |
choose Distort and Transform, and choose
Zig Zag.
| | 01:25 |
And I'll go ahead and turn on the
preview checkbox, so we can see that we
| | 01:27 |
get these spikes here.
I don't want to gently curving effect, so
| | 01:31 |
I'll go ahead and set the points to
smooth.
| | 01:34 |
And then I'll take the size value down to
four, and I'll change the number of
| | 01:38 |
ridges per segment to one, and that way
the line will dip down and rise back up
| | 01:41 |
to meet itself.
Now I'll click OK, in order to accept
| | 01:46 |
that effect.
Now, we need to flip this line, as well
| | 01:49 |
as create a copy of it, and that means
going to the effect menu, choosing
| | 01:53 |
Distort and transform, and choosing
Transform.
| | 01:56 |
Or if you load a D keys, you just press
Ctrl + E, or Cmd + E on a Mac.
| | 02:01 |
Turn on the reflect y check box, turn on
the preview checkbox to watch things flip.
| | 02:06 |
And then click inside the copy's value,
and press the Up Arrow key to change the
| | 02:09 |
value to one, and then click OK.
All right,, now, to crit a pattern brush,
| | 02:13 |
you first have to find a repeating tile
pattern.
| | 02:17 |
And to do that you go to the object menu
choose pattern and choose make or again
| | 02:21 |
if you loaded D keys you can press Ctrl +
M or Cmd + M on the Mac.
| | 02:25 |
If you get this alert message telling you
that a pattern has been added to the
| | 02:29 |
swatches menu which frankly couldn't be
more obvious go ahead and click on the
| | 02:32 |
don't show again check box and click OK.
And I'll call this guy, first attempt,
| | 02:38 |
because frankly I'm not sure if it's
going to work out or not.
| | 02:42 |
Pattern brushes can be pretty persnickety
at times.
| | 02:46 |
All right now, I'm pretty confident that
I don't want these leaping lines packed
| | 02:49 |
together like this, so I'll make sure the
Size Tile to Art check box is turned off.
| | 02:54 |
You also want to turn off the link, so
that you're not maintaining any kind of proprtion.
| | 02:59 |
And then, click inside the height value,
and press Shift + Up Arrow to raise it to
| | 03:02 |
20 points.
We want the width to be 40 points,
| | 03:05 |
because if you recall, that was the
length of our original line.
| | 03:10 |
All right, so that takes care of it.
I'll go ahead and press the Esc key a
| | 03:13 |
couple of times in order to exit the
pattern editing mode.
| | 03:17 |
And I've got a new pattern, right here in
the Swatches panel.
| | 03:20 |
To turn that pattern into a pattern
brush, go up to the Window menu and
| | 03:23 |
choose Brushes or press the F5 key, and
that'll bring up the Brushes panel that
| | 03:27 |
we first saw in chapter 27 of the advance
course.
| | 03:32 |
and next, you want to click on the little
Page icon at the bottom of the Brushes panel.
| | 03:37 |
And select pattern brush from the bottom
of the list here inside the dialog box.
| | 03:41 |
Then click okay, and that'll bring up
this whopping big dialog box, with all
| | 03:44 |
kinds of brush options, 90% of which, you
can ignore.
| | 03:48 |
We need to give our brush a name, so I'll
call it for smooth pass only, let's say.
| | 03:54 |
And then, notice these icons down here.
They represent the various patterns that
| | 03:59 |
you're going to string together.
You need to at least define a side tile,
| | 04:03 |
so make sure this first guy is selected
here and then set it to First Attempt.
| | 04:08 |
And now, you can click OK in order to
create that brush.
| | 04:13 |
All right now at this point, I'll go ahead
and hide the brushes panel, so I have
| | 04:15 |
some more room to work.
And I'll press Ctrl + 0, or Cmd + 0 on a
| | 04:18 |
Mac, and Zoom Out so I can see the big
curving shape.
| | 04:22 |
If I marquee it, you can see that it's
actually a circle.
| | 04:25 |
And if I switch over to the Appearance
panel, it has Zig Zag assigned to it.
| | 04:30 |
So I can achieve a similar effect to this
final thing that I'm going for.
| | 04:34 |
If I were to increase the density of the
zigzag effect, and then, for example,
| | 04:38 |
press control e, or command e on the Mac,
to bring up the transform dialog box.
| | 04:44 |
Assuming, of course that you loaded D
keys.
| | 04:46 |
And then you'll notice that we have 1, 2,
3 humps every 90 degrees, which means
| | 04:51 |
they're 30 degrees apart.
So, if I want to stagger them, I change
| | 04:56 |
the angle device to 15 degrees, turn on
the preview check box.
| | 05:00 |
And then raise the copies value to one.
So you know, you could get something
| | 05:03 |
similar if you messed around with the
effects enough.
| | 05:06 |
However, you're going to have more
control with a pattern brush.
| | 05:10 |
So I'll go ahead and cancel out of here.
And what I want to do, is switch back to
| | 05:13 |
the Layers panel, and render this guy out
as a real static path outline, with a
| | 05:17 |
bunch of smooth points.
So I'll press Ctrl + C or Cmd + C on the
| | 05:22 |
Mac to copy this path outline, then I'll
twirl open the big shapes layer, turn off
| | 05:26 |
the original path, so it's protected.
And Ctrl + F or Cmd + F on a Mac in order
| | 05:32 |
to paste a copy.
Then I'll go up to the object menu and
| | 05:36 |
choose expand appearance, in order to
render it out as a static path outline,
| | 05:39 |
as you see on the screen.
All right, now let's apply our new pattern
| | 05:44 |
brush and you can do that from the
Control panel by going up to this brush
| | 05:47 |
definition option.
Click on it, and then select for Smooth
| | 05:51 |
Paths Only, and we end up getting this
effect here, ha.
| | 05:56 |
What in the world happened?
Well, you can get a sense for what's gone
| | 05:59 |
wrong by taking a look at this thumbnail.
Notice, that for whatever reason, our
| | 06:03 |
little wave pattern is getting repeated
three times.
| | 06:07 |
So, we have not only this inset effect,
which is exactly what I'm looking for,
| | 06:11 |
but then we also have this sort of
stretched effect on the outside and this
| | 06:15 |
weird sort of flowery effect on the
inside, which may turn out to be exactly
| | 06:19 |
what you want.
But assuming that it's not I'll show you
| | 06:25 |
how to solve this problem, so that we
have just one set of loops in the very
| | 06:28 |
next movie.
| | 06:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting and adjusting a pattern brush| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you not only how
to correct this repeating pattern problem.
| | 00:04 |
But also how to anticipate it, so that
you never run into this problem in the future.
| | 00:10 |
So the first thing I suggest you do, is
go up to the Swatches panel and make a
| | 00:13 |
copy of your original pattern, by
dragging it and dropping it onto the
| | 00:17 |
little page icon.
And then, double-click on this new guy,
| | 00:22 |
and let's call it second attempt, this
time around, because after all, that's
| | 00:26 |
what it is.
And I'm going to zoom in on my
| | 00:31 |
illustration here.
Notice here inside this little thumbnail,
| | 00:35 |
that we're seeing the pattern repeat a
total of three times.
| | 00:40 |
So there at the top and down here at the
bottom.
| | 00:42 |
Now it's also showing it get cut off, but
that doesn't end up applying to the
| | 00:46 |
Pattern Brush.
What you want to do is make sure the link
| | 00:49 |
is turned off.
Make sure sized tile to art is turned
| | 00:52 |
off, as well.
Click inside the Height value and just
| | 00:55 |
press the Up Arrow key until the
repetition goes away.
| | 00:59 |
Which happens at 22 points.
And as soon as you no longer see that
| | 01:03 |
repetition, then everything is fine.
Now if you want to go with a larger
| | 01:07 |
height value than that you can, but 22
points is going to do the trick.
| | 01:11 |
Then press the Escape key a couple of
times, in order to update that pattern.
| | 01:15 |
And you can see that the little swatch
preview updates as well.
| | 01:19 |
And it shows no repetition either.
All right.
| | 01:22 |
Now what you want to do is being back up
the Brushes panel, which you can also get
| | 01:25 |
by clicking on this little icon in the
panel column.
| | 01:28 |
And then you want to double-click on For
Smooth Paths Only.
| | 01:32 |
In order to bring up its options, make
sure that the side tile is selected, and
| | 01:35 |
this time we're going to load Second
Attempt in order to switch it out.
| | 01:40 |
So, First Attempt was wrong, you can see
the repetition.
| | 01:43 |
Second Attempt, no repetition,
everything's going to go great.
| | 01:46 |
Go ahead and click OK.
At which point Illustrator will ask you
| | 01:49 |
if you want to leave the existing strokes
alone.
| | 01:52 |
Or if you want to apply your
modifications to the existing strokes.
| | 01:55 |
You want to apply your modification.
So go ahead and click on Apply to Strokes.
| | 01:59 |
And then press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on a Mac,
in order to zoom out and take in the much
| | 02:04 |
improved effect.
Notice however that the loops land on
| | 02:09 |
each one of these kinds of points in this
smooth star.
| | 02:13 |
In different locations.
Let's say you want to fix that, well it's
| | 02:16 |
kind of a trial and error thing, by the
way, but what you do is you select the
| | 02:19 |
path outline and then you change the line
weight.
| | 02:23 |
So I might take it up to two points for
example, at which point things are
| | 02:27 |
starting to get a little wonky.
Not only have I not solved my problem But
| | 02:31 |
the effect is starting to fall apart a
little bit.
| | 02:35 |
And so then you just have to dial in
decimal values, because pressing the Down
| | 02:38 |
Arrow key takes you all the way down to
one point.
| | 02:42 |
Unfortunately, we don't have more control
than that.
| | 02:44 |
So you just have to kind of experiment.
Enter 1.4 points for example, see if
| | 02:48 |
that's what you want, it's not quite, and
so forth.
| | 02:52 |
I'll save you a little bit of pain,
however, by telling you that I came up
| | 02:55 |
with one and a quarter point.
At which point you get this effect right here.
| | 02:59 |
So everything seems to work out exactly
the way it should.
| | 03:04 |
Now let's say you want to increase the
thickness of the lines in general.
| | 03:07 |
In that event, as opposed to increasing
line weight value here, the better thing
| | 03:10 |
to do is to redefine the pattern.
So, I'll go ahead and click off my path
| | 03:15 |
outline to deselect it.
And then I'll go up to the Swatches panel
| | 03:18 |
and double-click on second attempt, in
order to revisit my pattern here.
| | 03:23 |
And I'm going to select my path outlines
just by clicking on them like so.
| | 03:27 |
And you can see that Illustrator has
expanded the lines automatically, so it's
| | 03:30 |
no longer a dynamic effect.
Then go up to the Line Weight value and
| | 03:35 |
change it to, say, four points.
And that's it.
| | 03:39 |
Then press the Escape key, in order to
update that pattern.
| | 03:42 |
An you can see, then it's updated here
inside the swatches panel, even though,
| | 03:45 |
it's a very tiny thumbnail.
Thing is, if I press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on a
| | 03:50 |
Mac, that has no immediate effect on the
pattern brush.
| | 03:55 |
And that's because the Pattern brush, for
some reason, does not remember the title
| | 03:58 |
pattern attached to it.
So you have to bring back the brushes panel.
| | 04:02 |
Double-click on For Smooth Paths Only.
And notice that, as opposed to the side
| | 04:07 |
tile being associated with second
attempt.
| | 04:10 |
It's associated with this thing called
original, which varies from one brush to another.
| | 04:15 |
It just happens to be the original
definition.
| | 04:18 |
Which is stored along with the pattern
brush.
| | 04:20 |
So there's no live link.
What you've gotta do is reselect second
| | 04:23 |
attempt and click OK, and then click
Apply To Strokes, and you'll see that
| | 04:26 |
pattern brush update in the background.
And the final thing I'm going to do is
| | 04:31 |
twirl open big shapes again, and turn on
that original path, the dynamic version,
| | 04:36 |
because I like the effect.
And that's how you go about not only
| | 04:41 |
correcting for a repeating pattern inside
of a pattern brush, but recognizing the
| | 04:46 |
repeating pattern inside of your tile
pattern thumbnails, here inside Illustrator.
| | 04:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Designing a matching corner tile| 00:00 |
All right, now that we've created our first
pattern brush we need to come up with
| | 00:04 |
something that's going to work not just
for path outlines that contain smooth
| | 00:07 |
points but also for open paths like this
one right here that contain corners.
| | 00:13 |
And if I were to switch to my document of
progress and assign the brush that we've
| | 00:17 |
created so far by selecting the path
outline and then going up to the brush
| | 00:20 |
definition pop up menu.
And selecting for smooth paths only.
| | 00:26 |
You can see that the brush just drops out
in the corners, and it doesn't look good
| | 00:29 |
at the end points at all.
Now I can go ahead and throw in a corner
| | 00:33 |
definition using the tile pattern that we
have so far, by clicking off the path
| | 00:37 |
outline to deselect it, and then I'll
bring up my Brushes panel, double-click
| | 00:41 |
on for smooth paths only and select this
guy right here, the next icon over which
| | 00:45 |
says, Outer Quartile.
Which is what we're looking for.
| | 00:52 |
These are all outer corners as opposed to
the inner corners.
| | 00:54 |
And then I'll select Second Attempt,
which is working so good for the side
| | 00:58 |
tiles, and then I'll click OK.
And then I'll click Apply to Strokes, and
| | 01:03 |
you can see that we're not getting the
effect we want at all.
| | 01:07 |
So we need to design a custom Corner
tile, and I'm going to show you how to do
| | 01:11 |
that in this movie.
So I'll press Shift + PageDown, to
| | 01:15 |
advance to the next art board, and then
I'll go ahead and zoom in here on what we
| | 01:19 |
have so far.
And I'll grab it, and create a copy of it
| | 01:24 |
by Shift + Alt + Dragging it downward
like so.
| | 01:28 |
That would be a Shift + Opt + Drag on the
Mac.
| | 01:30 |
And now I'm going to expand the effect by
going up to Object menu, and choosing
| | 01:34 |
expand appearance That way we have two
independent standing path outlines.
| | 01:39 |
Now what I'm looking for, I"m going to
switch back to that document that shows
| | 01:42 |
what the paner brush needs to looks like.
And I'll go ahead and zoom in on the
| | 01:47 |
upper left corner, because that's what
we're going to use as a model.
| | 01:51 |
So imagine here, you can even see it
happening.
| | 01:54 |
Imagine that this is the size of the side
tile.
| | 01:59 |
That's all there is to it.
Just this little area right here.
| | 02:01 |
So it almost looks like an eye without an
iris in it.
| | 02:05 |
And then this thing right here that I'll
just go ahead and marquis, that's the
| | 02:09 |
corner that we need to design.
So let's get to it.
| | 02:13 |
I just wanted you to have a sense of
where we're going.
| | 02:16 |
First thing I need to do after zooming in
some more of course, is give myself some
| | 02:20 |
anchor points right at these intersection
locations.
| | 02:24 |
And you do that by going up to the Object
menu > Choosing Path, and Choosing Add
| | 02:27 |
Anchor Points.
Or if you loaded D keys, Ctrl + Shift +
| | 02:31 |
Alt + A, or Cmd + Shift + Opt + A on the
Mac, A for add, of course.
| | 02:36 |
Very useful shortcut, I find, for what
it's worth.
| | 02:39 |
All right now, go ahead and get your Wide
Arrow tool, and go ahead and Marquee
| | 02:42 |
these two endpoints over here on the
right hand side, and press the Backspace
| | 02:45 |
key, or the Delete key on the Mac, in
order to get rid of them.
| | 02:50 |
Then marquee these two guys over here on
the left-hand side, and press Ctrl + X,
| | 02:54 |
or Cmd + X on the Mac, in order to cut
them to the clipboard.
| | 02:59 |
And now, let's just go ahead and join
these 2 paths together here by pressing
| | 03:02 |
control + j, or command + j on a Mac.
All right, now press Ctrl + F, or Cmd + F
| | 03:07 |
on a Mac, in order to paste back in the 2
segments that we cut just a moment ago.
| | 03:13 |
And now we're going to rotate them
downward, by grabbing the rotate tool
| | 03:16 |
which you can get by pressing the R key.
And you want to Alt + Click or Opt +
| | 03:20 |
Click right about here in order to bring
up the rotate dialog box.
| | 03:24 |
And we're looking for an angle value of
negative 90 degrees.
| | 03:27 |
I've got the preview checkbox turned on
so I can see the rotation in progress.
| | 03:31 |
And then you want to click on the copy
button, in order to create a copy of
| | 03:34 |
those paths.
Now switch back to the White Arrow tool,
| | 03:38 |
and go ahead and drag this guy up until
it snaps into alignment right there,
| | 03:42 |
because I want it very precisely
position, these two sets of segments with
| | 03:45 |
respect to each other.
Now press Ctrl + K or Cmd + K on the Mac
| | 03:51 |
and make sure your keyboard increment is
set to one point.
| | 03:55 |
Go ahead and click OK.
And then press the Left Arrow key twice
| | 03:58 |
in a row followed by the Down Arrow key
twice in a row, like so.
| | 04:03 |
All right, now let's go ahead and Alt +
Mark key or Opt + Mark key these two
| | 04:07 |
segments in order to select them.
And then go ahead and Alt+Drag or
| | 04:12 |
Option+Drag them.
In order to create a copy of the two and
| | 04:15 |
double-click on the rotate tool in order
to bring up the rotate dialog box, and
| | 04:19 |
change the angle value to negative 45
degrees, in order to create this effect
| | 04:23 |
here, and then click OK.
And now press the V key the get your
| | 04:29 |
black arrow tool, and click off the
shapes to deselect them.
| | 04:32 |
Grab this guy right here, he should be on
top.
| | 04:35 |
I guess it's this one that's on top.
That's fine, because we're dragging from
| | 04:37 |
and end point.
And drag it down until it snaps into
| | 04:40 |
alignment like so.
And then go ahead, and get this guy,
| | 04:43 |
select him and drag him by his endpoint,
until he snaps into alignment, and you
| | 04:47 |
know you have a snap when you see the
white arrowhead.
| | 04:52 |
All right, now I want you to marquee
these 2 segments here, and press control
| | 04:55 |
shift left bracket, or command shift left
bracket.
| | 04:59 |
In order to send them to the back of the
stack, that's very important.
| | 05:03 |
All right, now press the A key in order to
switch to the wide arrow tool.
| | 05:06 |
And what we want to do is fuse these guys
together, and make this guy go in the
| | 05:09 |
right direction.
So, we have an absolutely horizontal
| | 05:13 |
Control Handle coming out of this
segment, but this guy is going up at an
| | 05:17 |
angle here.
We need it to settle down.
| | 05:20 |
And we're going to be able to do that
like so.
| | 05:22 |
Go ahead and marquee these two end
points.
| | 05:25 |
They're coincident, right on top of each
other.
| | 05:27 |
And then, you want to press the keyboard
shortcut, Ctrl + Shift + Alt + J, or Cmd
| | 05:31 |
+ Shift + Opt + J on a Mac.
There is no command for this feature, so
| | 05:36 |
you have to press mash your fist J.
And that'll bring up the join dialog box.
| | 05:41 |
We want to switch to a smooth point so we
have a smooth transition here.
| | 05:45 |
And whichever anchor point is on top,
wins the battle.
| | 05:50 |
By which I mean, as soon as I click OK,
this control handle is going to go down,
| | 05:53 |
because this anchor point with the
horizontal control handle was on top.
| | 05:58 |
And that's the same thing that's going on
here, so go ahead and mark these two
| | 06:02 |
endpoints press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + J or
Cmd + Shift + Opt + K on the mac to bring
| | 06:05 |
up the join dialog box set it to smooth
click OK.
| | 06:10 |
And now those segments are nice and even
as well alright now I want to add a
| | 06:13 |
couple of loops one that goes ahead and
connects these two segments and another
| | 06:16 |
one that connects these segments here.
So we need to know the distance between
| | 06:22 |
these segments.
An you can figure that out, probably the
| | 06:25 |
easiest way to work, is to go ahead an
get your rectangle tool, an then go up to
| | 06:29 |
the View menu, an turn on smart guides.
Or you can press Ctrl + U, Cmd + U on a Mac.
| | 06:35 |
An make sure that you're in alignment
with this anchor point, an then drag up
| | 06:38 |
to this one.
And you'll see the width and height
| | 06:41 |
values right there in that heads up
display.
| | 06:43 |
So we know that the distance is ten
points in both directions.
| | 06:48 |
All right, now I'll go ahead and press
the Backspace key to get rid of that thing.
| | 06:51 |
We need to create an arc that measures
ten points using the arc tool.
| | 06:55 |
So go ahead and grab the arc tool then
click somewhere inside the document.
| | 06:59 |
Set both of these values to 10 points,
otherwise you don't really know what to
| | 07:03 |
do with the slope or this anchor point
thing right here.
| | 07:08 |
And actually what you want to do is
select this guy, it turns out.
| | 07:11 |
But you wouldn't know.
