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- [Voiceover] So at this point,



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you can see that the

bottoms of these two "J's"



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here are slanted at

exactly the right angle,



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in order to ultimately

create the star logo.



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The tops however, are not.



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Now, we could solve this problem



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using "minus-back", or "minus-front",



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just as we did in the previous movie.



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But I want to show you

a different way to work.



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I want to show you how

you can slant shapes,



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or if you prefer, "skew"

them, using a tool



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available from the "Scale

Tool" fly out menu,



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known as the "Shear" tool.



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Now, my only problem with

this tool, I'm gonna tell



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you upfront, really great tool.



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I do have a problem with it's name.



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It's been named the "Shear" tool



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since the beginning of Illustrator,



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even though, and I just have

to make this point here,



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you'll have to forgive

me, the word "shear",



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under no circumstances, means "skew".



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I'm looking at Merriam-Webster,

which is absolutely



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the foremost online dictionary out there,



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and we are seeing that of

course it means to clip,



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as in wool, away from a sheep.



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It can mean to cut something sharp.



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It can me to cleave something,



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as in the case of "shear force".



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So for example you "shear

the wing off a plane".



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But even the intransitive

definition of this verb



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has nothing to do with "skewing".



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And while it may seem like

I'm just off on a rant,



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or I'm Adobe bashing, or whatever.



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I'm doing this for a reason.



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Often times, the engineers

at Adobe will watch



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these movies, and I just want

to go on record as saying,



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that as high-time the name of this tool,



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was changed to something

that makes sense, for people.



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Because a lot of folks, in my experience,



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get confused because this tool



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just absolutely has the wrong name.



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You never think to yourself, "Gosh,



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I would like to shear something.".



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Anyway, having said

that, the "Shear" tool,



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is a really great tool, and it provides a



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function that you simply can't accomplish



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using a dynamic transform effect.



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And so, to demonstrate how it works,



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I've created this text right here,



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and I've gone ahead and converted the text



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to "outlines", because I imagine



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you don't have the same fonts.



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And, just to get a sense

of what's going on,



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I'll go ahead and switch

back to my black arrow tool,



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and I'll drag this guy down here so you



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can see that there are two different



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styles associated with this font.



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There's the solid style,

that appears light-blue.



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And then there is the inline

style, that appears dark-blue.



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Alright, so I'm gonna go

ahead and undo that move,



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and I want you to know

by the way, that the name



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of this font is indeed, "Industria",



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in case you are interested.



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And it's one of those fonts that just



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doesn't have an italic, or oblique style.



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But let's say I want to create



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a kind of a, italic variation.



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Then, I'll just go ahead and

marque the type, like so,



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so that I'm selecting both objects.



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And I'll press "Control-H",

or "Command-H" on a Mac.



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In order to hide the anchor points so



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I can better see what I am doing.



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And then I will go ahead

and select the "Shear" tool,



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and I'll press the "Enter" key,



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or the "Return" key on a Mac, to bring up



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the "Shear" dialogue box.



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Now notice that the "Axis" is

set to horizontal, by default.



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Make sure your preview

check box is turned on,



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and then just enter an angle.



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For example, I might enter "15" degrees,



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in order to skew those letters forward,



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as we are seeing right here.



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And just in case this is the kind



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of thing you're really interested in



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doing at some point, you should know that



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a standard oblique angle runs anywhere



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from five degrees to pretty

much as high as seven.



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But unless you really wanna

indicate some sort of movement,



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or something along those

lines, you probably don't



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want to go up as high as 15.



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Alright, so I'm just going

to enter "7", lets say,



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and now lets take a look

at how "Axis" works.



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Right now, we're skewing

along a horizontal axis,



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so the text is actually

skewing horizontally.



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If you'd rather it skew up and down,



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then you can switch

this guy from vertical,



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and notice the angle

value changes as well.



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If you select "Horizontal",

the angle is "0" degrees.



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If you select "Vertical",

the angle is "90" degrees,



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which is pretty darn predictable, I think.



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It's pretty easy to understand



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"Horizontal" versus "Vertical" skews.



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What gets interesting and a little harder,



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you may never take

advantage of this, is when



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you change the angle of the "Axis".



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So lets say I select

angle, and then I change



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it to "45" degrees, well initially,



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notice that just kind of pitches



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the letters forward, and down, which makes



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a certain amount of sense, I think.



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But it makes even more sense, I'll just



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show you this trick here.



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I'll go ahead and set the

angle to "0" degrees again,



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and then I'll click

inside the angle value,



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and watch what happens on screen.



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I'm gonna press "Shift,

Up-Arrow", in order to



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increase this value in

10 percent increments.



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And you can actually see

it shifting on the fly,



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from horizontal, ultimately to vertical.



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And you can go farther

than that if you want to.



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You can change this to "135"

degrees or what have you.



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Feel free to experiment with that.



