Join Deke McClelland for an in-depth discussion in this video Creating a dynamic compound shape, part of Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Fundamentals.
In this exercise, I'll show you how to create a compound shape and why you would want to do so using a Pathfinder operation. I've gone ahead and saved my progress as Violet Ringo.ai found inside the 10_pathfinder folder. I'm going to go ahead and zoom out a little bit so that I can take in Ringo and the submarine at the same time. Let's say that I want to join Ringo and submarine together. Now, I want them to be yellow. So, I'm going to move Ringo in back of the submarine, here inside the Layers panel, just the simplest way to go.
Then, I'll grab my Black Arrow tool and I'll Shift+Click on the submarine, because I already have Ringo selected. So, now I have both Ringo and the submarine selected. I'll go over here to the Pathfinder panel and I'll click on Unite in order to combine those two closed paths into one. That goes ahead and fuses them together into a Compound Path. Now why is this all of a sudden called Compound Path? I'll go ahead and undo that operation for just a moment by pressing Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on the Mac. Remember, just a couple of exercises ago when I united the pipes with the emerald submarine, that resulted in this thing called Path right there.
It was not called a Compound Path, it's just called standard everyday average Path. Whereas, once we get Ringo involved for some reason, we end up with a Compound Path. Why in the world is that and what does that mean? What that means is that we have multiple sub paths that are combined into one overarching path in Illustrator's mind. The reason that that's necessary is because we have paths that are cutting holes in other paths. For example, if I zoom in here on Ringo's legs, you can see that the interior portion of those legs is cutting a hole out of the larger Ringo/submarine shape.
We also have another little hole right there at the bottom of his boot, and that's cutting a hole in the larger shape as well. So, we have two holes going on here inside of this compound path and that's all Illustrator is doing. It's just telling us we've got a Compound Path. There you go, figured you would want to know. However, you can't twirl it open. Notice that. You can't gain access to those various sub paths there inside the Layers panel. You can only get access to them using the White Arrow tool, if you want to edit them independently. Another disadvantage to this approach by the way is that Ringo and the submarine are permanently fused together.
So let's say, I don't want Ringo standing over here on the right-hand side of the submarine. I want him over on the left-hand side of the submarine, the aft end. Well, I can't really move him after the fact with a Compound Path, but I can if I had been using a Compound Shape. So, I'm going to go ahead and press Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on the Mac to undo that operation. Then, notice here, if I hover over Unite, inside the Pathfinder operation, and this is true by the way for any of the Shape modes. If you hover over any of these guys, whether it's Unite or Minus Front or Intersect or Exclude and I'll be showing you how all these work, you'll see this message that says, hey, you can Alt+ Click or on the Mac you can Option+Click to create a compound shape.
And that's what we're going to right now. Alt+Click or Option+Click on Unite in order to merge those two closed path outlines into a single compound shape and notice, we now see the words Compound Shape here inside the Layers panel. Also notice that you can twirl the Compound Shape open in order to gain access to each one of the Paths inside of that Compound Shape, which is remarkable. Now what I'd like to do is select Ringo and move him to a different location. Notice, his feet are now intact. So we have access to that entire Ringo silhouette. Now albeit, It's colored yellow after the submarine.
So you can still only associate one group of Fill and Stroke attributes and effects and so on to a Compound Shape. In other words, Ringo and the submarine have to be filled, stroked and so on the same. However, they are independent of each other. Now to prove that, I'll go ahead and click off the Shapes to deselect them. Then I'll click on Ringo once again. Well, that went ahead and selected the entire Compound Shape, because I'm working with the Black Arrow tool. So, if I want to edit Ringo independently, I could either get the White Arrow tool and then I could click off the Shapes to deselect them and then Alt+Click or Option+Click on Ringo to select his entire path outline, again independently of the submarine.
Or I could just meatball Ringo here inside the Layers panel. Then, I can move them to a different location such as this. So he remains an independent path outline. However, because he is part of a Compound Shape along with the submarine, he and the submarine are continuously fused together. Alright, just to keep things clear, I'm going to go ahead and rename the bottom path ring, and I'm going to rename this top path submarine like so. In the next exercise, I'm going to show you how to change the relationship between the two paths inside of a Compound Shape by applying yet another Pathfinder operation.
Author
Released
5/28/2010- Creating great art using basic tools
- Brushing and building organic artwork
- Scaling and rotating path outlines
- Creating and formatting text
- Drawing articulated paths with the Pen tool
- Combining paths with Pathfinder operations
- Printing and exporting to the web
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
Views
Q: I was not able to locate my saved shortcuts and cannot locate the folder I created to place the preferences into. The Illustrator steps are clear and using the search function I should be able to find the folder, but it cannot be located. How can I find the shortcuts file on a Mac?
A: To search for the shortcuts file on a Mac, press Cmd+F. Then change the option that says "Kind" in the top-left corner to System Files by choosing "Other" and selecting "System Files" from the menu.



Q: The instructions for installing the dekeKeys don't work on my computer (which is running Mac OS X Lion). Is there an update to these?
A: The dekeKeys distributed with this course will still work for Lion. You just need to add them to a slightly different folder than in previous versions of OS X.
Open a new Finder window and choose Go > Go to Folder. Type the following file path exactly as written below. Copying and pasting may result in an error.
~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings/en_US
Move and/or copy/paste the dekeKeys to this folder and follow the rest of the instructions as outlined in the video, "Installing the dekeKeys keyboard shortcuts."