Who would know that?
| | 07:13 |
I'll go ahead and click OK in order to
create the arc at the right angle like so.
| | 07:18 |
But if you don't get it at the right
angle, if you're working through a
| | 07:20 |
project like this, then you would just
rotate it some multiple of 90 degrees.
| | 07:24 |
All right, I'm going to go ahead and
switch to my wide area tool once again.
| | 07:29 |
Drag this guy down until he snaps into
alignment, so the bottom endpoint.
| | 07:32 |
Marquee these two coincident endpoints,
press Control Shift Alt J or Command
| | 07:36 |
Shift Option J on a Mac.
Because that way we can set this to a
| | 07:39 |
smooth point, which is what we want,
click OK.
| | 07:42 |
And then, do the same, for these anchor
points, go ahead and marquee them.
| | 07:46 |
Press control shift alt J, command shift
option J on a mac.
| | 07:49 |
Switch to the smooth point and click OK.
All right, now let's join together
| | 07:53 |
everything we have so far, by, pressing
the V key to switch to the black arrow tool.
| | 07:57 |
Then partially marquee these 3 path
outlines to select them all.
| | 08:01 |
And press Ctrl + J or Cmd + J on a Mac.
In or to fuse them into a single path
| | 08:06 |
outline like so.
All right, so all that's left is the
| | 08:11 |
trickiest part of the operation, which is
to assign a loop at an angle right here.
| | 08:16 |
And I'll show you how that works, in the
very next movie.
| | 08:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding an angled loop to a corner design| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
precisely create this outer loop that
| | 00:04 |
will make up the final element of our
corner tile design.
| | 00:08 |
I'm going to switch over to the document
in progress and I'll grab my White Arrow tool.
| | 00:12 |
And I'll marquee this end point right
there in order to select it.
| | 00:16 |
And then I'll press the Up Arrow key in
order to move it up a point.
| | 00:20 |
And then I'll marquee this one, and press
the Left Arrow key to move it left one point.
| | 00:24 |
The idea being that I want to separate
these two anchor points from each other
| | 00:28 |
just a little bit.
Now we need to figure out exactly how far
| | 00:32 |
these points are from each other.
And again, you could draw a rectangle,
| | 00:36 |
but that's not going to give us the
information we're looking for.
| | 00:40 |
They'll tell us the width and height of
the rectangular area between those two
| | 00:43 |
points, but I want to know the length of
the direct distance.
| | 00:47 |
And unless you want to have to perform
Pythagorean's Theorem on this thing, then
| | 00:50 |
there's a better way to work.
I'll just go ahead and press the
| | 00:53 |
Backspace key, or the Delete key on a
Mac, in order to get rid of that rectangle.
| | 00:57 |
And I'll press the A key to get my White
Arrow tool.
| | 01:00 |
And what you want to do is grab this
endpoint and drag it until it snaps into
| | 01:04 |
alignment with the other one.
And even though that seems like it's
| | 01:08 |
messing everything up, this will give us
exactly the information we need.
| | 01:12 |
Then you want to double-click in the
White Arrow tool icon in the toolbox in
| | 01:15 |
order to bring up the Move Dialog box,
and here's the value we're looking for.
| | 01:20 |
6.5863, you want to write that value
down, because it has a habit of changing
| | 01:25 |
every single time I perform these steps.
6.5863 alright, fair enough.
| | 01:32 |
And now I'll go ahead and click the
Cancel button.
| | 01:35 |
Because that's all the information I
need, just the linear distance.
| | 01:38 |
And now I'll press Control Z, or Command
Z on the Mac, in order to undo that movement.
| | 01:43 |
All right, now you want to switch over from
the Rectangle tool to the Ellipse tool,
| | 01:46 |
here inside the Shape tool fly-out menu,
and then click somewhere inside the
| | 01:50 |
document, and go ahead and enter that
value we just measured, which is 6.5863 points.
| | 01:56 |
How in the world would you remember that
if you didn't write it down?
| | 02:02 |
And then we want to come up with height
value.
| | 02:04 |
Now the height value can really be
anything you want, and this is something
| | 02:07 |
you would just discover through trial and
error.
| | 02:10 |
I came up with 10 points.
And then go ahead and click OK in order
| | 02:14 |
to create that ellipse.
All right now what we want to do is get rid
| | 02:17 |
of the bottom part of the ellipse, by
pressing the A key to get the White Arrow tool.
| | 02:21 |
I'll go ahead and marquee this bottom
point, and I'll press the Backspace key,
| | 02:24 |
or the Delete key on a Mac to get rid of
it.
| | 02:26 |
Then double-click on the Rotate tool, in
order to bring up the Rotate Dialog box
| | 02:30 |
and change the angle from negative 45 to
positive 45 degrees like so, and click OK.
| | 02:37 |
Now press the A key to switch back to the
White Arrow tool.
| | 02:40 |
This is old school path building at work
here.
| | 02:43 |
And then go ahead and drag this anchor
point until it snaps into alignment with
| | 02:46 |
this guy right there.
So you want to make sure everybody is as
| | 02:49 |
precisely aligned as possible.
And then you want to marquee these two
| | 02:53 |
coincident endpoints, and you want to
press mash-your-fist J,
| | 02:56 |
Control-Shift-Alt-J on a PC,
Command-Shift-Option-J on a Mac, to bring
| | 02:59 |
up the old Join Dialog box and then set
this point to Smooth.
| | 03:05 |
because otherwise it's going to be a
corner point, and if you make any future
| | 03:07 |
modifications to it, you're going to
regret that fact.
| | 03:11 |
So now go ahead and click OK.
And now is the trickiest part.
| | 03:14 |
Go ahead and marquee these two anchor
points, and press that same keyboard
| | 03:18 |
shortcut, Control-Shift-Alt-J or
Command-Shift-Option-J on a Mac.
| | 03:22 |
And if you did everything right, you'll
bring up the Join Dialog box.
| | 03:25 |
If the Join Dialog box does not appear,
that means the two points are not quite coincident.
| | 03:30 |
And you'll need to drag them around or,
here I'll show you what to do if things
| | 03:34 |
go wrong here.
I'll cancel out.
| | 03:36 |
You'd press Control-Alt-J, or
Command-Option-J on the Mac to bring up
| | 03:40 |
the Average Dialog box, and you'd set it
to Both, and then click OK.
| | 03:46 |
And then, you would press
Control-Shift-Alt-J, or
| | 03:49 |
Command-Shift-Option-J in a Mac.
And select Smooth, and click OK.
| | 03:53 |
And I assure you, even though that's a
lot of mushin' a bunch of modifier keys
| | 03:57 |
along with J over and over again, that
you're going to end up with a corner tile
| | 04:00 |
that's going to work out beautifully,
just like the one you see here.
| | 04:06 |
And that, friends, is how you create a
precisely looping corner tile design,
| | 04:11 |
perfectly suited to a pattern brush, here
inside Illustrator.
| | 04:16 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating end tiles and tile perimeters| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
design an end tile, as well as a
| | 00:03 |
beginning tile, both of which will appear
at the end points.
| | 00:07 |
And I'll also show you how to define the
perimeter of the tile, which is
| | 00:10 |
exceedingly important when creating
pattern brushes.
| | 00:15 |
So, I'm going to zoom out a click here.
And I'm going to grab this path with the
| | 00:18 |
Black Arrow tool, and I'm going to bring
it to the front of the stack by pressing
| | 00:21 |
Ctrl+Shift, Right bracket or Cmd+Shift,
Right bracket on a Mac.
| | 00:25 |
Then I'll press the A key to switch to
the Wide Arrow tool, click off the path
| | 00:29 |
to deselect it, and then click on this
first anchor point right there to select it.
| | 00:34 |
And press Ctrl+C and then press Ctrl+F,
in order to paste and copy of that path
| | 00:38 |
in front.
And then go ahead and drag it over to
| | 00:42 |
this location until it snaps into
alignment like so, and release.
| | 00:47 |
And now we need to create a half a circle
with which to end the pattern brush.
| | 00:51 |
And that's pretty easy to do, you just
need to select the Ellipse tool, from the
| | 00:54 |
Shape tool fly-out menu.
And then, to find the distance between
| | 00:58 |
these two points, you just drag from one
to the other like so, just drag straight
| | 01:02 |
down, and you can see that the height is
eight points.
| | 01:06 |
Then just go ahead and delete that flat
circle there.
| | 01:09 |
And click somewhere inside the document
window, and change the height value to
| | 01:12 |
exactly eight points is what we need.
And then you can set the width value to
| | 01:17 |
anything you want and, again, this is a
matter of trial and error and I came up
| | 01:21 |
with 14 points.
Now click OK in order to create that
| | 01:24 |
shape, and then press the A key to switch
to the White Arrow tool.
| | 01:28 |
Go ahead and click off the shape, and
then click the left-hand anchor point to
| | 01:31 |
select it and press the Backspace key or
the Delete key on the Mac to get rid of it.
| | 01:36 |
Drag this guy down until it snaps into
alignment like so.
| | 01:39 |
Marquee these two coincident end points,
match your fish J to bring up the join
| | 01:43 |
dialog box, select Smooth, click OK.
Marquee these two coincident end points,
| | 01:48 |
press Ctrl+Shift Alt J or Cmd+Shift
Option J on a Mac, select Smooth and
| | 01:52 |
click OK, and we're now done.
Now then, we have to define how big these
| | 01:58 |
tiles are going to be, starting with the
corner tiles, because the corner tile
| | 02:02 |
determines everything.
However much room we devote to the corner
| | 02:07 |
tile, which has to be square by the way,
determines how big the side tile is and
| | 02:11 |
the beginning and end tiles as well.
So, what you want to do is press the M
| | 02:17 |
key to switch to the Rectangle tool, and
find that anchor point right there, and
| | 02:20 |
go ahead and drag from it until you snap
into alignment with this anchor point.
| | 02:26 |
And notice that my Smart Guide are turned
on, which is what you want.
| | 02:30 |
So, that you can see the heads up display
which is telling me that the width and
| | 02:33 |
height of this rectangle are 16 points.
Well, if you think about it, that's a
| | 02:37 |
quarter of the area we need to occupy,
because we're going from this seam right
| | 02:42 |
there, halfway through the corner, to
this vertical seam that's halfway through
| | 02:46 |
the corner tile as well.
So, now what you need to do is get rid of
| | 02:52 |
that guy, click somewhere inside the
illustration, and click after the width
| | 02:56 |
value and enter asterisk two in order to
multiply it times two.
| | 03:01 |
It's fairly evident that it's 32 point,
so I'll just go ahead and change the
| | 03:04 |
height value to 32 as well and click OK.
Now, this guy needs to be invisible, so
| | 03:09 |
make sure the Fill is set to None, and
then change the Stroke to None as well.
| | 03:14 |
And now, press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a Mac
in order to switch to the Outline mode,
| | 03:18 |
press the V key to get your Black Arrow
tool, and you just want to go ahead and
| | 03:21 |
drag the path so it snaps into alignment
there.
| | 03:26 |
Notice, it snapped right at this point,
that's where we want it.
| | 03:29 |
And drag it up so it snaps into alignment
at the bottom as well.
| | 03:34 |
And you may see an intersect line telling
you that the center of the rectangle is
| | 03:37 |
intersecting with the center of this
shape, over here.
| | 03:42 |
And if so, that's just fine, oh we need
to watch for that purple little square
| | 03:45 |
right there, do you see it?
That indicates that I've accidentally
| | 03:49 |
selected that big shape in the
background, which is on the big shapes layer.
| | 03:53 |
So, you might want to take a moment,
while we're thinking of it, before we go
| | 03:56 |
delete the shape, or create a copy of it,
or wreak some other havoc, just go ahead
| | 03:59 |
and lock down that layer like so.
Anyway, you can see that we are totally
| | 04:04 |
in alignment here.
And we can best see it because we're
| | 04:07 |
working inside the Outline mode.
When you press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a Mac
| | 04:11 |
to switch back to the Preview mode, you
can see that it kind of slices through,
| | 04:15 |
midway through the stroke, and that's a
little bit more difficult to see onscreen.
| | 04:21 |
All right, now what you want to do is press
the M key once again in order to switch
| | 04:24 |
back to the Rectangle tool, and drag from
this top right anchor point down into the
| | 04:28 |
right until you snap into alignment with
the height of the previous shape.
| | 04:34 |
Which I'm not seeing right, there it is.
And so you should see in the heads up
| | 04:38 |
display, that the width is 20 points,
which is the width of this guy.
| | 04:43 |
And you might say well wait a sec, that
first line we drew was 40 points.
| | 04:46 |
While this is only half of that 40 point
line so a width of 20 points is exactly
| | 04:49 |
what you want.
A height of 32 points as well, so that
| | 04:52 |
you're matching to the previous
rectangle.
| | 04:55 |
I'm going to press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on the
Mac so we can actually see these
| | 04:58 |
rectangles line up to each other.
And then just go ahead and get the Black
| | 05:03 |
Arrow tool, and drag this most recent
rectangle by its upper left anchor point,
| | 05:06 |
until it snaps into alignment with the
upper right anchor point.
| | 05:11 |
And then press the Alt key or the Option
key on the Mac in order to create a copy
| | 05:14 |
like so.
All right, now I'll zoom out just a little
| | 05:17 |
bit more, we need to still create the
beginning tile.
| | 05:21 |
And you do that by marqueeing these two
shapes right there.
| | 05:24 |
Then go ahead and select the Reflect
tool, and Alt click, I don't know,
| | 05:28 |
anywhere really, somewhere around here,
let's say.
| | 05:32 |
Alt click, or on a Mac you Option click
to bring up the Reflect dialog box.
| | 05:36 |
And make sure the axis is set to
vertical, that flings the guy way out there.
| | 05:40 |
But at least it's not sitting on top of
something else, and then click the Copy
| | 05:44 |
button in order to create a copy.
And that will be our beginning tile, and
| | 05:48 |
now just go ahead and move it over until
it aligns like so.
| | 05:51 |
Now we actually want a little distance
between these guys, it's just going to
| | 05:55 |
work out better.
So, assuming you keyboard increment is
| | 05:58 |
one point, press the Left Arrow key four
times in a row, one, two, three, four to
| | 06:01 |
nudge that guy out there.
And then marquee these two, one, two,
| | 06:06 |
three, four again, and then marquee this
guy, and press the Right Arrow key, one,
| | 06:10 |
two, three, four times.
Now you can press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a
| | 06:14 |
Mac in order to switch back to the
Preview mode.
| | 06:17 |
And those believe it or not are all the
design elements we need to create our
| | 06:21 |
pattern brush.
And I'll show you how to assemble that
| | 06:24 |
pattern brush in the next movie.
| | 06:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cropping your designs inside your tiles| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to crop
each one of your design elements inside
| | 00:03 |
of its rectangular tile.
And I'll start by showing you why this is
| | 00:07 |
so very important.
Just so we can see all the rectangles here.
| | 00:11 |
Go ahead and press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a
Mac to switch to the outline mode.
| | 00:16 |
And go ahead and marquee all these guys
here.
| | 00:18 |
And press Shift+Down Arrow in order to
nudge them down.
| | 00:20 |
Just so we're getting away from that line
above.
| | 00:23 |
And then just partially marquee the
rectangles only in order to select them.
| | 00:29 |
And right click inside the document
window, choose Arrange.
| | 00:32 |
And choose Send to Back or press the
keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Shift+Left
| | 00:35 |
Bracket, or Cmd+Shift+Left Bracket on the
Mac.
| | 00:39 |
And the reason we're doing that is
because patterns actually require that.
| | 00:43 |
If you're going to define a perimeter as
we have in this case, then Illustrator
| | 00:46 |
expects the perimeter to be at the back
of the stack.
| | 00:49 |
Now press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on the Mac, to
switch back to the preview mode.
| | 00:54 |
And marquee this guy like so.
That is the corner element along with its
| | 00:59 |
square tile.
Now I want you to see how the miter join
| | 01:02 |
extends outside the tile and that's
going to present us with a problem.
| | 01:06 |
When you go up to the Object menu, choose
Pattern, and choose Make.
| | 01:11 |
And then notice here we are inside of the
pattern editor.
| | 01:15 |
And everything's golden right?
We've got a width of 32 points, a height
| | 01:18 |
of 32 points.
Size Tile to Art is turned off, which is
| | 01:22 |
very important, and we have the tile
positioned exactly where the selected
| | 01:25 |
square was at the bottom of the stack.
Here's the problem though: notice that
| | 01:30 |
the miter is coming in again over here on
the left-hand side, and that is going to
| | 01:33 |
show up in our pattern brush.
So it's going to actually eenter the
| | 01:37 |
tile over at this location, and that's
not going to make any sense whatsoever.
| | 01:41 |
And you can see it happening here inside
the thumbnail.
| | 01:44 |
So apparently we have the bottom miter
stabbing in at the top as well.
| | 01:49 |
So in other words, I don't want to create
this tile.
| | 01:51 |
So I'm going to click the Cancel button.
Don't press Escape because that doesn't cancel.
| | 01:56 |
That goes ahead and saves your changes.
Go ahead and click Cancel instead.
| | 02:00 |
Now you might figure, well, gosh, let's
just switch to a different join, like a
| | 02:03 |
bevel join.
So I'll select the corner element, click
| | 02:07 |
on the word Stroke up here in the control
panel, and change it to a bevel join like
| | 02:10 |
so, and that goes ahead and clips away
the mitres, but not far enough.
| | 02:15 |
They're still extending outward.
So what in the world do you do?
| | 02:19 |
Well, I'll show you.
First of all, you want to zoom out a
| | 02:21 |
little bit so you can take in all of your
rectangles.
| | 02:24 |
The first thing we want to do because
we're about to mess up our original
| | 02:27 |
shapes here is press Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on a
Mac to reinstate those miters.
| | 02:32 |
Then marquee all of these objects to
select them and let's make copies of them
| | 02:36 |
by dragging them downward while pressing
the Shift and Alt keys or the Shift and
| | 02:40 |
Option keys on a Mac and then release and
we have a series of duplicates.
| | 02:46 |
Now, select all the rectangles, just the
rectangles.
| | 02:49 |
And copy them by pressing Ctrl+C or Cmd+C
on a Mac, because we're about to mess
| | 02:53 |
them up.
And then click and shift-click on each
| | 02:56 |
one of these guys to select them like so,
and I'm going to press Ctrl+U, or Cmd+U
| | 03:00 |
on a Mac, to turn off the smart guides,
so they stop flashing onscreen.
| | 03:05 |
And then I'll go up to the Object menu
choose Path and choose Outline Stroke, or
| | 03:09 |
if you loaded D keys, you can press
Ctrl+Backslash or Cmd+Backslash on the Mac.
| | 03:15 |
And you should end up with these effects
here.
| | 03:18 |
Now, let's go ahead and crop each one of
them, by marqueeing the invisible
| | 03:21 |
perimeter along with the object.
And then you want to bring up the Path
| | 03:24 |
Finder panel, which you can also get by
choosing the Path Finder command from the
| | 03:27 |
Window menu.
And then click on this third item in,
| | 03:31 |
Intersect, in order to clip that guy
away.
| | 03:34 |
And notice we lost the rectangle.
So that's why we needed to create copies
| | 03:37 |
of them.
Now, you can marquis the next guy over
| | 03:41 |
and either click on that icon again, or
you can hide the pathfinder panel and
| | 03:44 |
just press Ctrl+4, or Cmd+4 on a Mac,
which is Adobe's keyboard shortcut for
| | 03:48 |
repeating the last pathfinder operation.
Now marquee these guys, Ctrl or Cmd+4,
| | 03:56 |
and marquee these guys and press Ctrl or
Cmd+4.
| | 03:59 |
And then finally, select all of them like
so, and press Ctrl+B, or Cmd+B on the
| | 04:04 |
Mac, to paste those boundary rectangles,
in back of the cropped objects.
| | 04:10 |
All right.
So that's how you crop away everything
| | 04:12 |
that's outside the rectangular tile
boundary.
| | 04:15 |
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
assemble these various objects to create
| | 04:19 |
a seamless pattern brush.
| | 04:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assembling a seamless pattern brush| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll assemble all of our
design elements into a seamless pattern brush.
| | 00:05 |
The first step is to save each of the
elements as an independent tile pattern.
| | 00:09 |
And I'll start things off with this guy,
the beginning tile.
| | 00:12 |
So, go ahead and marquee both the
rectangle and the design element.
| | 00:17 |
And then, go up to the Object menu,
choose Pattern, and then choose Make.
| | 00:21 |
And if you loaded D keys, you've got a
keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+M or Cmd+M on
| | 00:25 |
the Mac.