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But, because I'm working with text,



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I wanna keep the text

on horizontal baseline,



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I'm going to change the

"Axis" to "Horizontal",



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and click "Ok".



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Alright, another great

use for the "Shear" tool,



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is to pitch text the other direction.



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So lets say I start with a script font,



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such as "Monoline" right here.



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And I wanna make the letters

a little more upright,



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to achieve a custom effect.



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But first, notice that

I've got a problem here,



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as soon as I convert it

the text to "outlines",



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and I gave the letters

a stroke, you can see



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a division between each

one of the letters.



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And this gives me an opportunity



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to go off topic for just a moment,



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and show you another really great use



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for the "Unite PathFinder" function.



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And so, I'm going to press the "V" key,



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to switch back to my black arrow tool.



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And I'll click on this type to select it,



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and its not looking like its selected,



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'cause I hid the anchor points,



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so I will press

"Control-H", or "Command-H"



147

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again, in order to bring those guys back.



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Now lets say the first thing I want to do,



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is move the strokes behind the fills.



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Then, I would go up to the "Window" menu,



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and choose appearance.



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But notice because the group is active,



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we are not actually seeing the

"fill-in-stroke" attributes.



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To see them, I need to double-click



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on "Contents", right there.



156

00:05:54.07 --> 00:05:57.06

And that will take me to

the contents of the group,



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like so, at which point,

I can grab the stroke,



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and move it below the fill.



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So that's not a problem,

and of course it looks



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a lot better, but we still have these



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00:06:05.06 --> 00:06:08.03

divisions between the

letters, which I do not want,



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and to make that more obvious I'll press



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"Control-H", or "Command-H" again,



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00:06:12.00 --> 00:06:14.02

to get rid of my anchor points.



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Notice these lines between

each one of the letters.



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To get rid of them, bring

back the "PathFinder" panel.



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And then I'll click on "Unite".



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But I just wanna make this point here.



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There reason I often find "PathFinder"



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operations to be a lot

easier to work with,



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than say the "Shape Builder" tool,



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which definitely has it's merits,



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is that instead of having to drag through



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each and every one of these letters,



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all I have to do is

select them and then click



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on the "Unite" icon, which of course



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is the first icon, in the first row,



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and everything is taken care of.



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00:06:46.06 --> 00:06:48.07

Now, the only problem is that I'm still



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looking at a group, as we can

see in the "Appearance Panel",



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00:06:52.01 --> 00:06:54.08

for an effect like this,

where we are sharing the same



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"Fill-In" stroke attributes,

we're better off working



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00:06:57.04 --> 00:06:59.01

with a "Compound" path.



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00:06:59.01 --> 00:07:01.01

So I'll just go up to the "Object" menu,



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00:07:01.01 --> 00:07:02.07

choose "Compound Path", and choose "Make".



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00:07:02.07 --> 00:07:04.09

Or I've got that keyboard

shortcut of "Control-8",



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00:07:04.09 --> 00:07:06.05

or "Command-8" on a Mac.



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And now you can see here

in the "Appearance Panel",



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00:07:09.07 --> 00:07:12.06

we have a "Compound Path",

and the "Fill-In Stroke",



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00:07:12.06 --> 00:07:14.09

attributes are conveniently accessible.



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Alright, now lets say

I want to pitch these



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letters backward a little bit.



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00:07:18.00 --> 00:07:20.00

I'll go ahead and select the "Shear" tool.



194

00:07:20.00 --> 00:07:22.01

And then I'll once again

press the "Enter" key,



195

00:07:22.01 --> 00:07:24.00

or the "Return" key on a

Mac, that's gonna repeat



196

00:07:24.00 --> 00:07:25.06

my last queue, as you can see here.



197

00:07:25.06 --> 00:07:29.02

And so all I'm gonna do is

change the "Positive 7" degree,



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to "Negative 7", like so,

in order to create this



199

00:07:33.02 --> 00:07:35.08

absolutely custom effect here.



200

00:07:35.08 --> 00:07:38.06

And of course, you can click in the value



201

00:07:38.06 --> 00:07:40.08

and press the "Up" arrow key, in order



202

00:07:40.08 --> 00:07:42.03

to increase that shear angle.



203

00:07:42.03 --> 00:07:45.00

Or you can press the

"Down" arrow key, in order



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00:07:45.00 --> 00:07:49.00

to reduce the value, and thereby

pitch the letters backward.



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00:07:49.00 --> 00:07:51.03

And I'm thinking "Negative

8" degrees looks great,



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00:07:51.03 --> 00:07:53.06

so I'll just go ahead and

click the "Ok" button,



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00:07:53.06 --> 00:07:56.00

in order to accept that change.



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And that friends, is my

introduction to the badly named,



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00:07:58.03 --> 00:08:02.05

but extremely useful "Shear"

tool, here inside Illustrator.