Related Courses
-
Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Advanced
with Deke McClelland14h 53m Intermediate -
Deke's Techniques
with Deke McClelland130h 7m Intermediate -
Illustrator: Rethinking the Essentials
with Mordy Golding5h 7m Intermediate
-
Introduction
-
Remapping OS shortcuts6m 56s
-
1. Making a Document
-
Managing artboards1m 20s
-
The Welcome screen3m 49s
-
Creating a new document7m 13s
-
Advanced document controls6m 52s
-
Auto-arranging artboards3m 42s
-
Rulers and artboards6m 40s
-
Saving a native AI document7m 25s
-
Closing all open documents2m 45s
-
-
2. Navigation and the Workspace
-
Using tools to zoom and pan5m 56s
-
Scroll wheel tricks2m 13s
-
The tabbed-window interface6m 17s
-
Closing all but one document3m 30s
-
Saving a custom workspace4m 57s
-
Hiding the bounding box4m 27s
-
Keyboard increments7m 15s
-
Cycling between screen modes5m 21s
-
3. Opening Documents and Getting Organized
-
Opening a document5m 2s
-
Introducing Adobe Bridge6m 6s
-
File-type associations4m 3s
-
Previewing and collecting8m 17s
-
4. Basic Line Art
-
Everything is anything1m 14s
-
Meet the line tools3m 30s
-
Saving large layer previews5m 50s
-
Creating custom guides5m 31s
-
Creating a heart using arcs3m 51s
-
Adjusting control handles4m 13s
-
Drawing a line segment4m 51s
-
Rotate, Fill, and Stack4m 37s
-
Drawing a looping spiral4m 41s
-
Tracing a template layer5m 1s
-
Selecting similar objects3m 32s
-
-
5. Geometric Shapes
-
The anatomy of a path1m 41s
-
Meet the shape tools3m 32s
-
Creating a compound path4m 29s
-
Drawing rounded rectangles3m 28s
-
Aligning to a key object3m 47s
-
The constraint axes4m 11s
-
Using the Flare tool5m 32s
-
-
6. Paint, Build, and Transform
-
Painting artwork from life1m 21s
-
Tracing a photograph2m 41s
-
Draw, Move, and Duplicate5m 27s
-
Rotating and duplicating6m 1s
-
Pressure-sensitive input4m 24s
-
Using the Shape Builder tool4m 57s
-
Establishing design groups5m 54s
-
When to rotate vs. reflect4m 55s
-
Simulating beveled edges6m 46s
-
-
7. Swatch, Stroke, and Stacking Order
-
The Document Color mode6m 20s
-
Introducing the Stroke panel4m 46s
-
Cap, Join, and Miter Limit6m 42s
-
Managing color swatches4m 55s
-
Filling paths inside groups6m 24s
-
Adjusting the stacking order7m 44s
-
Combining multiple fills5m 29s
-
Creating a tile pattern9m 2s
-
The new CS5 arrowheads5m 44s
-
Creating a callout line7m 1s
-
Width tool tips and tricks8m 47s
-
8. Working with Type
-
Next-generation text1m 19s
-
Making a margin guide5m 7s
-
Offsetting flush-left text4m 47s
-
Placing and threading text6m 18s
-
Working with point text7m 10s
-
Redefining paragraph styles6m 42s
-
Using the Glyphs panel6m 41s
-
Spell-checking text4m 24s
-
Updating a graphic style5m 43s
-
Creating type on a path7m 26s
-
Adjusting baseline shift4m 18s
-
-
9. Using the Pen Tool
-
Moving and deleting points7m 46s
-
Editing a path as you go7m 5s
-
Faking a spline curve5m 54s
-
Adding corners to a spline7m 15s
-
How control handles work10m 17s
-
Aligning open paths5m 38s
-
Splitting and joining paths8m 51s
-
Cusp points and miter limits6m 45s
-
Using the Convert Point tool4m 42s
-
Stacking clipped paths4m 28s
-
10. Pathfinder Operations
-
Unite closed, join open4m 46s
-
Switching shape modes4m 43s
-
Adding to a compound shape5m 32s
-
Outline Stroke and Unite3m 37s
-
Painting in the foliage5m 23s
-
Filling in and erasing away6m 31s
-
Painting more precise holes5m 17s
-
Adding in rough edges7m 53s
-
Contouring roots and limbs8m 56s
-
Filling in the limbs4m 19s
-
Using the Divide operation5m 46s
-
11. Printing a Document
-
Converting type to outlines8m 55s
-
Setting trim size and bleed6m 22s
-
Stroking a placed image4m 54s
-
Filling in your bleeds5m 34s
-
Troubleshooting weak blacks6m 36s
-
The General Print options5m 20s
-
Placement, scale, and tiling6m 39s
-
Trim and printer marks6m 23s
-
Warnings and document raster5m 21s
-
12. Exporting to the Web (and Elsewhere)
-
Saving a high-contrast GIF7m 18s
-
The versatile PNG format6m 33s
-
Saving a full-color PNG4m 47s
-
Placing an AI Smart Object7m 38s
-
Conclusion
-
Until next time1m 33s
-
- Mark as unwatched
- Mark all as unwatched
Are you sure you want to mark all the videos in this course as unwatched?
This will not affect your course history, your reports, or your certificates of completion for this course.
CancelTake notes with your new membership!
Type in the entry box, then click Enter to save your note.
1:30Press on any video thumbnail to jump immediately to the timecode shown.
Notes are saved with you account but can also be exported as plain text, MS Word, PDF, Google Doc, or Evernote.
Share this video
Embed this video
Video: Creating a dynamic compound shape