And I'm going to be employing that
| | 00:28 |
keyboard shortcut in the future.
Then inside the Pattern Editor, you
| | 00:32 |
should see that your width an height
values are 20 and 32 respectively.
| | 00:36 |
Then let's go ahead and name this guy
Loops.
| | 00:39 |
And I'll put Begin inside parenthesis,
because this is the beginning tile.
| | 00:43 |
And then, I'll press the Esc key a couple
of times in order to save my changes.
| | 00:48 |
Now, I'll Marque the end tile, and I'll
press Ctrl+M, or Cmd+M on the Mac.
| | 00:52 |
Bear in mind that only works if you
loaded D keys.
| | 00:56 |
And then, I'll change the name of this
guy to Loops End like so, and then I'll
| | 00:59 |
press the Esc key a couple of times in
order to accept that change.
| | 01:05 |
Now, I'll marquee the middle tile and
press Ctrl+M or Cmd+M on a Mac, name this
| | 01:09 |
guy Loops and Middle in parentheses.
And then press Esc a couple of times.
| | 01:16 |
So you just have to sort of repeat the
process over and over again.
| | 01:19 |
And then I'll select our final art, the
corner tile, and I'll press Ctrl+M, Cmd+M
| | 01:23 |
on the Mac.
And I'll call this guy Loops, what a
| | 01:27 |
surprise, Corner this time, in
parentheses.
| | 01:30 |
And then press the Esc key a couple of
times in order to save out that tile.
| | 01:35 |
All right, now we're ready to assemble them
into a Pattern brush.
| | 01:37 |
So, bring up the Brushes panel, and then
click on the little page icon at the
| | 01:41 |
bottom of the panel.
Select Pattern brush from the bottom of
| | 01:45 |
the list, click OK, and this time we'll
call this guy looping lines pattern,
| | 01:49 |
let's say.
And by default, this first bucket side
| | 01:53 |
tiles should be selected.
Go ahead and set it to loops middle.
| | 01:57 |
And then click on this next container,
which is the outer corner tile, and set
| | 02:00 |
it to corner.
And you might as well set the inner
| | 02:03 |
corner to loops corner as well.
And then select this one, and notice if
| | 02:06 |
you hover over it, it tells you this is
the start tile.
| | 02:09 |
So, set it to Loops Begin.
And then, this final one is the end tile,
| | 02:14 |
so set it to Loops End.
And that's it, now click OK, and you have
| | 02:18 |
created your Pattern brush.
And it may look kind of weird, but it's
| | 02:22 |
going to work out great.
Now, go ahead and hide the Brushes panel
| | 02:26 |
and press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on a Mac to
zoom all the way out.
| | 02:30 |
And if you locked that big shapes layer,
go ahead and unlock it now.
| | 02:34 |
And I'm going to twirl open this layer
and turn off the rearmost of the two
| | 02:37 |
paths, the one that features the dynamic
effect.
| | 02:40 |
And then, I'll go ahead and meatball this
forward path to select it.
| | 02:45 |
And let's go ahead and update it to the
new Pattern brush by clicking on Brush
| | 02:48 |
Definition up here in the Control panel.
And selecting looping lines pattern from
| | 02:52 |
the list.
And we end up with this very polished
| | 02:55 |
effect here.
Now, we need a different line weight in
| | 02:58 |
order to scoot things over a little bit.
And for what it's worth, the path
| | 03:02 |
outline, and I was telling you in some
previous movies, that even a closed path
| | 03:06 |
begins and ends at a specific point.
And in the case of this path outline,
| | 03:11 |
it's this rightmost anchor point here.
And you can see that's where the pattern
| | 03:16 |
begins emerging, and then it doesn't
quite catch up with the next anchor point.
| | 03:21 |
And it falls farther behind here and
farther, and farther and farther behind
| | 03:25 |
as we move along.
And the problem is even more obvious if I
| | 03:29 |
change the line weight back to one point,
it's default setting.
| | 03:32 |
So, you can see it's falling behind in
there and even further behind in there
| | 03:35 |
and so forth.
So, I just played around with the stroke
| | 03:38 |
value untill I came up with something
that worked and that was 1.05 points.
| | 03:42 |
And we end up achieving this effect here,
with all the pieces of the pattern
| | 03:47 |
properly aligned.
But I didn't really the new Pattern brush
| | 03:51 |
with this specific path in mind.
Rather if I press Shift+Page Up in order
| | 03:55 |
to move to the first art board, you can
see it's this guy that I made the pattern for.
| | 04:01 |
So, I'll go ahead and zoom in here.
By entering a new zoom value, just so we
| | 04:05 |
can see things big on screen.
And then, I'll click on Brush Definition
| | 04:09 |
once again, and I'll click on Looping
Lines pattern to apply it, and everything
| | 04:13 |
works out exactly the way it should.
Press Ctrl+Shift+A or Cmd+Shidt+A on the
| | 04:18 |
Mac, in order to deselect the object.
And you can see that every corner aligns
| | 04:22 |
properly and Illistrator automatically
stretches the side tilrs to fit.
| | 04:27 |
And that's the beginning and end tiles as
well.
| | 04:30 |
And you can even increase the line weight
if you want, with a lot more flexibility.
| | 04:34 |
Notice if I click on the path outline to
select it once again, and I switch up the
| | 04:37 |
line weight, to say two points.
Everything aligns automatically exactly
| | 04:42 |
the way it should.
Now, you can see pretty clearly that this
| | 04:45 |
Eye tile over on the right-hand side is
much wider than these two side tiles over
| | 04:49 |
here on the left-hand side.
So, you probably don't want to go with
| | 04:54 |
such a large value.
But you could get away with something
| | 04:57 |
like 1.5 points, perhaps.
That looks awfully darn good.
| | 05:01 |
Or you could even go with a reduced line
weight, if you prefer.
| | 05:05 |
Something along the lines of 0.5 points.
But for my money, I think the effect look
| | 05:10 |
best at one point, as in this case here.
And that folks, is how you create a
| | 05:16 |
seamless Pattern brush, complete with
side, corner, start, and end tiles here
| | 05:20 |
inside Illustrator.
| | 05:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a white buffer zone to a pattern brush| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
create a variation on our Loops brush
| | 00:03 |
that includes these white edges right
there.
| | 00:06 |
And that'll help distinguish the stroke
from the fill in the case of, for
| | 00:10 |
example, this big letter W.
I'll go ahead and switch over to the
| | 00:13 |
illustration in progress.
And press Shift+Page Down in order to
| | 00:16 |
skip ahead to the second artboard.
And I'm going to grab these guys, right
| | 00:20 |
here, all but this big shape, which I
need to lock down.
| | 00:24 |
So, I'll go ahead and twirl open the big
shaped layer and I'll click in a lock
| | 00:27 |
column in front of the top path, in order
to protect it from harm.
| | 00:32 |
And then, I'll go ahead and drag these
guys upwards so I have a little more room
| | 00:34 |
to work.
And then, I'll marque this middle row here.
| | 00:38 |
And I'll Alt-drag or Option-drag it down
while pushing the Shift key as well.
| | 00:43 |
So, I've got the Shift and all keys down
here on the PC, the Shift and Option keys
| | 00:46 |
on the Mac, and then I'll go ahead and
make a copy of those path out lines.
| | 00:51 |
Now, I'll zoom in here, and I want to be
able to add a stroke to each of these
| | 00:55 |
green path out lines.
So, I'm going to partially Shift-marquee
| | 00:59 |
those rectangles there to deselect them,
and Shift-click on this one to deselect
| | 01:02 |
it as well.
And now notice that I'm seeing mixed
| | 01:06 |
objects appear on the left side of the
Control panel.
| | 01:09 |
Which means if I switch to the Appearance
panel, I can't do anything.
| | 01:13 |
And the culprit is this guy right there.
In my case anyway, he happens to be grouped.
| | 01:17 |
So, what I need to do is go up to the
Object menu and choose Ungroup, or press
| | 01:21 |
Ctrl+Shift+G or Cmd+Shift+G on the Mac in
order to ungroup those paths.
| | 01:27 |
And for good measure, I'll just do it
again since that doesn't seemed to have helped.
| | 01:31 |
All right, good.
Now, I can actually see my stroke and
| | 01:34 |
this blank fill right here.
What I want to do is add a fill, and I'm
| | 01:37 |
going to do that by clicking on the Fill
Swatch and changing it to white.
| | 01:43 |
And we're not going to be seeing any
differences here on screen.
| | 01:45 |
So, you just have to have faith that
things are working because we're set
| | 01:48 |
against a white background.
But what you could do actually is go up
| | 01:51 |
to the View menu and choose Show
Transparency Grid so we can tell the
| | 01:54 |
white from the artboard.
Then go ahead and click on the stroke
| | 01:59 |
and click on the little page icon at the
bottom of the panel to create another stroke.
| | 02:03 |
Like on the original here, change it to
white and then increase the line width to
| | 02:07 |
four points.
All right, now I'm going to press Ctrl+Y
| | 02:11 |
or Cmd+Y on the Mac in order to switch to
the Outline mode.
| | 02:14 |
And I'm going to mark key all these guys
and shift.
| | 02:17 |
I'll drag them downward.
That's the Shift+Option-drag on the Mac
| | 02:20 |
to make another copy of them.
Because what I want to do this time
| | 02:23 |
around is convert these guys to outlines.
So, I'll Shift-drag around the rectangles
| | 02:27 |
to deselect them.
Then I'll go up to the Object menu
| | 02:31 |
choose Path and choose Outline Stroke.
And that goes ahead and outlines the
| | 02:35 |
white stroke, but it doesn't outline the
green stroke.
| | 02:39 |
So, what I need to do next is return to
the Object menu, choose Path and choose
| | 02:43 |
Outline Stroke once again.
And this time, I've outlined everything.
| | 02:47 |
Now, if you press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a
Mac, it's going to look totally wrong.
| | 02:51 |
And that's because the green paths have
gone to the back of the stack.
| | 02:54 |
We also have some groups, by the way,
that we have to reconcile, as indicated
| | 02:57 |
by the word group up here in the Control
panel.
| | 03:00 |
So go up to the Object menu, choose
Ungroup or press Ctrl+Shift+G once again,
| | 03:04 |
Cmd+Shift+G on a Mac.
And might as well choose that command at
| | 03:08 |
least one more time.
Actually, one more time did it.
| | 03:11 |
You can see that I can't choose it a
third time because it's now dim.
| | 03:14 |
And that tells me that I don't have any
groups anymore, which is a great thing.
| | 03:17 |
I just hate that incessant grouping that
Illustrator does.
| | 03:21 |
Anyway, I'll go ahead and click off
Opacity, select them, and then I'll click
| | 03:24 |
on one of the white paths to select it.
And then, what you want to do is go up to
| | 03:28 |
the Control panel, far right side to
select similar objects.
| | 03:31 |
Make sure that it's select to all, and
then click on the icon to select all the
| | 03:34 |
paths that are filled with white.
And then you want to press Ctrl+Alt+0 or
| | 03:39 |
Cmd+Option+0 on the Mac to make sure that
aren't any other white paths selected
| | 03:42 |
inside the illustration.
And there is one right here.
| | 03:47 |
Notice this rectangle is white.
So, go ahead and Shift-click on it, and I
| | 03:50 |
missed it.
So, I'm going to go ahead and zoom in
| | 03:53 |
here, and then I'll Shift-click on this
path to deselect it.
| | 03:56 |
And now, let's go ahead and press Ctrl+0
or Cmd+0 on the Mac.
| | 04:00 |
Shift+Page Down to go to the proper page
here, and I'll go ahead and zoom back in
| | 04:04 |
once again.
All right, with all these paths selected,
| | 04:08 |
you want to bring up the Pathfinder
panel, which you can get by choosing the
| | 04:11 |
Pathfinder command from the Window menu.
And then, click on Unite in order to fuse
| | 04:15 |
them all together like so.
Then that goes in and generates a group.
| | 04:19 |
Once again, that's not what we want.
What we want is a Compound Path.
| | 04:22 |
So go up to the Objects menu, choose
Compound Path and choose Make.
| | 04:26 |
Now, we want to go ahead and find those
rectangles, and you can probably get to
| | 04:29 |
them just by marking like so with a Black
Arrow tool.
| | 04:33 |
There they are.
And we're going to destroy them with this
| | 04:36 |
next pathfinder operation.
So go up to the Edit menu and choose the
| | 04:39 |
Copy Command, or press Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on
a Mac in order to create a copy so that
| | 04:43 |
we're backing up the originals.
And then return to the Object menu,
| | 04:49 |
choose Compound Path, and once again
choose Make.
| | 04:53 |
And that way, we've got two compound
paths in order to create the intersection here.
| | 04:57 |
Shift-click on the white compound path to
select it.
| | 05:00 |
Bring back up the Pathfinder panel, and
this time you want to click on Intersect
| | 05:04 |
in order to create this effect here.
That's going to give you another one of
| | 05:08 |
Illustrator's notorious auto groups.
So, go back to the Object menu and choose
| | 05:12 |
the Ungroup command in order to break up
the white shapes into independent path outlines.
| | 05:18 |
Now, go ahead and grab each one of the
green shapes by clicking on one, and
| | 05:21 |
Shift-clicking on the others like so.
Press Ctrl+Shift+Right bracket, or
| | 05:26 |
Cmd+Shift+Right bracket on a Mac to bring
them to front.
| | 05:29 |
And then, you want to go back to the
Object menu.
| | 05:32 |
Choose Compound Path and choose Make in
order to convert these guys to a single
| | 05:35 |
compound path.
Press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on a Mac to bring
| | 05:39 |
back the rectangles.
These are all independent path outlines
| | 05:42 |
at this point.
So, go up to the Object menu, choose
| | 05:45 |
Compound Path, and choose Make.
And then, go ahead and Shift-click on any
| | 05:48 |
one of the green paths to select all of
them, and click on the Intersect icon
| | 05:51 |
once again.
Now what that does is it gets rid of the
| | 05:55 |
fills because I went ahead and put the
rectangles in front, that was silly.
| | 05:59 |
But anyway, it's an easy problem to
solve.
| | 06:01 |
First, go up to the Object menu, choose
the Ungroup command.
| | 06:05 |
And then go up to the first color swatch
up here in the Control panel and change
| | 06:09 |
it to the shade of green right here.
The swatch have created an advance finally.
| | 06:15 |
Press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on the Mac in order
to pace back in our rectangles.
| | 06:20 |
All right, now we're ready to generate the
patterns.
| | 06:22 |
So, go and select this first guy here
like so, marking around all these paths.
| | 06:27 |
And then go to the Object menu, choose
Pattern, and choose Make.
| | 06:31 |
Then let's go ahead and name this guy
Fill Loops, which I'm going to copy
| | 06:34 |
because all these guys are going to be
called Fill Loops.
| | 06:38 |
And then parenthesis begin, and then
press the Escape key a couple of times in
| | 06:41 |
order to generate that pattern right
there, as you can see.
| | 06:46 |
And then, I'll select the last one and
I'll return to the Object menu, choose
| | 06:49 |
Pattern, and choose Make.
Or if you loaded D keys, you can press
| | 06:53 |
Ctrl+M, Cmd+M on the Mac.
And that's what I'm going to be doing in
| | 06:56 |
the future.
And then, let's go ahead and select that
| | 06:59 |
name, press Control+V or Cmd+V on Mac in
order paste and fill loops.
| | 07:03 |
Call it end this time, escape out in
order to generate the tile pattern.
| | 07:08 |
Then go ahead and select this middle
bunch right there.
| | 07:10 |
Press Ctrl+M or Cmd+M if you load a D
key, let's go ahead and select a name and
| | 07:14 |
change it to Fill Loops Middle this time.
Double Escape.
| | 07:19 |
And then finally, we'll select this guy,
the corner.
| | 07:21 |
Press Ctrl+M, Cmd+M on a Mac.
Go ahead and call this Final One Fill
| | 07:25 |
Loops Corner, of course.
And then press the Escape key a couple of
| | 07:29 |
times in order to finish those patterns.
Now, we have to generate the Pattern brush.
| | 07:34 |
So, bringing up the Brushes panel, and
then click on the little page icon at the
| | 07:38 |
bottom of the panel.
Select Pattern brush from the list here,
| | 07:42 |
click OK, and let's go ahead and just
call this guy Fill Loops, which I am just
| | 07:45 |
pasting in.
And then, I've got the side tiles
| | 07:49 |
selected as you can see here, so I'll go
ahead and select Fill Loops Middle.
| | 07:54 |
And then select the first corner, the
outer corner, change it to Fill Loops Corner.
| | 07:58 |
The inner corner, change it to Fill Loops
Corner.
| | 08:01 |
The start tile, right there, change that
to Fill Loops Begin.
| | 08:05 |
And the end tile, change that to Fill
Loops End.
| | 08:08 |
That's all you have to do, then you click
OK.
| | 08:10 |
And you've now successfully created your
Pattern brush that includes these white
| | 08:14 |
edges that will help to distinguish the
stroke from the fill.
| | 08:19 |
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
create this old style country western W.
| | 08:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reconciling very acute corners in a path| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
create the effect you see on screen.
| | 00:03 |
Sort of an old style, classic, cowboy,
country western I don't really know.
| | 00:09 |
But the idea here, is, that I want to
show you what to do when your pattern
| | 00:12 |
brush traces an extremely acute corner as
happens down here, these 2 elbows in the
| | 00:17 |
W and up here at the top, too.
Because that's when pattern brushes start
| | 00:23 |
falling apart.
So I'm going to switch to my document in
| | 00:26 |
progress, and press Shift+Page Down to
advance to the final art board here.
| | 00:29 |
And then I'll go ahead and select this
big letter w.
| | 00:33 |
Which is set in Myriad Pro.
And I'll press Ctrl C or Cmd C on a Mac
| | 00:36 |
in order to copy it.
Go ahead and twirl open the big shapes
| | 00:40 |
folder here.
And turn off that w to protect it, just
| | 00:42 |
in case we have to come back to it later.
And then I'll press Ctrl B, or Cmd B on a Mac.
| | 00:48 |
In order to paste the new W to the back
of the stack, and I'll go up to the Type
| | 00:51 |
menu, and choose create outlines, we can
press Ctrl+Shift+O, or Cmd+Shift+O on a Mac.
| | 00:57 |
All right, now let's go ahead and add our
new pattern brush by clicking on this
| | 01:01 |
basic item up here in the control panel,
and selecting the new brush which is
| | 01:04 |
called fill loops, in order to apply it.
And you'll see That things have gone
| | 01:10 |
terribly wrong, particularly in those
acute corners that I was telling you about.
| | 01:16 |
But before we address that, I'm just
going to make a couple of minor
| | 01:18 |
modifications here.
I'm going to take this stroke and I'm
| | 01:21 |
going to raise it to 1.4 points just
because I found that to be aesthetically pleasing.
| | 01:27 |
And then I wanted to give my brush a
little bit more room up here at the top
| | 01:29 |
of the W.
So, I'll press the A key to switch to the
| | 01:32 |
white arrow tool.
And I'll marquee this anchor point right
| | 01:36 |
there, and press shift left arrow, in
order to nudge it 10 points to the left.
| | 01:40 |
And then I'll grab this one, and nudge it
20 pixels to the right by pressing shift
| | 01:45 |
right arrow twice.
And I'll get this guy, basically I'm
| | 01:48 |
going to do the same thing.
I'll press Shift+Right Arrow in order to
| | 01:51 |
move it 10 points to the right, and then
I'll grab this one here, and I'll press
| | 01:54 |
Shift+Left Arrow to move it 20 points to
the left.
| | 01:59 |
All right, now what you want to do is press
the V key to switch to your black arrow tool.
| | 02:02 |
Click on the W, and go ahead and copy it,
by choosing the Copy command from the
| | 02:06 |
Edit menu, or pressing Ctrl+C, or Cmd+C
on the Mac.
| | 02:10 |
And the reason we're doing this is that
we're now going to have to kind of
| | 02:12 |
destroy the path.
That is, we are going to modify the path
| | 02:16 |
in a way that's going to wreck the fill
as you're about to see.
| | 02:20 |
So we're going to want to bring back this
version of the W to serve as a fill in
| | 02:23 |
just a moment.
All right, so the first thing I'm going to
| | 02:26 |
do is press the Ctrl+Space Bar keys, or
the Cmd+Space Bar keys on the Mac and
| | 02:30 |
zoom in on this tiny little area there.
