From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

736 Puppet-Warping very complicated selections

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

736 Puppet-Warping very complicated selections

- [Instructor] In this movie, we'll take a look at a few things to consider when applying Illustrator's very powerful Puppet Warp tool to extremely complex selections, by which I mean selections that contain, let's say, a 1,000 or more path outlines. And so I'll advance to the next artboard inside this document by pressing Shift + Page Down, at which point we'll see yet another piece of artwork from the DreamsTime image library, which contains tons and tons of vector objects that you can integrate into your own artwork. Next, I'll go ahead and switch to the Puppet Warp tool, which as you may recall is available only inside Illustrator CC 2018 and later, at which point you may see a warning telling you that you need to select an object before you can warp it. And so I'm gonna go ahead and move over here to the layers panel, and twirl open this triceratops layer right here, and I'll scroll down the list just so that you can see that we have gobs and gobs of path outlines ending with this elaborate compound path down here at the bottom of the layer. All right, so I'm gonna go ahead and select all those objects by targeting the entire layer, which you can do by clicking on its circular meatball over here to the right of the word triceratops, and notice that we're not seeing any of the anchor points, and that's because the Puppet Warp tool is selected. And so if I were to switch back to the black arrow tool up here at the top of the toolbox, we would see a few thousand anchor points onscreen, which can be extremely distracting, which is why it's so great that the moment you select the Puppet Warp tool, Illustrator hides all those anchor points, so you can better see what you're doing. Now if you're ever curious how many path outlines you've selected, then you can go up to the Window menu and choose Document Info in order to bring up the Document Info panel, which by default is gonna list a bunch of facts about the current document, in which case, click on the flyout menu icon in the top left corner of the panel, and switch to Objects, at which point you can see that I've managed to select a total of 1,817 paths, which include more than 14,000 anchor points. So this is a very complex selection indeed. All right, I'll go ahead and hide that panel, and I want you to notice what's happening here inside the layers panel as soon as I click in order to set a pin, let's say down here at the bottom of the haunches, or at the top of the tail if you prefer, that Illustrator automatically groups the selection. And you want to leave that group intact if you want your effect to remain dynamic. All right, now click to set another pin down here at the base of the tail, and I'll also add a couple of pins here at the top of the shoulders, and at the base of the neck, and I'll add one at the center of the skull as well, which will allow me to lift that skull independently of the rest of the selection. Depending, that is, on your Expand Mesh value. So let's say I go ahead and raise this value to 32, just for the sake of demonstration. Notice that we now have a very big mesh as represented by this network of adjacent triangles that extends quite a ways outside the selection. And so if I were to drag that head upward like so, I'm also going to tear at the shoulders and that's because they're all joined by this single mesh, which is not what I want. And if that happens to you, then just go ahead and undo that change by pressing Ctrl + Z or Command + Z on a Mac, and reduce the Expand Mesh value. So it acts as a contract mesh value as well if you take it down to as low as one screen pixel. At which point we now have this gap between the head and the shoulders, which is going to allow me to lift that head upward. You don't want to fling it back too far like so because you're gonna end up with a pretty weird effect. Maybe that's what you want, but it's not what I want. I just want to go ahead and take that head upward like so. And notice, thanks to the fact that these other pins are deselected that I'm minimizing the distortion of the rest of the body. All right, this URL is getting in the way, so I'll turn off that top dreamstime layer, and now I'll go ahead and select the tail and I'll drag it upward as well. And notice as I do, I'm moving that leg along with it, so that our triceratops looks a little bit like a dog. That's not the effect I want, but the reason it's happening is because this guy's not locked down. So the fact that the hip is locked down means that everything on the other side of it is remaining more or less intact, but this foot is getting moved up because it's not protected. All right, so I'll go ahead and press Ctrl + Z or Command + Z on a Mac in order to undo that change and then I'll click on a foot in order to lock it down. And I might click on this knee as well, just so that I have as much permanence as possible. And then I'll go ahead and lift this tail. That does change the arc of the back just a little bit. So notice this is before with the ribs nice and high here in the center, and this is after, at which point the ribs have moved down slightly, which is fine with me. In fact I'm going to adjust the arch of his back just a little more by dragging up on the hips. Now as I was telling you in the previous movie, the effect remains dynamic as long as the Puppet Warp tool is selected, and as long as all of the objects are grouped. If I were to go up to the Object menu and choose Ungroup, notice that I can once again see all of my path outlines here inside the triceratops layer and all of my pins disappear, at which point we have a collection of static path outlines. And I can see what that looks like by switching back to the black arrow tool up here at the toolbox, which of course you can get by pressing the V key, so notice that we have lots and lots of anchor points. And if you want to know exactly how many, then once again, you can bring up that Document Info panel. In my case, we still have the same number of paths as well as the same number of anchor points, so as opposed to adding any points, Illustrator has merely moved them around. All right, so I'll go ahead and hide that panel, and I'll click off the paths to deselect them. All right, now I'm gonna press the F key a couple of times in order to switch to the full-screen mode so that I can show you just how much we've managed to accomplish. So this is the original position of that triceratops, and this is its position now. Thanks to what I would characterize as the awesome power of the Puppet Warp tool here inside Illustrator CC 2018 and later.

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