So I just marqueed this area, and I'll
| | 02:34 |
press the A key to get my White Arrow
tool, and by the way, for this next
| | 02:37 |
technique to work, you'll have to be
selecting your paths by outline.
| | 02:42 |
Which means in case you forget how that
works, I'll press Ctrl+K or Cmd+K on the
| | 02:45 |
Mac to bring up the preferences dialog
box.
| | 02:48 |
Now I'll switch to selection and anchor
display and make sure this checkbox is
| | 02:52 |
turned on, the object selection by path
only.
| | 02:55 |
Very important.
I'll cancel out because mine was already on.
| | 02:58 |
And now, I'll go ahead and marquee this
tiny little area here between the two
| | 03:01 |
anchor points.
And I'll press the backspace key or the
| | 03:04 |
delete key on a Mac to get rid of that
segment.
| | 03:07 |
And then I'll click off to deselect
everything.
| | 03:09 |
I'll click on this anchor point and press
the left arrow key twice, in order to
| | 03:12 |
nudge it two points to the left.
And I'll select this guy and press the
| | 03:16 |
right arrow key twice, in order to nudge
it two points to the right.
| | 03:20 |
Now I'll press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on the Mac
in order to zoom out.
| | 03:23 |
And you can see that's done a nice job of
aligning the end tile of this path, with
| | 03:27 |
the start tile of this one.
And that's exactly what we have to do
| | 03:31 |
with these corners as well.
All right.
| | 03:33 |
Now let's get rid of that fill by
pressing the V key to switch to the black
| | 03:36 |
arrow tool.
And note that we now have this one big
| | 03:39 |
group if I click on it to select it.
And you can see it's a group on the far
| | 03:43 |
left side of the control panel.
Don't want a group, so I'll go ahead and
| | 03:46 |
choose the end group command from the
object menu.
| | 03:48 |
And now we're automatically left with a
compound path that's divided into three subpaths.
| | 03:54 |
To get rid of the fill, click on the
first color swatch in the Control panel,
| | 03:57 |
and change it to None.
And then let's go ahead and build up the
| | 04:01 |
strokes a little bit here.
Notice that the white edges of the
| | 04:03 |
strokes are interrupting each other?
I don't want that.
| | 04:06 |
So I'll switch over to the Appearance
panel, click on that stroke to select it,
| | 04:09 |
and then click on the Page icon at the
bottom of the panel to make a copy of it.
| | 04:13 |
And change this brush to the first one,
looping lines pattern, the one that does
| | 04:17 |
not contain the white outlines, and that
way we just go ahead and cover up those intersections.
| | 04:23 |
So everything looks great, and now I want
to create a couple of copies of these
| | 04:27 |
guys with smaller line weights, and so
I'll click on this stroke right here the
| | 04:30 |
bottom one, to select it, and then I'll
make a copy of it.
| | 04:35 |
And I'll change it's line weight from 1.4
to half of that, which is 0.7 in order to
| | 04:39 |
produce this effect here.
And then I'll make a copy of this guy as
| | 04:43 |
well by selecting it, and then clicking
on the little page icon.
| | 04:46 |
And the I'll change it's line weight to
0.7 also.
| | 04:50 |
And we end up with this effect here.
All right, now we want to create the fill.
| | 04:54 |
And you do that by pressing control b, or
command b on the Mac, to paste back in
| | 04:58 |
that original version of the W.
The modified version that is a single big shape.
| | 05:05 |
And you also want to go up to the object
menu and choose ungroup so that you see
| | 05:08 |
that it's a compound path.
It's not neccesary as a compound path, by
| | 05:13 |
the way.
So you could drop down to the compound
| | 05:15 |
path command and then choose release.
And you'll see that we have a single path outline.
| | 05:21 |
All right lets get rid of the stroke by
changing it to none up here in the
| | 05:24 |
control panel.
And then here in the appearance panel,
| | 05:27 |
grab the fill and create a copy of it and
turn if off for just a second and go
| | 05:30 |
ahead and click on the original one here,
click on its color swatch and change it
| | 05:33 |
to that shade of green.
Now turn this fill back on and what we
| | 05:39 |
want to do is turn it into a kind of wood
pattern.
| | 05:43 |
And you can do that by going up to the
Effect menu, choosing Texture and then
| | 05:47 |
choosing Grain.
And then, inside of the big effect
| | 05:51 |
gallery window here.
Increase the intensity value to 100, and
| | 05:56 |
take the contrast value up to 85, and
change the grain type to vertical, like so.
| | 06:01 |
And then go ahead and click Okay in order
to accept that effect.
| | 06:05 |
And we want to blend the white grain in
with the green below, and to do that go
| | 06:09 |
ahead to click on the word opacity there,
below the black fill, and change its
| | 06:12 |
blend mode to screen, and you'll end up
with this effect here.
| | 06:18 |
Now I also want thicker grain, this is
too thin and I'm afraid it's not going to
| | 06:21 |
print effectively.
So go up to the effect menu, and choose
| | 06:25 |
document raster effect settings, in order
to reduce the resolution of the effect
| | 06:30 |
from 300ppi, down to medium, 150ppi, and
then click Okay, and that will render the
| | 06:35 |
effect larger as you see here.
Now, if you want it to be lighter, check
| | 06:42 |
this out.
I can change this fill to any shade of gray.
| | 06:45 |
So, if I go all the way to white, then
I'll end up with this effect here, where
| | 06:48 |
we have darker lines instead of lighter
lines.
| | 06:51 |
And then, if I were to switch it to
something like 50% gray, I'd get a kind
| | 06:55 |
of even distribution of white and green.
In this case, I decided I wanted to
| | 07:00 |
lighten things up just a little bit.
So, this is black.
| | 07:03 |
An this is what you get if you switch to
90% black like so.
| | 07:06 |
So it just lightens things up ever so
slightly, but you still get white an
| | 07:10 |
green as opposed to any sort of middling
colors.
| | 07:14 |
All right, now I want to multiply, the W
into its background.
| | 07:17 |
So go ahead an marquee both W's like so,
using the black arrow tool here.
| | 07:22 |
And then go up to the Object menu and the
Group command.
| | 07:25 |
Or press Ctrl+G or Cmd+G on a Mac.
This is one of those times I actually
| | 07:29 |
want a group.
And now I'll click on the word Opacity up
| | 07:32 |
here in the Control panel and change the
Blend mode to Multiply in order to
| | 07:35 |
produce this effect here.
All right, we want to make just a couple
| | 07:40 |
more changes.
Go ahead and zoom in at the bottom here
| | 07:42 |
right there.
Notice how the fill doesn't quite rise up
| | 07:45 |
to the stroke.
So press the A key in order to get the
| | 07:48 |
white arrow tool.
Click right there on that segment in
| | 07:51 |
order to select it, and then press the Up
Arrow key once in order to move it up
| | 07:54 |
like so.
Then I'll press control zero, or command
| | 07:58 |
zero on a Mac to zoom out.
I'll control spacebar drag up here at
| | 08:01 |
the top in order to check it out.
Click on a segment to select it.
| | 08:04 |
Press the down arrow key to move it down.
One more time, press Ctrl+0, Cmd+0 on a
| | 08:08 |
Mac, Ctrl+ or Cmd+Space Bar, drag around
that little area.
| | 08:12 |
Click on the segment with the wide area
tool.
| | 08:14 |
Press the up arrow key in order to take
care of it as well.
| | 08:17 |
And for the final time, go ahead and zoom
out there.
| | 08:20 |
And then the last thing that I want to do
is change the color of this W to
| | 08:24 |
something more rustic.
And I could do that after the fact
| | 08:29 |
because I created a global swatch in the
first place.
| | 08:33 |
So I'll just go ahead and double-click on
this green swatch here inside the
| | 08:36 |
swatches panel, and I'm going to change
the red value to 150, and I'll change the
| | 08:40 |
green value to 50, and then I'll click
Okay.
| | 08:44 |
And that goes ahead and updates the W as
well as anything else that's associated
| | 08:48 |
with the green swatch.
And that friends is how you reconcile a
| | 08:52 |
pattern brush at a very acute corner
inside of a path outline here inside Illustrator.
| | 08:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
39. Charts and PictographsThe pleasures and pitfalls of graphs| 00:00 |
If I had to name Illustrator's most
unexpected feature, it would be the
| | 00:03 |
program's ability to create graphs.
So you can actually import a spreadsheet
| | 00:08 |
of data and generate bar graphs, and
column graphs, and pie charts, and all
| | 00:12 |
sorts of things.
You can even create these things called
| | 00:17 |
graph designs in order to render out just
beautiful looking pictographs.
| | 00:23 |
There's just one little problem.
The first thing you have to do is decide
| | 00:27 |
the size of your graph.
And of course, you have no idea.
| | 00:31 |
So what invariably happens is you create
the graph all the way through.
| | 00:35 |
And it ends up being the wrong
proportions.
| | 00:38 |
And the one thing you can't do to a
graph, after you create it, Is scale it
| | 00:41 |
non-proportionately because it'll just
end up looking squished.
| | 00:45 |
So what you have to do is recreate the
graph from scratch now that you know what
| | 00:50 |
size it's going to be.
Now that sounds like a disaster, of
| | 00:53 |
course, but it's actually something that
goes by pretty quickly.
| | 00:57 |
And we're going to do it in the final
movie, you'll see.
| | 00:59 |
So creating the graph in the first place
takes some time and effort, and then
| | 01:02 |
recreating it goes lickity split.
Now I'd love to say, that this approach
| | 01:07 |
is all my fault.
I would totally, totally take the blame
| | 01:11 |
if it were.
But it's not.
| | 01:13 |
It's, it's Illustrator's.
But bless it's heart, it allows you to
| | 01:18 |
create such great artwork that all we can
do is forgive and forget.
| | 01:24 |
As we will in the following movies.
| | 01:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing and graphing numerical data| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
import and graph data inside of
| | 00:03 |
illustrator, so that you're working from
real hard numbers.
| | 00:07 |
I'll go ahead and switch over to my
starter document, and if you're working
| | 00:10 |
along with me, you might want to turn off
the text layer.
| | 00:13 |
That'll just make things less confusing.
So the first thing you'd have to do is
| | 00:16 |
draw a boundary for your graph using one
off the graph tools.
| | 00:20 |
And they're all located down here.
Notice the column graph is visible by default.
| | 00:25 |
I'll go ahead and click and hold on it
and release on the tear off bar.
| | 00:29 |
And so we have a variety of different
graphs that you can choose from.
| | 00:32 |
You've got a vertical bar graph, which is
better known as a column graph.
| | 00:36 |
The horizontal bar graph is just a
standard bar graph.
| | 00:40 |
You also have a line graph, you can
create an area graph, you can create pie
| | 00:43 |
charts, what have you.
You don't need to get too worked up about
| | 00:47 |
that at this point, because you can
always change the type of graph.
| | 00:51 |
However I know I want a horizontal bar
graph, so I'll go ahead and select the
| | 00:53 |
bar graph tool, and then I'll close the
little toolbox.
| | 00:57 |
Now this is the trickiest moment in
creating a graph, deciding how big it
| | 01:00 |
should be and frankly between you and me,
you're not going to get it right the
| | 01:04 |
first time out so you mine as well just
draw something that's roughly correct.
| | 01:10 |
Now I know I want something along these
lines but really, because this is just in
| | 01:14 |
my mind's eye at this point I just know I
want a graph that is wider than it is tall.
| | 01:19 |
So I'll go ahead and drag something like
this, in order to create such a graph,
| | 01:22 |
and then I'll release.
And as soon as you do, you'll see the
| | 01:26 |
spreadsheet window up here on screen,
I'll just go ahead and make it a little
| | 01:30 |
bigger, and by default, it's got the
value 1 inside of it, which is why we
| | 01:33 |
have 1 big bar representing the number 1,
and that's it.
| | 01:40 |
Now you can just go ahead and enter some
values if you want to.
| | 01:42 |
For example, I'll enter x tab, y tab, z,
and then drop down to the next row, and
| | 01:47 |
let's do 3 tab, 5 tab 7, and how about 4
tab, 6 tab, 8, and then finally, 5 tab, 7
| | 01:52 |
tab, 9.
And then, to graph that data, you just go
| | 01:58 |
ahead and click on the check mark in the
upper right corner of the spreadsheet,
| | 02:01 |
and you end up with this effect right
there.
| | 02:05 |
So I'll go ahead and close the
spreadsheet, just so we can see what's
| | 02:07 |
going on.
And notice we have a legend over here
| | 02:10 |
outside of the boundary what I drew,
that's showing me that X is black, Y is
| | 02:15 |
light gray, and Z is a medium gray.
If you want to change the color of any
| | 02:21 |
one of these bar graphs, very easy to do.
But you have to do it with the white
| | 02:25 |
arrow tool.
So I'll press the A key to get the white
| | 02:28 |
arrow tool because notice if you twirl
open the graph layer here, you've got
| | 02:31 |
this item called graph but you can't
expand it inside the layers panel.
| | 02:37 |
Instead, what you do is you click off the
graph with the wide arrow tool to
| | 02:40 |
deselect it.
And then you basically alt click or
| | 02:43 |
option click up the heiarchy.
So, keep an eye on what's going on here.
| | 02:47 |
I'll alt click once on this medium gray
bar, and that will select it.
| | 02:51 |
That would be an option click in a Mac.
I'll alt or option click a second time,
| | 02:55 |
and that selects all of the medium gray
bars, but not the legend.
| | 03:00 |
And then I'll Alt or Opt + Click a third
time, and that selects a legend as well.
| | 03:04 |
And now I can switch out the color just
by clicking in the first color swatch up
| | 03:08 |
here in the control panel, and I'll
select for example, CMYK red, and that
| | 03:11 |
swaps out all of those bars.
And that turns out to be a very flexible
| | 03:16 |
way to work, because you can still modify
your data later on, and it will remain red.
| | 03:21 |
Anyway I want totally different data.
I'm going to press the V key to switch
| | 03:25 |
from my black (INAUDIBLE) tool and I'll
go and show you this document that I have
| | 03:28 |
opened in excel and notice here it is a
list of years by decade along with the
| | 03:32 |
population of the United States in
millions and this is accurate data which
| | 03:35 |
I've saved out in advance.
Now I can import this data into
| | 03:42 |
illustrator but there is two things I can
go wrong and I want you to see both of
| | 03:45 |
those things just (INAUDIBLE) counter
them as your working inside the program.
| | 03:50 |
I'll go and switch back the illustrator
click somewhere in the graph of the black
| | 03:53 |
arrow tool to select the entire thing.
And then right click anywhere in the
| | 03:57 |
document window and choose data and
that'll bring back my spreadsheet.
| | 04:02 |
Now, you want to make sure that the first
cell is selected inside the spreadsheet,
| | 04:05 |
as it is in my case.
And then click on this icon, Import Data.
| | 04:10 |
And I'm going to navigate to the exercise
file folder and then the 39 pictograph subfolder.
| | 04:16 |
And I'll go ahead and select that file,
which is an old file, XL format, but it's
| | 04:19 |
compatible with just about every program
out there.
| | 04:22 |
And I'll click on the open button.
And I'm going to see this very
| | 04:25 |
bewildering alert message, the final
couldn't be found negative 43.
| | 04:29 |
And obviously, that's not the least bit
helpful if it's the first time you've
| | 04:33 |
seen this error message.
But what it's telling you is that
| | 04:36 |
illustrator's not capable of importing
the data when it's open in Excel.
| | 04:41 |
And this is frequently the case when you
see a file can't be found message so just
| | 04:44 |
go ahead and click OK, and I'll switch
back to excel and I'll go ahead and close
| | 04:48 |
the document.
And now if I switch back to illustator
| | 04:53 |
and click on the import data button and
then go ahead and navigate to that 39
| | 04:57 |
pictogram folder select that file again
and click on the open button this is a
| | 05:00 |
second problem you might encounter.
Illustrator can't accommodate Excel documents.
| | 05:08 |
So even though it will show me the file,
and it will allow me to select the file,
| | 05:11 |
it can't open the file, because it needs
a tab delimited text file.
| | 05:16 |
Which is not a problem, by the way, just
a hiccup.
| | 05:19 |
Like any good spreadsheet program.
Excel and every other number crunching
| | 05:23 |
program out there, can export a tab
delimited text file.
| | 05:27 |
Which just means that it's a text file,
with tabs between the columns of data.
| | 05:31 |
And I've created such a file for you in
advance.
| | 05:33 |
So just click OK.
Click on that import data button again,
| | 05:37 |
go ahead and locate that 39 pictograph
folder, and select this document here.
| | 05:42 |
Total US population data.txt and click
Open again, and this time we get the data.
| | 05:48 |
And notice it comes in kind of strange,
and that's because at some point I went
| | 05:51 |
ahead and clicked in a different cell,
and so the data always begins at the
| | 05:54 |
selected cell, which is actually a good
thing.
| | 05:58 |
It's a little bit of a pain in the neck
for us, but it's a good thing in general.
| | 06:01 |
Because it means you can combine multiple
data files inside a single graph.
| | 06:06 |
So, to move this into the right location,
you just want to drag across it like so.
| | 06:10 |
And then press Ctrl + X or Cmd + X on a
Mac to cut it, and then click in the
| | 06:13 |
upper left cell there and press Ctrl + V
or Cmd + V to paste it.
| | 06:19 |
And we don't want this third column of
data anymore, so drag across it and press
| | 06:23 |
Ctrl + X or Cmd + X on a Mac, to get rid
of all of it at the same time.
| | 06:29 |
And then go ahead and click on the check
mark in order to apply that data.
| | 06:33 |
And what ends up happening it's hard to
see from here, I'll go ahead and close
| | 06:35 |
the spreadsheet.
But Illustrator's gotten confused, or
| | 06:39 |
more accurately, I haven't told it the
right thing to do, because it's mapping
| | 06:43 |
both the years and the population numbers
inside of my graph.
| | 06:48 |
Even so, we have a really great start.
So that's how you start things off, by
| | 06:53 |
importing and graphing data inside of
Illustrator.
| | 06:56 |
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
modify the data so we get the desired results
| | 07:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modifying data to create a category axis| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to modify
your data, so you can tell Illustrator
| | 00:04 |
exactly which values you want to graph,
and which you don't.
| | 00:08 |
For example in our case, and I've gone
ahead and zoomed out so we can see both
| | 00:11 |
the graph and the legend at the same
time.
| | 00:14 |
The years are being graphed in black, and
they're so much bigger than the light
| | 00:18 |
gray population values, because the
population values are listed in millions.
| | 00:23 |
So in other words, they're smaller
numbers in so far as Illustrator is concerned.
| | 00:28 |
I want to tell Illustrator to ignore the
year numbers, and to list those numbers
| | 00:31 |
on a category axis, which is the vertical
axis in the case of horizontal bar chart.
| | 00:37 |
And to do that, as well as get rid of the
legend, because I don't want that there
| | 00:41 |
either, make sure the graph is selected.
Then right click anywhere in the document
| | 00:45 |
window, and choose the data command, and
that'll bring up the spreadsheet once again.
| | 00:50 |
Now notice that we can't really see the
legend information up here at the top.
| | 00:54 |
And we have two decimal digits as well.
If you want to change either those settings.
| | 00:59 |
Then you click on this icon right there,
sell style, and notice the very first
| | 01:03 |
option controls the number of decimals.
So go ahead and change that to zero, and
| | 01:08 |
then we can define the column width here
inside the spreadsheet in terms of digits.
| | 01:14 |
And where this data is concerned, 12
digits works out nicely.
| | 01:18 |
So I'll go ahead and click okay.
And notice that cleans things up quite a
| | 01:21 |
bit here.
But that has no effect, by the way, on
| | 01:24 |
the appearance of the graph inside of the
document window.
| | 01:27 |
So if I were to click the apply button,
nothing's going to happen.
| | 01:31 |
What we need to do is change the numbers
that we don't want to graph.
| | 01:35 |
And if you don't want to graph a number,
then you go ahead and select its cell.
| | 01:39 |
You click in front of the number, and you
enter a double quotation mark, so Shift
| | 01:43 |
quote in other words.
And then you press the enter key to
| | 01:46 |
advance to the next number, and you click
in front of it, and you do the same thing.
| | 01:51 |
And then in our case, you have to repeat
that operation 100 times, so that's kind
| | 01:55 |
of a pain in the neck.
Which is why I've gone ahead and created
| | 01:58 |
some new data for you.
And to import it, just go ahead and click
| | 02:03 |
on 1900, and then click on the import
data icon for the last time.
| | 02:08 |
And go ahead and navigate to the 39
pictographs folder, if you're working
| | 02:11 |
along with me, and select this file.
Population with quotes.txt, and click on
| | 02:15 |
the open button, and that will go ahead
and import all the numbers with quote
| | 02:19 |
marks in front of them.
And now notice, I'll go and scoot this
| | 02:23 |
down a little bit.
If I click on the check mark, then I am
| | 02:26 |
now graphing only the population data.
And my legend now reads, total
| | 02:31 |
population, and that's it.
And all of my years now appear on the
| | 02:35 |
vertical category axis.
So everything's exactly the way it should be.
| | 02:40 |
Now it's ugly of course, and we're
going to have to fix that.
| | 02:43 |
But we're at least graphing the proper
data.
| | 02:46 |
Now if you don't want a legend, then you
have to get rid of the words at the top
| | 02:49 |
of your table.
And the best way to do that, in our case
| | 02:53 |
is to go ahead and drag for 1900 down to
the cell below 438.
| | 02:59 |
In order to select an extra cell.
That way we'll end up replacing the cell
| | 03:02 |
right there.
And you'll see what I mean in a minute,
| | 03:05 |
but just go ahead and do it for now.
And press Control C or Command C on the
| | 03:09 |
Mac to copy that data.
Then click on the word years and press
| | 03:13 |
Control V, or Command V on the Mac, in
order to paste everything.
| | 03:17 |
And because you copied an extra row of
cells there, you went ahead and replaced
| | 03:21 |
what used to be 2050 with empty
information.
| | 03:24 |
And that's very important.
Because otherwise you'll end up
| | 03:27 |
duplicating data inside the graph, and
you dpn't want to do that.
| | 03:31 |
Now go ahead and click on the apply
button, and you'll see that the legend disappears.
| | 03:36 |
All right, at this point we're done with
the spread sheet, so you can go ahead and
| | 03:39 |
close it.
And I'll press Control zero, or Command
| | 03:42 |
zero on the Mac, in order to zoom in on
our ugly, but extremely accurate bar chart.
| | 03:49 |
So remember, if you don't want to graph a
value inside the spreadsheet, then you
| | 03:52 |
need to go ahead and put a double quote
mark in front of it.
| | 03:56 |
And if you don't want a legend to the
side of the spreadsheet, then you need to
| | 03:59 |
make sure that those first cells, right
at the top, are filled with actual
| | 04:03 |
numerical data.
| | 04:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reformatting text and values in a graph| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
modify and reformat the text associated
| | 00:04 |
with the graph.
Specifically, we need to modify the
| | 00:08 |
numbers that are associated with the
horizontal value axis, as well as the
| | 00:12 |
vertical category axis.
Now, the biggest problem here is that the
| | 00:17 |
numbers are too darn large.
So, the first thing I'm going to do is
| | 00:21 |
click on the graph with the Black Arrow
tool to select the entire thing.
| | 00:24 |
And then, you can reformat those numbers
as much as you'd like.
| | 00:28 |
Either up here in the Control panel, or
by bringing up the Character panel.
| | 00:31 |
So you could change the font, or the
style, or what have you.
| | 00:35 |
I just want to change the size.
So, I'll go ahead and click on that size
| | 00:38 |
value and take it down to 10.5, which is
going to seem awfully darn dinky at first.
| | 00:42 |
But it's going to work out great in the
long run.
| | 00:44 |
Now, we've got a couple of other problems
here.
| | 00:47 |
For one thing, these bottom numbers are
too far out from the value axis.
| | 00:51 |
And to select them, I'll just press the a
key to switch to the White Arrow tool.
| | 00:55 |
And I'm just going to marquee these guys,
like so, in order to select them.
| | 00:59 |
My keyboard increment, which I can see if
I press Ctrl+K or Cmd+K on a Mac, is set
| | 01:03 |
to one point.
I'll go ahead and cancel out.
| | 01:07 |
And then I'll press Shift+Up arrow a
couple of times in a row in order to
| | 01:10 |
scoot those numbers into a better
location.
| | 01:14 |
All right, now let's address this column of
numbers along the category axis.
| | 01:17 |
Notice that because of the asterisk here,
the numbers should not be right aligned,
| | 01:21 |
as they are by default, they should be
left aligned.
| | 01:26 |
So an alternate way, by the way, to
select your text is to Alt-click or
| | 01:29 |
Option-click up the hierarchy.
And to select all the numbers associated
| | 01:35 |
with the category axis, or the value axis
for that matter, you just Alt-click
| | 01:39 |
twice, or Option-click twice on a Mac.
Notice I'm not saying double-click,
| | 01:45 |
because if you Alt+double-click or
Option+double-click, then you'll enter
| | 01:48 |
the text entry mode.
Which brings up an interesting point.
| | 01:52 |
I can change that text if I want.
I could go ahead and replace it with
| | 01:57 |
anything I want, even text text as
opposed to numbers.
| | 02:01 |
However, any modification you make to
these values here, whether it's a value
| | 02:06 |
number or a category number or part of
the legend, is subject to automatic
| | 02:10 |
replacement if you modify some other
graph setting.
| | 02:15 |
For example, if I go ahead and click on
the graph with is now my Black Arrow tool
| | 02:19 |
and I right-click and then choose data, I
can change any value here.
| | 02:25 |
For example, 76 is actually 76.212.
I could just get rid of the 2 and replace
| | 02:31 |
the 2, like that.
I'm not really making any significant
| | 02:35 |
modification at all, but as soon as I
click on the Apply button, 2010 gets replaced.
| | 02:41 |
And that's because these values inside
the spreadsheet take precedent over everything.
| | 02:47 |
So, I'll go ahead and close out here.
Now that's not to say that you can't
| | 02:50 |
replace these values if you want to.
You can edit the text, it's just that
| | 02:54 |
it's temporary, so you want to make any
modifications to the text at the very end
| | 02:58 |
of the process.
However, formatting changes stick.
| | 03:04 |
So, I'll go ahead and press the a key
once again, to get the White Arrow tool,
| | 03:07 |
click off the graph to deselect it,
Alt-click once, and then twice.
| | 03:12 |
That would be Option-click once, and then
twice on the Mac in order to select all
| | 03:15 |
of those category numbers, like so.
And then go up to the Control panel and
| | 03:20 |
click on the Align Left icon.
Or you can just press Ctrl+Shift+L or
| | 03:25 |
Cmd+Shift+L on a Mac.
All right, now these guys are too far over
| | 03:28 |
to the right obviously.
So, I'll press Shift+Left arrow a couple
| | 03:31 |
of times.
And then, I'll zoom out just a little bit
| | 03:33 |
so I can better see what I'm doing.
And I'll press Shift+Up arrow because I
| | 03:37 |
want to center those guys on their bars
in order to produce this effect here.
| | 03:41 |
And that looks pretty good for now.
You don't have to get it exactly right at
| | 03:44 |
this point, because you may have to make
further adjustments in the future.
| | 03:48 |
All right, I'll go ahead and zoom out so I
can take in the entire graph, like so.
| | 03:52 |
And then, still armed with my White Arrow
tool, I'll go ahead and alter,
| | 03:55 |
Option-click a couple of times on any one
of the bars.
| | 03:59 |
And I'm going to change the color of the
bars to this nice shade of blue here so
| | 04:03 |
that they're a little easier to look at.
And I'm also just going to get rid of the
| | 04:07 |
stroke because I don't want any stroke
associated with these bars.
| | 04:11 |
Although, it doesn't really matter at
this point because we're going to
| | 04:13 |
override them with little people icons.
All right, I'll go ahead a press the Esc
| | 04:17 |
key in order to hide that panel.
And I'll press the V key to switch back
| | 04:20 |
to the Black Arrow tool, and I'll click
on the graph to select the entire thing.
| | 04:24 |
And here's what I want you to see.
You can now make big modifications to the graph.
| | 04:29 |
And all of your formatting is going to
remain intact.
| | 04:31 |
So, I'll right-click anywhere inside the
document window.
| | 04:34 |
And I'll choose the Type command, which
we'll be visiting in all kinds of detail
| | 04:38 |
in the next movie.
That brings up this big dialog box right here.
| | 04:43 |
And I'll go ahead and switch over to the
Column graph let's say, so we'll get a
| | 04:47 |
vertical bar graph, and I'll click OK.
And you can see that even though I've
| | 04:53 |
modified the graph like crazy, all of my
formatting remains in place.
| | 04:58 |
Now, my positioning is a little off, as
you can see here.
| | 05:01 |
1900 doesn't exactly line up with the
first bar and so forth.
| | 05:06 |
But I could modify that quite easily just
by switching back to the White Arrow tool.
| | 05:09 |
I'll just go ahead and marquee these
guys, like so.
| | 05:12 |
And then, press Shift+Right arrow a
couple of times, and then I'll grab these
| | 05:15 |
guys like so, that are now part of the
vertical axis.
| | 05:19 |
This is still the value axis by the way,
it's just switched to vertical because
| | 05:22 |
we're working inside of a column graph.
And I'll press Shift+Up arrow to raise
| | 05:26 |
them as well.
So, you may have to sometimes make these
| | 05:29 |
kinds of manual positioning
modifications.
| | 05:32 |
But your formatting will always remain
intact, regardless of what kind of
| | 05:35 |
changes you make to your graph in the
future.
| | 05:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Changing the Graph Type settings| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll take you on a tour of
the graph type options, which allow you
| | 00:03 |
to control both the fundamental
appearance of the graph, as well as the
| | 00:07 |
appearance of the value and the category
axes.
| | 00:11 |
So I'll start things off by clicking on
the graph in order to select it with the
| | 00:14 |
black arrow tool, and then I'll right
click anywhere in the document window and
| | 00:17 |
choose the type command.
We've seen how you can change the type of
| | 00:22 |
the graph, so I could switch to an area
graph for example.
| | 00:26 |
Problem with this dialog box is that it
doesn't have a preview check box, so you
| | 00:30 |
can't actually preview your changes on
screen.
| | 00:34 |
Instead you have to click OK, in order to
see what happens.
| | 00:37 |
And there we have it a filled in area
graph, fine.
| | 00:41 |
Which is great, by the way, for showing
changes over time.
| | 00:44 |
So the steepness of the segments
indicates a steep incline in the population.
| | 00:49 |
For example, right there is the classic
baby boom.
| | 00:52 |
I'll go ahead and right click once again
and choose type, because this is
| | 00:55 |
definitely not the kind of graph I want.
I'm going to switch back for now to
| | 00:59 |
vertical column graph.
You can decide where the value axis lies.
| | 01:03 |
It can be on the left side in this case,
or the right side, or on both sides if
| | 01:05 |
you want.
If I were to switch to a bar graph, I
| | 01:09 |
could choose from bottom side, top side,
or both sides.
| | 01:14 |
But typically, you want the default
setting, which is going to be left for a
| | 01:17 |
column graph and bottom, for a bar graph.
You know some other check boxes you can
| | 01:22 |
play around with, but they're nothing to
write home about, just drop shadows, hard
| | 01:25 |
edged, looks terrible.
These options are a little more interesting.
| | 01:29 |
The idea is how thick do you want the
columns to be inside of the cluster area.
| | 01:34 |
So if I had multiple values per category,
for example as I did with x, y, and z,
| | 01:40 |
then those would be considered a cluster.
We'd have three bars together and 80%
| | 01:47 |
would define how big that area is.
And to make myself clear I'll go ahead
| | 01:52 |
and click OK in order to switch back to
the column graph.
| | 01:55 |
Basically each one of these columns is
taking up 90% inside of an 80% area.
| | 02:01 |
And that way we've got a gap between each
one of the columns.
| | 02:05 |
If I wanted to make the columns thicker,
which I do, then I'd right click inside
| | 02:09 |
of the document window, choose type, and
modify one of these values.
| | 02:14 |
I'm going to change column width to 100%.
And if I were to also take cluster width
| | 02:19 |
up to 100% and click OK, then you can see
that goes ahead and smashes all of the
| | 02:22 |
bars together.
Whereas if I right click inside of there,
| | 02:27 |
and choose type, and then reduce one of
these values, I'll take cluster back down
| | 02:31 |
to 80% and click OK.
Then I still have some room between these guys.
| | 02:37 |
So Cluster With specifically becomes
important when you have multiple values
| | 02:41 |
per category, and you've got a legend and
all that stuff.
| | 02:46 |
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and
right-click.
| | 02:47 |
Once again, inside the graph, and I'll
choose Type.
| | 02:51 |
And then I'll switch to Value Axis butI
want you to see that you can change the
| | 02:54 |
link to the tick marks.
So for example I could change them to
| | 02:58 |
full width and then click okay and all
this we then have tick marks that go
| | 03:01 |
across the full width of the graph.
I could do the same thing with the
| | 03:06 |
category axis by once again right
clicking and choosing type.
| | 03:10 |
This time I'll switch to category axis
and change its link to full width as well.
| | 03:15 |
And then I could click OK at this point
to see long tick marks between each one
| | 03:19 |
of the bars or if I want the tick marks
to be centered on the bars, I would turn
| | 03:22 |
off this check mark right here and then I
would click OK and notice now the tick
| | 03:25 |
marks are centered.
Now that's not even remotely what I want.
| | 03:32 |
What I'm looking for is the following.
I'm going to Right click choose Type.
| | 03:36 |
And then I'm going to switch back to my
bar graph.
| | 03:40 |
I want the bar width to be 100%.
So I'll go ahead and change that value.
| | 03:44 |
A cluster width of 80% is just fine.
I'll switch to my category axis.
| | 03:49 |
And I'll set the length to none.
'Cuz I don't want to see any tick marks whatsoever.
| | 03:54 |
And then I'll switch to my Value Axis and
I'll change that to None as well.
| | 04:00 |
And then I'll go ahead and click OK and
we end up with this graph right here.
| | 04:04 |
Now my final issue is the length of the
graph.
| | 04:08 |
Notice that the population peters out at
something like 438 million.
| | 04:13 |
And yet my Value Axis goes all the way to
500 million and the values are spaced out
| | 04:18 |
at 100 million increments.
That's not what I want at all.
| | 04:23 |
Instead I want this whole Value Axis to
stop at 400 million and I want 50 million increments.
| | 04:30 |
So, I'll right click in the document
window and choose type once again.
| | 04:33 |
And then I'll switch over to value axis
and notice I can override the calculated
| | 04:37 |
values by turning on this check mark.
I want the minimum to be zero, so I'll
| | 04:42 |
just leave that value alone.
And I want the maximum to be 400.
| | 04:47 |
And I want the divisions to be 50 apart
from each other, so 400 divided by 50 is eight.
| | 04:55 |
So I'll go ahead and enter eight
divisions, and then that's it.
| | 04:57 |
I'll click OK, and I end up with this
effect here.
| | 05:00 |
So you can see the value axis stops at
400, and then I'm seeing values at every
| | 05:05 |
50 million increment.
Which will prove to be much more helpful
| | 05:10 |
in the long run.
All right, that's how you go about
| | 05:13 |
modifying the various graph type
attributes including modifying the value
| | 05:18 |
and category axis.
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
| | 05:22 |
create a graph design, so we can fill the
bars with these human symbols.
| | 05:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and applying a graph design| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to create
what's known as a Graph Design, which
| | 00:03 |
will allow us to fill the bar chart full
of these human figures.
| | 00:08 |
Now, before we get any further here, I'm
going to press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a Mac,
| | 00:12 |
and zoom in on the final version of this
document, so that you can see that these
| | 00:16 |
guys are laid out inside rectangles.
And the rectangles determine the amount
| | 00:23 |
of spacing between one figure and the
next.
| | 00:26 |
And you have to have them in there in
order to create a graph design.
| | 00:31 |
So, I'll go ahead and switch over to my
document in progress.
| | 00:33 |
And if you scroll over to the left side,
inside the pasteboard, you'll see that
| | 00:37 |
I've got this big figure that I've
created in advance.
| | 00:40 |
You can go ahead and zoom in on him here.
But we need to draw a rectangle around him.
| | 00:45 |
So, I'm going to start by drawing a very
exact rectangle that precisely fits him
| | 00:49 |
by going to the View menu and turning on
Smart Guides, if it isn't turned on
| | 00:52 |
already, and then, I'll switch to the
Rectangle tool.
| | 00:58 |
And I'll move my cursor up here so that
I'm finding the intersection of the top
| | 01:01 |
of the guy's head and the left side of
his arm.
| | 01:05 |
And I'll drag down until I snap into
alignment with the right side of the guys
| | 01:09 |
arm and the bottom of his legs.
And then I'll go ahead and release.
| | 01:13 |
Now, you can have a fill associated with
your rectangle if you want to.
| | 01:17 |
But it's not going to do us any good.
So I'll just go ahead and change the fill
| | 01:21 |
to none.
Now, I'll zoom out a click by pressing Ctrl+minus.
| | 01:25 |
I'll press the A key to get my White
Arrow tool.
| | 01:27 |
I want 10 points of space between either
side of this guy.
| | 01:31 |
So I'll just go ahead and marquee the
right-hand segment and I'll press
| | 01:34 |
Shift+right arrow a couple of times to
move it 20 points to the right.
| | 01:39 |
And then I'll marquee the top segment and
press Shift+up arrow a couple of times,
| | 01:42 |
and then I'll Alt-click or Option-click
on the outline of the rectangle to select
| | 01:46 |
it, and I'll press Shift+down arrow and
Shift+left arrow to move it back into place.
| | 01:52 |
All right, now let's turn him into a
graph design.
| | 01:54 |
Press the V key to switch to the Black
Arrow tool, and go ahead and marquee both
| | 01:57 |
of these shapes to select them.
And then you want to go up to the Object
| | 02:02 |
menu, choose Graph way down here at the
bottom.
| | 02:05 |
And notice here's where the Data and Type
commands live, along with the other Graph
| | 02:08 |
commands of course.
You want to choose Design.
| | 02:11 |
So the Design command allows you to
create and modify your existing designs.
| | 02:17 |
Column allows you to apply your design to
a graph that includes columns, such as a
| | 02:21 |
column or bar graph.
And marker allows you to apply your
| | 02:25 |
designs to a line or area graph.
Anyway, we want to make a design.
| | 02:30 |
So go ahead and choose the Design
command.
| | 02:32 |
And then click on the New Design button
in order to make a new design that's
| | 02:35 |
called new design.
And then you have to rename it, in an
| | 02:39 |
additional step, by clicking on the
Rename button.
| | 02:42 |
And I'll go ahead and call this guy 10
million, let's say, because he represents
| | 02:46 |
10 million people.
And I'll click OK, and that's all there
| | 02:49 |
is to that.
And I'll click OK in order to create the design.
| | 02:54 |
All right, now let's apply it to the
graph.
| | 02:56 |
So I'll press Ctrl+0, or Cmd+0 on a Mac,
in order to center my zoom.
| | 03:00 |
And I'll go ahead and click on a graph to
select it.
| | 03:02 |
And then, I'll right-click somewhere in
the Document window, and you want to
| | 03:05 |
choose column this time, cause we're
applying it to a column style graph.
| | 03:10 |
And notice in addition to 10 million, the
one that I just created, there's also
| | 03:13 |
figures one and two, if you're working
along with me, because they're included
| | 03:17 |
in the other open document.
So you can share designs between documents.
| | 03:23 |
All right now, we don't have a legend, so
the Rotate Legend Design check box
| | 03:26 |
doesn't make any difference.
Notice that the first column type is
| | 03:30 |
vertically scaled.
Well, it really means horizontally scaled
| | 03:33 |
in our case, because we have a horizontal
bar graph.
| | 03:36 |
So, just go ahead and select it, and
click OK, and you'll end up stretching
| | 03:40 |
these guys out as you see here.
I'll press Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on a Mac, so
| | 03:45 |
we can better see that.
And we're actually going to get a better
| | 03:48 |
impression of how things are working in
general.
| | 03:50 |
If you right-click somewhere in the
Document window, choose Type, and go
| | 03:54 |
ahead and switch back to a column graph.
And then click OK.
| | 03:58 |
And now we can see how these guys get
stretched vertically inside of the
| | 04:02 |
equivalent of a vertical bar graph.
And this'll give us a better sense of
| | 04:07 |
what's going on with the other options as
well.
| | 04:09 |
All right, now right-click again and
choose Column, so that we can switch to a
| | 04:12 |
different setting here.
This time I'm going to change Column Type
| | 04:16 |
to Uniformly Scaled.
You're almost never going to want to use
| | 04:19 |
this setting.
And I want you to see what it looks like.
| | 04:22 |
Instead of stretching the figures, it's
going to uniformly scale them.
| | 04:27 |
So that they get bigger and bigger and
they start overlapping on top of each
| | 04:30 |
other as well.
So, that's another way to work.
| | 04:33 |
It does make the point that the
population in 1900 was a heck of a lot
| | 04:37 |
smaller than it might be in 2050.
But it's difficult to tell what's going on.
| | 04:43 |
Anyway, I'm going to right-click and
choose Column once again.
| | 04:46 |
And then, I'll go ahead and change this
guy to repeating.
| | 04:50 |
So you can get a sense of what that looks
like.
| | 04:52 |
Then I'll click OK, and I always forget
this part.
| | 04:55 |
We've gotta fill out this each design
represents X number of units option.
| | 04:59 |
So I'll click OK again to hide the alert
message and the answer is 10.
| | 05:03 |
So, he represents 10 million people.
Now click O:, and we can see him repeated
| | 05:09 |
at a very sort of bacterial level inside
of the charts.
| | 05:14 |
So, obviously that's not the effect I'm
going for.
| | 05:18 |
Anyway.
I'll go ahead and zoom out.
| | 05:19 |
The last one I want to show you is very
interesting.
| | 05:22 |
I'll go ahead and right-click and choose
the Column command.
| | 05:25 |
And this time I'll switch to Sliding,
which is going to stretch our guy at a
| | 05:29 |
specific point.
Now click OK.
| | 05:32 |
And you can see that it's stretching him
in a pretty interesting way that doesn't
| | 05:37 |
harm his legs or his head.
So his head never gets smashed at any
| | 05:41 |
point, just makes his arms and his torso
either very short or very long.
| | 05:46 |
And what's happening is by default, I'll
go ahead and zoom in on this guy and
| | 05:49 |
select him as well.
And I'll have to press Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on
| | 05:53 |
a Mac to see what's going on.
By default, Illustrator goes ahead and
| | 05:57 |
creates the sliding mark right there at
the center of the guy.
| | 06:02 |
And so that occurs in his torso and his
arms.
| | 06:05 |
But what if you want to just stretch his
legs?
| | 06:08 |
Well, here's what you do.
Go ahead and grab the Line tool.
| | 06:11 |
And then you want to draw a horizontal
line across the guy, like so, at
| | 06:14 |
whichever point you want to stretch.
And now, you want to go up to the View
| | 06:20 |
menu, choose Guides, and choose Make
Guides or you can press Ctrl+5 or Cmd+5
| | 06:24 |
on a Mac.
And then you need to return to that menu.
| | 06:29 |
Go to the View menu, choose Guides, and
this time, choose Lock Guides to turn it off.
| | 06:34 |
because you need to unlock the guides.
And that's Ctrl+Alt+Semicolon,
| | 06:37 |
Cmd+Option+Semicolon on a Mac, for what
that's worth.
| | 06:41 |
Now I'll press the V key to switch back
to my Black Arrow tool, and I'll marquee
| | 06:44 |
all three of these guys like so.
So I've selected the figure, the
| | 06:48 |
rectangle, and the guide.
And now you want to go back to the Object
| | 06:52 |
menu, choose Graph, and choose Design.
And click on New Design to create a new
| | 06:57 |
one, click on Rename, and let's call this
guy Long Legs, because that's what he'll be.
| | 07:02 |
Now click OK a couple of times in order
to create that new design.
| | 07:06 |
Press Ctrl+0, or Cmd+0 on a Mac, to
switch back to the document.
| | 07:10 |
Click inside of the graph in order to
select it.
| | 07:13 |
I'm going to press Ctrl+H or Cmd+H again
just to hide those edges.
| | 07:17 |
And I'll right-click, choose Column, and
let's go ahead and leave the Column Type
| | 07:22 |
set to Sliding, but I'll select long legs
instead, and then click OK and we end up
| | 07:26 |
getting this fairly hilarious effect
here.
| | 07:31 |
So his legs just keep growing and growing
as he gets bigger and bigger.
| | 07:35 |
Problem is, none that these things are
what I want.
| | 07:38 |
I'm going to right-click and switch my
Type back to the Bar Graph, and click OK.
| | 07:45 |
And that ends up creating this effect.
And then I'll right-click again, choose
| | 07:49 |
Column, and I'm looking for that same
guy, 10 million, that original guy, but I
| | 07:53 |
want to repeat him over and over again,
and I want him to represent 10 units, so
| | 07:57 |
that's fine.
I'll click OK, and he ends up being
| | 08:02 |
sideways, which is not what I want.
And he's tiny as well.
| | 08:07 |
So how do we correct for this problem?
Well, I'll show you exactly how in the
| | 08:11 |
next movie.
| | 08:13 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Repairing a broken pictograph| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
repair a broken pictograph.
| | 00:04 |
Specifically in our case, we need to take
these tiny little dudes here, and rotate
| | 00:08 |
them so that they're upright.
But if you click on the graph in order to
| | 00:13 |
select it, and you may need to press
Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on the Mac, in order to
| | 00:16 |
bring back your selection edges, and then
right click and choose Column.
| | 00:21 |
You may notice that while you can rotate
the legend design, there's no option for
| | 00:25 |
rotating the design inside the actual
graph.
| | 00:29 |
So instead you need to redefine the graph
design.
| | 00:31 |
So I'll go ahead and cancel out of here,
and I'll zoom out once again and switch
| | 00:36 |
over to this guy.
And I'll go ahead and grab him like so,
| | 00:40 |
and I don't need the guide this time
around.
| | 00:43 |
I'll just get him.
And I'll create a copy of him, by
| | 00:45 |
dragging him over to the side here and
pressing the Alt key or the Option key on
| | 00:49 |
the Mac.
Now he's laying down 90 degrees clockwise
| | 00:53 |
inside the graph.
So I need to rotate him 90 degrees
| | 00:56 |
counter-clockwise to compensate.
So, I'll double-click on the rotate tool,
| | 01:00 |
here inside the tool box.
And I'll change the angle value to 90
| | 01:04 |
degrees, and then I'll turn on the
Preview Check Box, and sure enough, that
| | 01:07 |
puts him on his right side I guess, if
he's facing us.
| | 01:11 |
Anyway, makes him look like that, and now
I'll click Okay in order to accept that change.
| | 01:16 |
And now you want to go up to the Object
menu, choose Graph, and choose Design.
| | 01:21 |
And I'll click on the New Design button.
And then I'll click on Rename and I'll go
| | 01:25 |
ahead and call this guy ten horizontal.
Because that indicates he's worth ten in
| | 01:30 |
a horizontal bar graph.
And I'll click okay and then click okay again.
| | 01:34 |
All right, well, let's return to the
graph and press the v key to switch to
| | 01:37 |
the black arrow tool.
Go ahead and select the graph.
| | 01:41 |
Right click, choose column.
And select 10 Horizontal.
| | 01:45 |
Make sure Column Type is still set to
Repeating and that each design represents
| | 01:50 |
ten units and then click Okay and we end
up with this effect here, which is a
| | 01:53 |
mess, of course.
We'll resolve that later.
| | 01:58 |
But for now, press Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on a
Mac.
| | 02:00 |
So I can show you, if we go ahead and
Zoom In up here, notice these little
| | 02:04 |
fractional units, that don't represent a
full guy.
| | 02:08 |
And what's happening is by default
Illustrator is scaling the guy to fit in
| | 02:12 |
this space that's terrible design in my
opinion I'll go ahead and right click and
| | 02:16 |
choose Column once again because this is
something that we can fix inside the
| | 02:20 |
graph column dialog box just by
dropping down to four fractions and
| | 02:23 |
changing it to Chop Design, which will go
ahead and of course clip the designs.
| | 02:32 |
And I'll click okay.
And now notice that we're clipping each
| | 02:35 |
of these guys instead.
Well what do we do about the much larger
| | 02:39 |
problem, with the guy overlapping all
over the place.
| | 02:43 |
Well that's an issue, that requires an
absolute restart of this graph.
| | 02:47 |
Thankfully, it's going to go pretty
quickly, as I'll demonstrate in the next movie.
| | 02:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recreating a graph at the proper size| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to take
this mess of a pictograph that me have so
| | 00:03 |
far, and turn it into this good looking
pictograph, in which the guys are spaced
| | 00:07 |
away from each other and the graph isn't
so wide either.
| | 00:12 |
So, it's well inside the art board, the
problem is, while you can scale a graph
| | 00:16 |
in Illustrator as much as you wan
proportionally.
| | 00:20 |
There is no god way to scale it
non-proportionally without distorting the
| | 00:24 |
elements in the graph.
Which is why, and this is going to sound
| | 00:28 |
like tragic news, the best way to work is
to start over.
| | 00:32 |
The good news is that we've got a lot of
the work done, so Illustrator's going to
| | 00:35 |
stick with the settings that we've used
in the past.
| | 00:39 |
We've already established our design, we
already have the data, and we have a
| | 00:42 |
bunch of default settings established now
as well.
| | 00:46 |
So, the first thing you want to do here
is look at the problems with the graph.
| | 00:51 |
So, I'll go ahead and zoom out a little
bit here and the big problem is, it's too
| | 00:54 |
wide because it goes outside of the art
board and it's not tall enough.
| | 00:59 |
So, we need to create a new graph that's
taller and narrower.
| | 01:03 |
Knowing that I'll go ahead and zoom back
in and I'm going to select our existing
| | 01:07 |
graph, and I'm going to press the
Backspace key or the Delete key on the
| | 01:10 |
Mac to get rid of it.
I know it seems tragic but it's going to
| | 01:14 |
work out pretty well.
Next you want to go ahead and select your
| | 01:18 |
Bar Graph tool.
And if you're working along with me,
| | 01:21 |
press Ctrl+R or Cmd+R on a Mac in order
to bring up the rulers.
| | 01:25 |
Right-click on one of the rulers, and
let's go ahead and switch to inches, if
| | 01:28 |
you're comfortable with them, because
it's going to make it easier in order to
| | 01:32 |
get this job done.
And then, click someplace inside the
| | 01:37 |
document window in order to bring up
these numerical values.
| | 01:41 |
And they will be the last values you
apply, so now we know our last version of
| | 01:44 |
the graph.
In my case anyway, yours might be
| | 01:48 |
different, mine was 10.3 inches, by just
a little over 6 inches.
| | 01:53 |
Now I figured this out through trial and
error, by the way.
| | 01:55 |
It took me about 15 minutes, of sort of
stabbing at it here.
| | 02:00 |
But I'd figure it'd work if I took the
width of the graph down to 9.5 inches,
| | 02:04 |
and then I raised the height to 8 inches.
And that still fits inside the art board
| | 02:09 |
and it makes everything work out as well.
So this is, and I totally apologize on
| | 02:14 |
the behalf of graphs in Illustrator.
They just haven't been revisited lately,
| | 02:20 |
and this is the big problem with them
right here.
| | 02:23 |
If they're not scaled properly in the
first place, which would be a miracle,
| | 02:26 |
then you really do have to recreate them
at a point.
| | 02:29 |
Now click Ok in order to make that graph,
and go ahead and click on Import Data,
| | 02:33 |
and find that data once again.
And you may recall, we have more
| | 02:38 |
documents now, that it's population with
quotes.txt, then go ahead and click Open
| | 02:43 |
in order to open up that data.
And you'll see it right there, and all
| | 02:47 |
you need to do now is click on the Apply
button, and you'll graph the data inside
| | 02:50 |
the document window.
All right.
| | 02:53 |
Go ahead and close the spreadsheet, press
Ctrl+R or Cmd+R on a Mac in order to hide
| | 02:57 |
the rulers.
And let's go and center this just a
| | 03:00 |
little better so we can kind of see
what's going on.
| | 03:04 |
And at this point we need to change the
font size, so I'll go ahead and select
| | 03:07 |
the type size there and change it to 10.5
points like so, and we'll mess around
| | 03:11 |
with the position of the text in just a
moment.
| | 03:16 |
But let's apply the graph design first
because we really need to figure that out
| | 03:19 |
that's our biggest problem of all.
So right-click inside of the document
| | 03:24 |
window and choose Type for starters just
to confirm everything is still set up the
| | 03:27 |
way it was before.
So we've got a bar Width of 100%,
| | 03:31 |
Clusters 80%, that's what we want it,
Value Axis, the length of the tick marks
| | 03:36 |
is none, minimum is 0, max is 400,
divisions are 8.
| | 03:41 |
And for Category Axis we don't have any
tick marks either.
| | 03:45 |
So, good news it remembered our old
settings, yay.
| | 03:48 |
I'll go ahead and cancel out of there,
and then I'll right-click and choose
| | 03:52 |
Column in order to assign the design
called 10 Horizontal to our columns.
| | 03:58 |
We do not want them to be
vertically-scaled, we want them to repeat.
| | 04:01 |
I've got to enter 10 for the units, and
we want to chop the designs.
| | 04:06 |
And then click OK in order to create
those little dudes, and it's looking
| | 04:10 |
pretty darn good but it occurred to me,
you know what, I think we could use a
| | 04:14 |
little space here.
And I think I make the point of an
| | 04:19 |
increasing population overtime without
the year 1900.
| | 04:23 |
So, I'm going to go ahead and right-click
once again and choose Data.
| | 04:27 |
And I'll go ahead and increase the size
of the spreadsheet here, like so.
| | 04:31 |
And I'll select from this empty cell, up
to 1910, press Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on a Mac
| | 04:36 |
to copy that data, click in the very
first cell, and press Ctrl+V, or Cmd+V on
| | 04:40 |
a Mac, in order to paste.
And then I'll click on the Apply button,
| | 04:45 |
and that goes ahead and gives us the
space we're looking for.
| | 04:49 |
All right, now I'll go ahead and close the
spreadsheet window.
| | 04:52 |
And I'll press the A key in order to
switch to my Wide Arrow tool.
| | 04:55 |
And I'll go ahead and marquee the
category values.
| | 04:57 |
They need to be left aligned, so I'll
click on the align left icon over here in
| | 05:00 |
the right side of the Control panel.
And then I'll press Shift+Left Arrow a
| | 05:05 |
couple of times, Shift+Up Arrow as well.
And that looks pretty good, but I might
| | 05:09 |
take them down a couple of points just by
pressing the Down Arrow key.
| | 05:13 |
Now I'll scroll down to these guys,
marquee them, and press Shift+Up Arrow a
| | 05:17 |
couple of times like so.
And then I'll switch back to my Black
| | 05:21 |
Arrow tool, and I'll go in, zoom out, and
then I'll bring back my text.
| | 05:26 |
So, we can get a sense of where this guy
belongs, now he's a little bit too tall.
| | 05:30 |
And a little bit too wide as well,
scaling proportionally is never a problem.
| | 05:35 |
So, just go ahead and click on your graph
and then press the S key to switch to the
| | 05:39 |
Scale tool.
And I'm going to Alt+Click right about
| | 05:42 |
there, Option+Click on the Mac, to bring
up the Scale dialog box.
| | 05:46 |
And I'm going to take the uniform value
down to 97% just to decrease the size of
| | 05:50 |
the graph ever so slightly, and now I'll
click OK.
| | 05:54 |
And that has an effect on the selected
values as well.
| | 05:58 |
Notice I took the type size down to 10.19
point.
| | 06:00 |
I don't want that, so I'm going to return
it to 10.5 points, like that.
| | 06:05 |
And now, I think everything's going to
work out pretty well.
| | 06:08 |
I want to make sure that the top of the
guys here are aligned to the top of the
| | 06:12 |
title, which they are.
So, I'll just go ahead and shift drag
| | 06:16 |
them over until the zero left lines to
that asterisk that little definition of
| | 06:21 |
what's going on below.
And we end up with this effect here.
| | 06:26 |
Now just one more change, I'm going to go
ahead and zoom in on the lower right
| | 06:29 |
corner of the document, and press the A
key to switch to the White Arrow tool.
| | 06:34 |
I want this guy right there, the end of
the value axis to align with the end of
| | 06:37 |
this guy right there.
So I'll press Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y on the
| | 06:42 |
Mac, in order to switch to the Preview
mode.
| | 06:44 |
This is the line I'm trying to align to,
as it's essentially a clipping mask
| | 06:47 |
that's built into the graph.
So, I'll go ahead and drag this guy over
| | 06:51 |
until he snaps into alignment.
And you know what would help, if I had
| | 06:55 |
Smart Guide turned on, so I'll undo that.
Press Ctrl+U, or Cmd+U on a Mac, because
| | 06:59 |
I had turned them off.
And I'll go ahead and drag that guy over
| | 07:02 |
until he snaps into alignment like so.
And then I'll double-click on the Wide
| | 07:07 |
Arrow tool to bring up the move dialog
box, change the horizontal value to zero
| | 07:10 |
and just change the vertical value from
negative to positive like so.
| | 07:15 |
And that'll go ahead and move that guy
down where he belongs and click OK.
| | 07:19 |
All right, now I'll press Ctrl+0, Cmd+0 on
a Mac, Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a Mac, press
| | 07:23 |
the V key to switch to the Move tool,
click off the graph in order to deselect
| | 07:27 |
it, and that is the final version of the
graph.
| | 07:32 |
Thanks to all that legwork that we did in
advance, we were able to recreate this
| | 07:36 |
entire graph, as painful as that sounded,
in a matter of minutes, here inside Illustrator.
| | 07:44 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
40. 3D EffectsThe five advantages to 3D in Illustrator| 00:00 |
In this final chapter, I'll introduce you
to the world of 3D inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:05 |
Now you may be aware that Illustrator's
sister program, specifically Photoshop
| | 00:09 |
Extended, offers a wide array of 3D
features as well.
| | 00:13 |
So it's important to know which program
to use when.
| | 00:17 |
Which is why I offer this helpful
analogy.
| | 00:20 |
If you think of 3D in Photoshop as being
as big as the sun, then 3D in Illustrator
| | 00:25 |
is approximately the size of a small
rock.
| | 00:29 |
It's just a dinky feature set by
comparison.
| | 00:33 |
In Photoshop you can construct entire 3D
scenes, you can have objects interact
| | 00:37 |
with each other, you can cast shadows all
over the place, you can ray trace, and
| | 00:41 |
you can achieve photorealistic results.
In Illustrator, each object is
| | 00:47 |
independent, they can't interact with
each other, they cannot cast shadows, and
| | 00:51 |
you get, by comparison, synthetic
results.
| | 00:54 |
And yet, I would tell you that
Illustrator's 3D features offer five
| | 00:59 |
important advantages.
One, it's a dynamic effect, and you can
| | 01:03 |
quickly change your mind any time you
like.
| | 01:06 |
Two, it does a bang-up job of creating 3D
symbols, particularly those with beveled edges.
| | 01:13 |
Three, you can create 3D type in no time
at all.
| | 01:17 |
Four, you can create 3D revolutions, so
you can take a half a circle, for
| | 01:22 |
example, and revolve it around an axis to
create a sphere.
| | 01:28 |
And then 5, you can map art onto your 3D
objects.
| | 01:32 |
Not surprisingly I cover every single one
of these awesome advantages in the
| | 01:38 |
following movies.
| | 01:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing the three kinds of 3D in Illustrator| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll introduce you to the
three varieties of 3D inside of
| | 00:04 |
Illustrator, which include 3D Rotate, 3D
Extrude and Bevel, and 3D Revolve.
| | 00:10 |
I'll start things off by selecting this
bow and knot pattern here, which is a
| | 00:14 |
single compound path, and then I'll go up
to the Effect menu, choose 3D, and we'll
| | 00:17 |
start things off with the simplest of the
effects, which is Rotate.
| | 00:23 |
What this command allows you to do is
rotate a 2D object in 3D space.
| | 00:28 |
I'll go ahead and turn on the Preview
check box, so you can see what I'm
| | 00:31 |
talking about here.
And also drag the bottom of this box here
| | 00:35 |
upward, so that you can see that as you
drag one of the edges of the cube, you'll
| | 00:39 |
see a wire frame preview there inside the
Document window.
| | 00:46 |
Now, I want you to notice a couple of
things that are going on here.
| | 00:49 |
First of all, this is a dynamic effect,
which is why the path outline remains in
| | 00:52 |
its original position and just the
appearance of the artwork changes.
| | 00:57 |
Also notice that we have what's known as
an isometric projection.
| | 01:01 |
That is, there's no perspective in the
scene.
| | 01:04 |
So the parallel lines inside the original
paths remain parallel inside the 3D projection.
| | 01:11 |
If you want to add perspective then you
go over to this option, right there,
| | 01:14 |
click on the right pointing arrow head
and crank up that perspective value, like so.
| | 01:19 |
And you'l see that we now have some
perspective in the scene.
| | 01:23 |
Obviously to apply the effect you just go
ahead and click OK.
| | 01:26 |
And that wire frame will disappear in the
background as well.
| | 01:30 |
Now I want you to note that this is not a
true 3D effect.
| | 01:33 |
We are rotating the artwork in 3D space
but it remains 2D artwork, as you can see here.
| | 01:39 |
And that's because it has no depth.
If you want to achieve a similar effect,
| | 01:43 |
but you also want to add some depth, then
you want to choose 3D Extrude and Bevel.
| | 01:49 |
So, I'll start things off here by
switching over to the Appearance panel,
| | 01:52 |
and I'm going to turn off 3D Rotate.
So that we can apply a new effect.
| | 01:56 |
And then I'll go up to the Effect menu,
choose 3D, and choose the first command,
| | 02:00 |
Extrude and Bevel.
If Illustrator asks you if you really
| | 02:04 |
want to apply another instance of the 3D
effect, go ahead and click on the Apply
| | 02:07 |
New Effect button.
And then, let's go ahead and lift this
| | 02:11 |
edge upward again so we're achieving a
similar effect.
| | 02:15 |
I'll crank up the perspective value as
well, and now when you turn on the
| | 02:19 |
Preview check box, you can see that
you've got those extruded sides
| | 02:22 |
projecting into the third dimension.
Now I'll go ahead and click OK in order
| | 02:28 |
to accept that effect.
Now, for 3D Revolve.
| | 02:31 |
I'll go and switch back to my Layers
panel, here, twirl open the only layer
| | 02:34 |
inside the illustration, and turn off
that Compound Path in the background.
| | 02:39 |
Then turn on this group right here, and
click on it to select it with the Black
| | 02:42 |
Arrow tool.
So what I've done here is I've drawn half
| | 02:46 |
a circle, crossed it with a bunch of
rectangles, and then the used the Divide
| | 02:50 |
operation inside the Path Finder panel to
break things apart.
| | 02:55 |
So this is not a clipping group by the
way, these are static shapes.
| | 03:00 |
You can apply a 3D command to a clipping
group.
| | 03:02 |
But if you do that it's pretty punishing.
It requires a lot of computation, and it
| | 03:06 |
takes forever.
So you're better off working with static
| | 03:09 |
path outlines.
Now, what 3D Rotate does is it creates a
| | 03:13 |
3D object by rotating whatever you select
around an axis.
| | 03:18 |
So what we're going to do is take this
half circle and turn it into a sphere.
| | 03:22 |
So, if you're working along with me
select that shape, go up to the Effect
| | 03:25 |
menu, choose 3D, and then choose Revolve.
And turn on the Preview checkbox in order
| | 03:32 |
to revolve the shape around so we get the
striped sphere.
| | 03:36 |
And then I'm going to drag this top edge
of the cube downward, and you can see
| | 03:39 |
that we get this wire frame preview of
this kind of globe that we're creating.
| | 03:45 |
Right about here is going to look pretty
good.
| | 03:47 |
I'll go ahead and release, and we end up
with this really good looking effect.
| | 03:52 |
Now I'll go ahead and click OK in order
to accept that change.
| | 03:56 |
And obviously, because all these effects
are dynamic, you can make any
| | 03:59 |
modifications you like, and Illustrator
will update the effect on the fly.
| | 04:04 |
So let's say I press Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y on
a Mac, to switch to the Outline mode.
| | 04:09 |
And I'll go ahead and press the A key to
switch to the White Arrow tool.
| | 04:12 |
And I'll Alt-click or Option-click on
this top sliver, which is one of the
| | 04:15 |
black shapes.
And then, I'll go over here to the far
| | 04:18 |
right side of the control panel, and make
sure that All is selected from the Select
| | 04:22 |
Similar Objects list, and then I'll click
on its icon, in order to select all those
| | 04:26 |
black lines.
Now let's press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a Mac.
| | 04:32 |
Switch back to the Preview mode and I'll
change the fill from black over here on
| | 04:35 |
the left side of the control panel, to
this dark red right there.
| | 04:40 |
And I end up with this effect and in this
case it's lickity-split.
| | 04:45 |
So there you have it, the three varieties
of 3D inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:50 |
You've got 3D Revolve.
You've got 3D Rotate to spin a 2D object
| | 04:54 |
in 3D space.
If you want to give it edges you've got
| | 04:58 |
3D Extrude and Bevel.
And if you want to create symmetrical
| | 05:02 |
forms like a sphere, then you have 3D
Revolve.
| | 05:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working in 3D space: Pitch, yaw, and roll| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
rotate an object in 3D space, so you
| | 00:03 |
really know what's going on.
I'm going to start off by switching over
| | 00:07 |
to the Layers panel, I'll twirl open the
layer, then I'll turn off that sphere and
| | 00:11 |
turn on that compound path there.
And then I'll go ahead and generally
| | 00:15 |
marquee it with the Black Arrow tool,
because I don't know really where it is
| | 00:18 |
inside of the document.
And now let's go ahead and modify the 3D
| | 00:22 |
settings inside the Appearance panel.
But before you click on the effect, you
| | 00:26 |
may want to press Ctrl+H, or Cmd+H on a
Mac, to hide the selection edges, so you
| | 00:29 |
can better see what you're doing.
Then click 3D Extrude and Bevel, in order
| | 00:35 |
to bring up the dialog box, and turn on
the Preview checkbox, which always comes
| | 00:39 |
up off by default, by the way.
In order to save Illustrator some
| | 00:44 |
processing time.
And notice these three values right here.
| | 00:48 |
They're generally known as the X, Y, and
Z values.
| | 00:51 |
That's actually misleading.
Notice what happens when I drag this
| | 00:55 |
little line that's associated with the
so-called X value, and if I go ahead and
| | 00:59 |
release there, you can see, that rather
than apply an X axis rotation.
| | 01:05 |
I'm rotating the object around the
x-axis, which means that I'm rotating the
| | 01:09 |
object up and down which is a y rotation,
as well as forward and backward which is
| | 01:13 |
a z rotation, which is why I prefer to
think of these values in terms of
| | 01:16 |
airplane terms.
So for example this x value which is
| | 01:23 |
related to all the red edges incidently.
If I drag one of the red edges, then I'm
| | 01:29 |
modifying what's known as the pitch.
That is in this case I'm raising the nose
| | 01:34 |
of the plane upward, and I'm sending the
tail down, or if I drag forward I'm
| | 01:37 |
sending the nose down and the tail up.
This z value right here, corresponds with
| | 01:44 |
the blue edges.
And this is what's known in the flight
| | 01:47 |
world as roll.
So if I drag down, for example, I'm
| | 01:50 |
rolling the object down into the left or
I could lift up here in order to rotate
| | 01:54 |
it down and to the right like so.
So, I'm rolling the object back and forth
| | 02:01 |
with respect to the center of the object
going forward.
| | 02:06 |
And then finally, this middle value here,
the so called y value.
| | 02:11 |
Is related to the green edges and it's
what's known as the yaw.
| | 02:15 |
So I'm spinning the object around the
y-axis.
| | 02:18 |
And in this case, we'd be theoretically
turning to the left or if I were to drag
| | 02:22 |
it this way.
We'd be turning to the right.
| | 02:26 |
Once again if this were an airplane, as
oppose to a symbol.
| | 02:30 |
Now, you can also enter numerical values
if you want to, and I came up with these.
| | 02:34 |
I'm going to change the pitch value to 5
degrees, and then I'll take the yaw value
| | 02:38 |
down to negative 25 degrees, and finally
I'll change the roll value to 10 degrees
| | 02:41 |
in order to create this effect here.
And I'm also going to take the
| | 02:47 |
perspective value up to 140 degrees.
Now we'll click OK, in order to apply the
| | 02:52 |
modified effect.
And for some reason Illustrator has seen
| | 02:56 |
fit to leave the wire frame up on screen.
So I'll just press Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y on a
| | 03:00 |
Mac, a couple of times to make it go
away.
| | 03:03 |
Now notice a couple of somewhat negative
things that have happened to this symbol.
| | 03:08 |
First of all it shifted from being
exactly centered on the art board, to
| | 03:11 |
leaning over here to the left.
And when that happens as it inevitably
| | 03:16 |
does, you're going to want to move the
object to a different location.
| | 03:19 |
But rather than physically moving it, I
recommend, that you apply a dynamic effect.
| | 03:25 |
By going up to the Effect menu, choosing
Distort and Transform, and then choosing
| | 03:28 |
the Transform command.
Or if you load a D key, so if you've got
| | 03:31 |
a Ctrl+E, or Cmd+E on the Mac.
And the values that seem to work here are
| | 03:36 |
a horizontal move value of 30 points.
And a vertical move value of negative 24 points.
| | 03:42 |
And we end up achieving this effect right
there.
| | 03:44 |
And the reason I recommend that you work
dynamically, instead of actually moving
| | 03:47 |
the object to a different location.
As this makes it a little easier to find.
| | 03:53 |
Because after all that object, the real
path outline, is centered, inside the art board.
| | 03:59 |
Also later on down the line, if you make
changes to your 3D settings you can
| | 04:02 |
compensate for those changes here inside
the Transform Effect dialog box.
| | 04:08 |
Now I'll click OK.
Now, the other thing that you'll notice
| | 04:11 |
as you work with 3D inside Illustrator,
is that objects cannot interact with each other.
| | 04:17 |
So one 3D object has no notion that
another one exists.
| | 04:21 |
So you can't really set up scenes, or
cast shadows, or any of that stuff.
| | 04:25 |
The nearest thing that you can do if you
want this object to cast a shadow in the
| | 04:29 |
art board is to apply a drop shadow
effect, by going up to the Effect menu,
| | 04:32 |
choosing Stylize and then choosing Drop
Shadow.
| | 04:37 |
And these are the values I came up with.
mode multiply.
| | 04:40 |
Opacity 75%.
X offset negative 7.
| | 04:43 |
Y offset 4 points, and then a blur of 3
points.
| | 04:47 |
Of course you can totally go your own
way.
| | 04:49 |
The color is black, I'll turn on the
Preview check box, and you can see we end
| | 04:52 |
up with this effect here.
And now I'll click OK, in order to accept
| | 04:56 |
that change.
So there you have it.
| | 05:00 |
That's how you rotate an object in 3D
space inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:04 |
So far, our effect looks a little bland.
But I assure you, in the following
| | 05:08 |
movies, we're going to light things up to
create this effect here.
| | 05:12 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Lighting and shading a 3D object| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to light
a 3D object.
| | 00:03 |
To achieve an effect more like this one
here.
| | 00:05 |
I'll go ahead and switch to the document
in progress here.
| | 00:08 |
And marque the object to select it.
It is selected now, it's just that I
| | 00:11 |
pressed Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on Mac to hide
the selection edges.
| | 00:15 |
But I'll do it again just so you can see,
sure enough there they are.
| | 00:18 |
Anyway, I am going to hide them again, by
pressing Crtl or Cmd+H.
| | 00:21 |
Then I'll click on 3D Extrude and Bevel,
here inside the Appearance panel, in
| | 00:25 |
order to bring up the dialog box.
You want to be able to see what you're
| | 00:29 |
doing, you'll have to turn on the preview
check box.
| | 00:31 |
And now, in order to access the lighting
options, I'll click on the More Options
| | 00:35 |
button in order to open up an otherwise
missing half of the dialog box.
| | 00:41 |
Now notice this little sphere, it
represents the object, and then this dot
| | 00:44 |
here represents a light source.
So I'm going to move this guy down a
| | 00:48 |
little bit, and then I'm going to create
a new light, by clicking on the page, and
| | 00:51 |
I'll take this guy, more or less, to this
position here, let's say.
| | 00:57 |
Now I want to add a third light so I'll
click on the page icon once again.
| | 01:00 |
Put this guy right about there, and now I
want to send that light to the back of
| | 01:04 |
the object.
And you do that by clicking on this left
| | 01:07 |
hand icon.
And that'll add a little bit of highlight
| | 01:11 |
to these lower extruded edges.
Now notice the first value is Light
| | 01:14 |
Intensity, and that's cranked up to as
high as it goes to 100%.
| | 01:18 |
But obviously I could take it down.
If I want to reduce the intensity of
| | 01:21 |
light, I could take it down to something
like 50%.
| | 01:24 |
What I want you to notice about this is
this is the one option that effects each
| | 01:28 |
light source independently.
So notice these two are still set to
| | 01:32 |
100%, while this guy's down at 50%.
I'm going to take him back up to 100, however.
| | 01:37 |
Ambient light is the amount of general
light in a room.
| | 01:42 |
So, think of sunlight for example.
We don't want any ambient light in this scene.
| | 01:47 |
And so if you crank up the Ambient Light
value, you're going to end up with a much
| | 01:50 |
flatter effect as you see here.
If you want more depth and detail, you
| | 01:54 |
want to take that value down.
So that most of your light is being
| | 01:58 |
conveyed by the actual light sources.
And in my case, I'm going to take that
| | 02:02 |
guy all the way down to zero.
Next you have Highlight Intensity, which
| | 02:06 |
is how intense the highlights are, if you
don't want very intense highlights you
| | 02:10 |
can take this value down.
If you want to ratchet things up a bit,
| | 02:14 |
you can take that value up all the way to
100%, it's not really affecting this
| | 02:18 |
artwork all that much.
Although, it will in the next movie.
| | 02:22 |
And it, now I'm going to take the
Highlight Size value all the way up to
| | 02:25 |
100% as well, in order to spread those
highlights just a little bit.
| | 02:31 |
Now this final option controls banding.
And so, what Illustrator's actually doing
| | 02:35 |
is creating these blending gradient steps
right here.
| | 02:39 |
And you can really see them if I were to
take this value down to, say, five.
| | 02:43 |
You can see that stair-stepping like
crazy.
| | 02:45 |
And what you want to do, is you want to
take this value up.
| | 02:48 |
I'm going to press Shift-Up Arrow, a few
times here, until the banding goes away.
| | 02:53 |
So you want that value to be as low as it
possibly can be, because after all,
| | 02:55 |
otherwise you're going to slow things
down pretty significantly.
| | 03:00 |
But you don't want to see any
stair-stepping either.
| | 03:02 |
Most likely you want that Shading Color
to be set to Black but you can choose a
| | 03:06 |
custom color as well if you like.
And then click on that color swatch to
| | 03:10 |
modify it.
I'm going to go ahead and cancel out of
| | 03:13 |
there and switch this guy back to black.
Finally I want you to notice that there
| | 03:17 |
are different surface settings.
So, you can choose Wire Frame if you want to.
| | 03:22 |
Which is going to get rid of all those
lighting options, by the way, and you're
| | 03:24 |
just going to create a wire frame object
right here in the background.
| | 03:28 |
Or you can choose no shading.
I don't know of too many situations where
| | 03:32 |
you'd want that, because you're just
going to get this flat object.
| | 03:36 |
You have diffused shading, which is a
simpler form of shading that doesn't
| | 03:40 |
include any highlights.
So you get shadows inside of the object,
| | 03:44 |
but you don't get any colors that are
lighter than the original color that's
| | 03:48 |
assigned to the fill, or stroke, or what
have you.
| | 03:52 |
If you want everything, if you want both
shadows and highlights, then you want to
| | 03:55 |
go with plastic shading as we have here.
And then when you're done you can go
| | 04:01 |
ahead and click on the OK button in order
to accept your changes, and that's how
| | 04:05 |
you affect the lighting and shading
settings when creating 3D objects, here
| | 04:09 |
inside Illustrator.
| | 04:13 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Beveling the edges of a 3D extrusion| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to bevel the
edges of our 3D extrusion.
| | 00:04 |
In order covert it to a somewhat stayed
version of the artwork, to this more
| | 00:07 |
dramatic composition here.
I'll go ahead and switch back to my
| | 00:11 |
artwork in prgoress.
And I'll generally marque the object like
| | 00:14 |
so, again, my edges are hidden, which I
accomplished by pressing Ctrl+H or Cmd+H
| | 00:19 |
on the Mac.
Now, click on 3D Extrude & Bevel, there
| | 00:23 |
inside the Appearance panel, and I'll
turn on the Preview check box so I can
| | 00:26 |
see what I'm doing.
And I want you to note this section right
| | 00:30 |
here, Extrude and Bevel.
It starts with the extrusion depth.
| | 00:35 |
So, if I take that value up to 100
points, for example, then I increase the
| | 00:38 |
depth of the extruded sides.
And you can go pretty nuts with this
| | 00:43 |
value, it goes very high indeed.
We obviously don't want it to be that
| | 00:47 |
high, so I'll go ahead and take it down
to, let's say, for the sake of
| | 00:50 |
demonstration, 200 points.
And then I want you to see what's going
| | 00:54 |
on with Bevel.
If I go ahead from None to Classic for
| | 00:57 |
example, you can see, just barely, the
shape of that Bevel.
| | 01:02 |
So, it just has an angled edge, flat top,
and another angled edge coming down.
| | 01:06 |
I'll go ahead and apply Classic, and
notice it's bending inwards, as we can
| | 01:10 |
see there.
These contours become increasingly
| | 01:14 |
complex, all the way up to Jaggy, for
example, which gives us a bunch of
| | 01:17 |
reticulated edges.
Like those associated with an accordion.
| | 01:22 |
I'm going to switch over to complex one.
Because even though I'm not really a fan
| | 01:26 |
of this contour, it helps demonstrate
what's going on.
| | 01:29 |
And I'll also increase the height value
to 10, let's say.
| | 01:34 |
And as opposed to having the beveled
edges go inward, which is almost never
| | 01:38 |
what you want, send the beveled edges
outward instead in order to produce this
| | 01:42 |
effect here.
And that way, the original symbol is not
| | 01:47 |
being sort of trodden on.
Now, notice these edges down here.
| | 01:52 |
This is the beveled edge, and notice that
it moves around as you change the
| | 01:56 |
extrusion depth.
So, if I wanted to reduce the depth of
| | 02:01 |
these sides, then I take the extrude
depth value down.
| | 02:05 |
And that would go ahead and step down
what I think of as the height of the
| | 02:09 |
bevel effect, how far it comes out at us.
This height value right here controls
| | 02:14 |
something altogether different.
This height value right here really
| | 02:18 |
controls the width of the bevel.
So, if I set it to 20 points for example,
| | 02:22 |
you can see that that makes the beveled
edges wider.
| | 02:26 |
The reason it's called height is because
it's oriented along the y-axis.
| | 02:31 |
But thinking of it as width value to me
makes more sense.
| | 02:35 |
Notice also this cap option.
If you want to get rid of the interior of
| | 02:39 |
your 3D object, you can turn the cap off
by clicking on the second icon right there.
| | 02:44 |
And then, you'll just see through those
extruded edges.
| | 02:47 |
In other words, the extrusion is now all
we have.
| | 02:50 |
Generally speaking, you're going to want
to leave that cam turned on but that is
| | 02:53 |
an option.
And now I'm going to switch the bevel to
| | 02:56 |
classic, for this specific effect here.
I'm going to take the height value down
| | 03:01 |
to 10 points, and I'm also going to take
the extrusion depth down to 50 points
| | 03:04 |
like so.
Now, we need to adjust the lighting a
| | 03:08 |
little bit.
I'm going to take the highlight science
| | 03:11 |
value to its default, which is 90%.
And I'm also going to drag this guy
| | 03:15 |
farther out.
And I'm going to drag this one farther
| | 03:18 |
outward as well.
And then, I'm going to grab this guy and
| | 03:21 |
drag him down just a little bit, and move
him to the front by clicking on this
| | 03:24 |
left-hand icon.
So that we get some more dramatic highlights.
| | 03:30 |
I might take this guy up a little bit.
I'm looking for some really start
| | 03:33 |
highlights up there in the top left for
example, and along some of the interior
| | 03:37 |
edges as well.
And now, you can see what a big
| | 03:40 |
difference there is between plastic
shading and diffuse shading.
| | 03:44 |
If I went with diffuse, I won't have any
of those highlights as you can see here
| | 03:48 |
and of course no shading would.
Give us no shading as well as no highlights.
| | 03:54 |
Anyway, that's why I'm going to stick
with plastic shading in order to create
| | 03:57 |
this final version of the effect.
And I'm also going to take this forward
| | 04:02 |
light here and reduce it's intensity to
50%, like so.
| | 04:06 |
So that we can retain some dramatic
shadows.
| | 04:08 |
And then, I'll click OK in order to
accept my changes.
| | 04:13 |
And that's how you apple a beveled
contour to a 3D object, as well as
| | 04:17 |
control the size and shape of that bevel,
here inside Illustrator.
| | 04:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating live, editable 3D type| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll switch from 3D
symbols to one of the most obvious
| | 00:03 |
reasons for 3D inside of Illustrator,
which is 3D extruded type.
| | 00:09 |
I also want you to see how the extrusion
is a different color than the interior of
| | 00:12 |
the letters, and that's a function of
working with strokes.
| | 00:17 |
So I'll go ahead and switch over to the
starter document here and click on this
| | 00:20 |
live editable text to select it.
And then I'll go up to the Effect menu,
| | 00:25 |
choose 3D, and choose Extrude and Bevel.
And I'm just going to enter a few values
| | 00:30 |
that I've come up within advance, which
are 20 degrees for the Pitch value, the
| | 00:33 |
first one.
And then zero each for the Yaw and Roll values.
| | 00:37 |
I'm going to take the Perspective up to
100 degrees, and take the Extrude Depth
| | 00:41 |
value down to 40 points.
We now want a bevel for the text, but we
| | 00:45 |
do want to adjust some lighting settings
here.
| | 00:47 |
I'm going to take the Ambient Light value
down to zero, leave the Highlight
| | 00:52 |
Intensity at 60%, and a Highlight Size of
90% and blend steps of 25 are fine as well.
| | 00:58 |
So everything is set to its default
besides Ambient Light.
| | 01:01 |
And now I'll go ahead and drag this guy
up to the top.
| | 01:05 |
That is the light source.
And I'll create another light source
| | 01:08 |
right about there, that I'm going to take
down and to the left as you can see.
| | 01:12 |
And then I'm going to send it in back of
the object.
| | 01:15 |
And now I'll turn on the Preview check
box so you can see that effect.
| | 01:19 |
And notice that I've actually lost some
edges.
| | 01:22 |
And this can happen to you inside of
Illustrator.
| | 01:26 |
And usually, the best solution is to just
adjust one of these values ever so slightly.
| | 01:32 |
So, for example, I'll click inside this Y
Yaw value and I'll go ahead and press the
| | 01:36 |
up arrow key in order to increase it to
one degree and that goes ahead and brings
| | 01:40 |
the e closer to us and sends the s
farther away, but not to any degree that
| | 01:44 |
I think's going to be obvious.
And it brings back our beveled edges,
| | 01:50 |
which we dearly need, of course.
Now I'll go ahead and click OK in order
| | 01:55 |
to apply that effect.
Now I'm going to switch over to the
| | 01:58 |
Appearance panel, and notice in addition
to the yellow fill, we have some strokes.
| | 02:02 |
And I'm going to turn each one of them
on.
| | 02:04 |
There's this four point white stroke, and
then we've got a 12 point sort of pinkish
| | 02:08 |
stroke, and a 16 point darker red stroke.
And you can see that the strokes wrap the
| | 02:14 |
letters and as a result we have a
differently colored extrusion along with
| | 02:18 |
the stroked yellow letters.
Now I want to give the letters a little
| | 02:23 |
bit of a bend, so I'll go up to the
Effect menu, choose Warp, and then choose Arch.
| | 02:29 |
And I'm looking for a bend value of 10%
and that's it, just a horizontal bend.
| | 02:34 |
Both of the Distortion values should be
zero.
| | 02:36 |
And now I'll go ahead and click OK.
Apparently I've made quite the mistake here.
| | 02:41 |
I went ahead and applied the warp to the
stroke, as opposed to the overall object.
| | 02:45 |
Which is no problem, actually, cuzI can
just go ahead and grab that Warp Arch
| | 02:49 |
effect and drag it down to below 3D
Extrude and Bevel, so that you're
| | 02:52 |
applying the 3D extrusion first, and then
applying the warp to it.
| | 02:59 |
All right, now I'm going to zoom in on my
artwork a little bit.
| | 03:02 |
And notice that little bit of pink edge
along the hyphen.
| | 03:05 |
And I also have this weird little bit of
extrusion that's showing up right there
| | 03:09 |
in the lower right corner.
And that kind of stuff can happen when a
| | 03:14 |
stroke gets a little bit too thin.
And so notice if I were to take the
| | 03:18 |
stroke down to let's say 15 points, for
example.
| | 03:23 |
It originally started at 16.
Then we're going to end up fixing the
| | 03:26 |
lower right corner right there.
That doesn't take care of this area.
| | 03:30 |
But it also introduces some new problem.
Notice that we have a little bit of an
| | 03:34 |
issue down left on the p here.
And then we've got a revealed edge on the e.
| | 03:39 |
And if I were to change Adjoin by
clicking on the word Stroke there, and
| | 03:42 |
let's say I make it a bevel joint.
Then I'm really going to do a number on this.
| | 03:47 |
I'm going to actually cut the stroke of
this location.
| | 03:49 |
So, the reason I'm making it big deal
about this is because it happens a lot.
| | 03:53 |
You see this kind of stuff all the time
inside of Illustrator and it is the
| | 03:57 |
result of one stroke with the fill or
what have you poking through another one.
| | 04:03 |
So I'll go ahead and switch the corner
back to a round joint.
| | 04:05 |
And I'll take the weight value up to 17
points, which is one higher than when we started.
| | 04:11 |
Notice that goes in and takes care of the
problem where the e is concerned, as well
| | 04:13 |
as the p.
Let's go back to the hyphen here and that
| | 04:16 |
problem is corrected as well.
And that friends, is at least one way to
| | 04:21 |
create live, editable 3D type, complete
with custom colored extruded sides, here
| | 04:26 |
inside Illustrator.
| | 04:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding cast shadows to 3D type| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show how to take a 3-D
object and give it a reasonably credible
| | 00:04 |
cast shadow that does not employ the Drop
Shadow effect and let me show you why.
| | 00:10 |
I'll go ahead and switch back to my
document in progress here and I'll click
| | 00:13 |
on the text to select it.
And so you might figure to create the
| | 00:17 |
shadow you go up to the Effect menu,
choose Stylize and choose Drop Shadow.
| | 00:22 |
And then, dial in whatever settings
you're looking for.
| | 00:24 |
In my case, I crank to opacity value up
to 100%, the color is black, the mode is
| | 00:28 |
multiply, the X-offset value is zero
points, the Y-offset value is 14 points,
| | 00:32 |
and the blur is eight points.
And now I'll turn in a preview checkbox
| | 00:37 |
to create that shadow.
So you might ask well what's wrong with that?
| | 00:41 |
It looks halfway decent.
Well the light, bear in mind, is being
| | 00:44 |
shined onto the type, really actually
from about here down.
| | 00:49 |
And what that would mean is that the
shadow gets smaller behind the letters.
| | 00:54 |
It actually recedes away from the S and
the E as opposed to being just sort of
| | 00:58 |
moved down 14 points which is what we
have right now.
| | 01:03 |
So, it's the kind of thing that might
look good to you on first viewing but
| | 01:06 |
over time it's just going to look wrong.
So here's what I recommend you do instead.
| | 01:12 |
Let's go ahead and turn off the eyeball
for the drop shadow effect, because
| | 01:15 |
obviously we don't want it.
And I'm going to create a copy of this
| | 01:19 |
3-D type by pressing Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on
the Mac.
| | 01:24 |
And now what we want to do is get rid of
some of this stuff because what we've got
| | 01:27 |
here is going to turn into the shadow.
And so I'll go ahead and grab 3-D Extrude
| | 01:32 |
and Bevel and I'll drag it to the trash.
We'll keep the warp but we don't need all
| | 01:37 |
of these strokes, so I'll go ahead and
get rid of the 17 point stroke as well as
| | 01:40 |
the four point stroke and I'm just
going to drag the drop shadow to the
| | 01:43 |
trash as well.
And now let's go ahead and change the
| | 01:48 |
fill color to black.
Just a weak black is fine.
| | 01:51 |
And we'll change the stroke color to
black as well.
| | 01:54 |
And the whole reason the stroke is there,
by the way, is to make the shadow bulkier.
| | 01:58 |
And let's change the blend mode, assigned
to the entire object, by clicking on the
| | 02:01 |
word Opacity down at the bottom here.
And changing the mode to multiply, and
| | 02:05 |
that will give us a nice, hefty dark
shadow.
| | 02:08 |
Problem, of course, is that it's not
currently soft, it's sharp.
| | 02:11 |
So you want to go up to the Effect menu,
choose Blur, and choose Gaussian Blur.
| | 02:16 |
And we'll take that radius value up to
the same value we use for blur inside the
| | 02:20 |
drop shadow, which is eight pixels, and
I'll go ahead and click OK in order to
| | 02:24 |
apply that effect.
Now press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on a Mac, in
| | 02:30 |
order to paste back in the 3-D type
there.
| | 02:35 |
And it may take a moment because there's
a lot going on.
| | 02:37 |
And you can see that, for all intents and
purposes it's completely covering up its
| | 02:40 |
shadow, which is why I want you to switch
back to the layers panel.
| | 02:45 |
Twirl open this 3-D object layer, and go
ahead and meatball the rearmost of the
| | 02:49 |
two text layers.
And this is still live editable text, by
| | 02:53 |
the way.
And now, you want to go up to the Effect
| | 02:56 |
menu, choose Distort and Transform, and
choose the Transform command, or, if you
| | 03:00 |
loaded D keys press Ctrl+E or Cmd+E on
the Mac.
| | 03:04 |
And I'm going to go ahead and knock the
shadow down 20 points this time around,
| | 03:07 |
and I'll turn on the preview checkbox,
and you can see it's no better than it
| | 03:10 |
was before.
We still have the shadow drifting away
| | 03:14 |
from the E and the S in unnatural
directions, which is why you need to take
| | 03:18 |
the horizontal value right there, and
reduce it to 90% in order to produce this
| | 03:22 |
effect here.
You don't have to go with exactly with
| | 03:27 |
90, of course, I might decide it wants to
be a little bigger than that, how about 92?
| | 03:32 |
And then, I'll click OK in order to
finish off that effect.
| | 03:36 |
And I'll press Ctrl+Shift+A, or
Cmd+Shift+A as well, in order to deselect
| | 03:39 |
the text.
And so the thing to keep in mind is when
| | 03:42 |
you're working with 3-D objects inside
Illustrator, you're not going to be able
| | 03:45 |
to get the various objects to interact
with each other.
| | 03:48 |
So you're going to have to fake the
shadows.
| | 03:50 |
And oftentimes, you're better off
foregoing the Drop Shadow effect and
| | 03:54 |
creating a custom Gaussian Blur Shadow
instead.
| | 03:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assigning and editing a 3D Revolve effect| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll explore a few more
things you might want to know about the
| | 00:03 |
3D Revolve Effect.
And over the course of this movie and the
| | 00:07 |
next one, we'll convert these two circles
and this three, into this 3D three ball.
| | 00:12 |
Go ahead and switch over to the starter
graphic here, and I'm going to turn off
| | 00:15 |
these two objects here inside the Layers
panel, so that just the red circle is
| | 00:19 |
available to me.
And then I'll press the A key to switch
| | 00:23 |
to the white arrow tool, and I'll go
ahead and marquee this right hand point
| | 00:26 |
here, and I'll press the Backspace key,
or the Delete key on the Mac, to get rid
| | 00:29 |
of it.
Now what you want to do is zoom out a
| | 00:33 |
click, just to give yourself a little
more room here.
| | 00:36 |
And then go up to the Effect menu, choose
3D, and choose Revolve.
| | 00:40 |
And if you start things off by turning on
thePpreview checkbox, you'll see that
| | 00:44 |
things are revolving in a wrong
direction.
| | 00:46 |
In other words, Illustrator is revolving
around this left-hand edge, and thereby
| | 00:51 |
creating a cylinder.
And so what you want to do is change the
| | 00:55 |
Offset option here, from Left Edge to
Right Edge.
| | 00:59 |
And you'll end up getting the effect
you're looking for.
| | 01:02 |
Also notice that you have this Offset
option right here, this value, and you
| | 01:05 |
can increase that value in order to
create a hole in the center of this
| | 01:09 |
circle, like so.
And you can take that value up pretty
| | 01:13 |
darn high, as you can see right here.
And so you can get these kind of doughnut
| | 01:17 |
effects, and so forth.
I'm going to crank it all the way down to
| | 01:20 |
its minimum, however, which is 0 points.
It doesn't go any lower than that.
| | 01:25 |
Also notice that we have this Angle
option.
| | 01:28 |
So, if you were to increase the angle to,
let's say, 270 degrees, and press the tab
| | 01:32 |
key, you can see that now you're only
revolving 270 degrees around the circle.
| | 01:39 |
Which means, if I go ahead and rotate
this guy around by grabbing a green edge
| | 01:43 |
and dragging it, we can now see into the
circle, like so.
| | 01:47 |
I'll go ahead and drag this guy up as
well so that we end up with a different
| | 01:51 |
view of things.
So if I had a Stroke combined with a
| | 01:55 |
Fill, then on the interior here I'd see
the Fill color and on the exterior of the
| | 01:58 |
circle, I would see the Stroke color.
Obviously, that's not even sort of what
| | 02:04 |
we want so, I'll go ahead and reset the
Angle value to 360 degrees.
| | 02:08 |
And now I'm going to modify the Light
settings a little bit here.
| | 02:11 |
I'm going to leave the Intensity value
set to 100%.
| | 02:14 |
I'll take the ambient line down to 15%,
and I'll change the Highlight Intensity
| | 02:19 |
to a 100 percent.
Take that Highlight size value down to
| | 02:24 |
66%, and we'll deal with the steps later.
But first of all, I'm going to go and
| | 02:28 |
click OK to establish the Space effect,
and then I'm going to zoom in so I can
| | 02:32 |
see my illustration a little more
closely.
| | 02:35 |
And I'll switch over to the Appearance
panel.
| | 02:37 |
And click 3D Revolve in order to bring
that dialog box back up onscreen and
| | 02:41 |
I'll turn on the Preview checkbox.
And now what I want to do to simulate
| | 02:45 |
pool hall lighting, is add some more
lights.
| | 02:48 |
So, I'm going to take this guy, and I'm
going to drag him up to the top and over
| | 02:52 |
to the left, just a little bit.
And then I'll add another light, and I'll
| | 02:57 |
go ahead and take it over to, right about
there, perhaps.
| | 03:01 |
And add another one and take it over to
this side and maybe a little more down
| | 03:04 |
and to the left as well.
And then, I'm going to create two more
| | 03:09 |
light sources, but these will be behind
the ball.
| | 03:12 |
So I'll go ahead and drag this guy up to
about here, and click on this Move To
| | 03:15 |
Back icon.
And then I'll create another one, upright
| | 03:19 |
this time around.
And I'll send it to the back of the stack
| | 03:22 |
as well, in order to produce an effect
that looks, you know, more or less like this.
| | 03:27 |
I might take my lights a little farther
apart from each other and play around
| | 03:30 |
with the positions a little bit more.
But the main thing that we're running
| | 03:35 |
into, if it's not implicitly obvious, is
a lot of banding.
| | 03:39 |
We just have banding like crazy
throughout this ball.
| | 03:42 |
And the only way to address that is to
take the Blend Steps all the way up to
| | 03:47 |
the absolute maximum, which is 256.
And we end up with this much more
| | 03:52 |
pleasing lighting effect that you see
here.
| | 03:56 |
I'm also going to take my Perspective
value, by the way, up to 100 degrees in
| | 03:59 |
order to push the size of the ball, and
that makes all the lighting drop down to
| | 04:02 |
the bottom.
So, in other words, the ball has to be
| | 04:07 |
upright in order for this lighting
configuration to work, and right now,
| | 04:10 |
it's kind of upside down on its head.
So let's modify a few settings.
| | 04:15 |
I'm going to take the X value to 110
degrees.
| | 04:19 |
I'm going to take the Y value to 90
degrees.
| | 04:23 |
And then let's go ahead and take the Z
value to 110 degrees as well, like so.
| | 04:29 |
And you might have seen things fall apart
kind of in the middle there, but it ends
| | 04:33 |
up stabilizing once we get the right
values in place.
| | 04:37 |
And again, as usual, I just figured out
these values by trial and error.
| | 04:43 |
All right, now I'll go ahead and click OK
in order to create that lit ball that you
| | 04:46 |
see here.
So, those are a few more insights into
| | 04:49 |
how you work with 3D Revolve inside
Illustrator.
| | 04:53 |
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
map this three onto the sphere.
| | 04:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Mapping artwork onto a 3D object| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to map
this artwork, that is this whitish circle
| | 00:04 |
and the black three, onto our red sphere.
When I switch to my image in progress,
| | 00:08 |
you can see the lighting is a little
different between the two.
| | 00:12 |
So you are going to get different effects
as you work with these filters.
| | 00:14 |
I'm going to switch back to the layers
panel and twirl open this ball layer.
| | 00:18 |
And I'll go ahead and turn on this path
as well as this three, which is a number
| | 00:22 |
that's been converted to a path outline.
Merely because I set it in Helvetica
| | 00:27 |
Rounded, and I wasn't sure if you'd have
access to that font.
| | 00:30 |
I'll go ahead and press the V key to
switch to the black arrow tool, and I'll
| | 00:34 |
click on this whitish circle, and notice
that its not white.
| | 00:38 |
The red, green, and blue values are all
204.
| | 00:41 |
And by darkening the color up ever so
slightly, and keeping it neutral as well,
| | 00:45 |
we give the 3D effect some room to create
highlights.
| | 00:49 |
I'll go ahead and select that light
circle and the three, and I'll press
| | 00:52 |
Ctrl+C, or Cmd+C on a Mac, in order to
copy them.
| | 00:55 |
And then I'll turn off the originals just
to protect them, and I'll press Ctrl+F,
| | 00:59 |
or Cmd+F on a Mac, in order to paste them
in front.
| | 01:03 |
And then, you want to go to the Window
menu, and choose Symbols to bring up the
| | 01:06 |
symbol panel.
Because anytime you map artwork onto a 3D
| | 01:10 |
object, that artwork has to be expressed
in the form of a symbol.
| | 01:14 |
Go ahead and click on the little page
icon, in order to bring up the symbol
| | 01:17 |
options dialog box.
And call this something like three ball,
| | 01:21 |
and click Okay.
Now you can go ahead and turn off that
| | 01:24 |
symbol, because we don't need to see it
on screen anymore.
| | 01:28 |
Hide the Symbols panel, and marquee the
left edge of this sphere, in order to
| | 01:32 |
select that half a circle.
Then switch over to the Appearance panel,
| | 01:37 |
and click on 3D Revolve, in order to
bring up the 3D Revolve Options dialog box.
| | 01:42 |
And now you want to click on this button
way down here at the bottom, Map Art.
| | 01:46 |
And that will bring up the Map Art dialog
box.
| | 01:49 |
Now different 3D objects contain
different numbers of surfaces.
| | 01:53 |
If this were a 3D extrusion, you might
see lots and lots of surfaces, because
| | 01:57 |
every extruded side amounts to a
different surface as well as the faces.
| | 02:02 |
But in a case of a sphere, we have just
one surface, which makes it easy to identify.
| | 02:08 |
But as you click through these here, to
advance from one surface to another, if
| | 02:12 |
there were more than one, then you can
tell which surface you're looking at, not
| | 02:15 |
so much by his grid here, but rather by
which part of the artwork turns red
| | 02:18 |
inside the Document window.
Once you've identified the surface you
| | 02:25 |
want to work with, go ahead and set the
symbol option to that symbol you just
| | 02:27 |
created, in our case three ball.
And turn on the Preview check box, and
| | 02:31 |
that'll allow you to preview the entire
effect, even though the Preview check box
| | 02:35 |
is off out in the larger 3D Revolve
options dialog box.
| | 02:41 |
Now you can see that the three comes in
totally centered.
| | 02:44 |
And we're in luck, because I had designed
these values up front, these 3D rotation
| | 02:48 |
values, so we had a fighting chance of
getting things right.
| | 02:52 |
But it's still not quite in the right
location, so you're going to have to drag
| | 02:55 |
it a little bit over to the left, like
so, if you want to center the three
| | 02:58 |
inside the artwork.
Notice that you can also scale the art if
| | 03:04 |
you want to, by dragging one of the
handles.
| | 03:07 |
And if you move your cursor outside of
the art, you can rotate it as well.
| | 03:11 |
I'm not doing any of those things,
because I don't wannna mess up my artwork.
| | 03:14 |
Everything's looking good here.
What I do want to do is turn on Shade
| | 03:17 |
Artwork, so that we're shading the
symbol, which makes it a more organic
| | 03:20 |
piece of the 3D object.
Now, I'll go ahead and click Okay, in
| | 03:25 |
order to map that artwork.
And I'll click Okay once again, in order
| | 03:30 |
to exit the 3D dialog box.
All right, and I'll go ahead and click off
| | 03:34 |
the art to deselect it.
And that, friends, is how you map artwork
| | 03:38 |
onto a 3D object using symbols here
inside Illustrator.
| | 03:44 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
ConclusionSee ya| 00:01 |
Whew!
We are done.
| | 00:02 |
And I gotta tell you, if you've been with
me for all forty chapters in this series,
| | 00:07 |
I congratulate you.
Good job.
| | 00:11 |
And might I suggest that you get in the
habit now, if you haven't already, of
| | 00:14 |
watching Deke's Techniques.
Because it, it's really my opportunity to
| | 00:18 |
show you cool stuff and be able to make
the assumption that you already know how
| | 00:22 |
to use the programs.
So we can burn through things.
| | 00:26 |
We move more quickly sometimes we do an
entire project in a single movie.
| | 00:30 |
And it's really a lot of fun as well.
So just a thought just, you know I've
| | 00:36 |
said my peace.
By golly.
| | 00:39 |
In any event, thank you so much for
spending your time with me.
| | 00:43 |
And though it pains me to say it, for the
last time, this time, on behalf of
| | 00:49 |
lynda.com, see you.
| | 00:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
