- [Deke McClelland] In this movie,
I'll demonstrate how to work with
the one remaining transform tool,
which is the reshape tool.
Now, it's not nearly as old as the other tools.
In other words,
I want to say it showed up in Illustrator 6.
And it doesn't work anything like the other tools.
You can't bring up a dialogue box, for example.
But it is grouped with those tools.
So notice if I were to click and hold
on the scale tool right here,
we would see the reshape tool
at the bottom of the flyout menu.
Now, I used to demonstrate this tool with spirals,
because it can help you fix a broken spiral.
So lets say for example,
I want to simulate one of these swirls.
Then I'll just go ahead and click and hold
on the line segment tool
and I'll select the spiral tool from the flyout menu.
And then I'll just go ahead
and draw a spiral like so,
and lets say I want it to curve in
on itself a little more quickly,
then I would press and hold
the control key or the command key on a Mac
in order to adjust the spiral's so-called decay on the fly.
And I might end up with this effect right here.
And I might move this over a little bit as well
by pressing shift right arrow.
Okay, so lets say I want to lift some of these colors here.
I'll press the i key to switch to the eyedropper
and I'll just click on this guy
and that's going to assign a fill instead of a stroke
so I'll press shift x in order to swap the fill and stroke.
I'll take the line wave value up to four points lets say,
and then I'll click on a word stroke
and change the cap to a round cap.
Alright, having done that,
lets say I'm not quite happy with this spiral.
I want to make some adjustments.
Well, if I were to switch to the scale tool,
and click right here for example
in order to set an origin point,
and then drag around,
I could squish this spiral,
or I could squeeze it or what have you,
I could even scale it proportionally
if I were to press and hold the shift key.
But that's not really what I want to do.
I just want to demonstrate the difference here
between the scale tool and the reshape tool.
So for starters,
if I were to press the enter key
or the return key on the Mac
with this tool selected,
I don't get any dialogue box.
And that's because it really doesn't lend itself
to numerical precision.
And it also doesn't include a transformation origin.
Instead, where spirals are concerned,
you just go ahead and drag one of the end points
and notice how you can now stretch the shape
in a way that isn't accommodated by any of the other tools.
So you can really customize the heck
out of that spiral if you want to.
You can also drag on an interior point
although that tends to be less successful.
And that's what you decide to do is click to set a point
and then select that point with the wide arrow tool
and so for example,
if I were to press and hold the control key,
or the command key on the Mac,
I'm going to get my last used arrow tool
which is the black arrow.
If I want to switch to the white arrow on the fly instead,
then here on the PC I would press control tilde.
So I just keep that control key down and add tilde
and then still with the control key down,
I now have the white arrow tool instead.
On the Mac you would keep your command key down
and then you would also press option with tab.
So command option tab is going to
switch you back and forth between the tools.
Then, just go ahead with the control or command key down,
go ahead and click on one of those points to select them.
And then if you release,
in order to switch back to the reshape tool and you drag,
notice you're going to move that point
independently of the other ones.
So you may or may not find that helpful.
But a couple years ago,
Mordy Golding who works here at lynda.com,
he used to be a product manager at Illustrator
during the time when this tool was introduced.
And he took me aside and basically told me
this is not the intention of the tool at all.
Even though it does this kind of stuff.
That's not why it was designed.
Instead, it's designed to basically
add curvature to a straight segment.
So what I'm going to do is press the backspace key,
that would be the delete key on the Mac,
a couple of times to get rid of that spiral.
And I'll go ahead and scroll over to this text right here,
and lets say I want to give it a wavy underline.
Then I'd start things out
by selecting the line segment tool,
and then I'll just go ahead
and draw a straight line like so,
all the way past the d,
and I'm pressing the shift key as I drag
to make sure that my line is perfectly horizontal.
And I'm going to color this line just like the text,
so I'll press the i key to switch to the eyedropper tool,
and then I'll just click inside one of these letters
that's been converted to a path outline,
and because I now have a fill with no stroke
I'm not seeing the line,
so I'll press shift x in order
to swap the fill and the stroke.
Alright I'm happy with the one point line weight,
but I'm going to go ahead and give this guy a round cap.
Alright now lets say I want to add some curvature,
then one way to pull this off
is to go ahead and switch back to the reshape tool
and then click in order to add a point in that line.
And now with that point selected
I can go ahead and drag it up
in order to bend that formerly straight segment.
And if I want to add another point right there
then I would go ahead and click to select it,
now if I drag down at this point
I'm going to move the other point along with
because they're both selected as we're seeing here.
If I want to move this point independently
then I would press control z
or command z on the Mac to undo that move.
Then I would press and hold the control key
or the command key on a Mac.
To get that white arrow on the fly
I click on that point to select it,
and then I'd release the control or command key
in order to switch back to the reshape tool
and I'd go ahead and drag this point down
independently of the others.
And I can do the same thing with an endpoint
if I like in order to produce this effect here
and then I can just sit here
and move these guys around as much as I like.
Alright now lets say I want to
give this line a tapering stroke.
Then I would go ahead and switch to the width tool,
which is located directly below the reshape tool.
And I might go ahead and double click right about here
in order to add a width point,
and I'll set the total width value to six and click okay,
and then I'll add another one
lets say right about here by doubling clicking
and then I'll change its total width value to six
and click okay as well.
And that way we get this nicely tapering line.
Alright but here's where I'm critical of the tool.
Notice if I switch back to my wide arrow tool
which of course I can get by pressing the a key
and I were to click on this anchor point right here,
notice that the segment only has one control handle,
it's this guy right here.
So we don't have a control handle
coming out of the endpoint.
So that can end up making for some flat curvature
right there at the endpoints.
Even worse however,
notice this point right there
that looks like a smooth point,
it's not a smooth point.
It's actually a cusp point.
And that is always going to be the case
when you're adding points with the reshape tool.
If you don't want that to be the case
then go ahead and undo the movement
of those control handles,
select that anchor point,
and then click on this convert to smooth point icon
up here in the control panel.
After which point I should be able
to move one control handle
and have the other one move along with, like so.
But for my money,
the better way to work is to use that tool
that we first saw back in chapter 12
of the Fundamentals course, the curvature tool.
But first I want to delete those points I just added
so I'm going to switch to the pen tool
which you can get by pressing the p key,
note that your cursor may be black
but it's still the same tool.
And then I'm going to click
on this anchor point right here to get rid of it.
And I'll click on this guy to get rid of it as well,
and the result is that we once again have a straight line.
Now, if I really want to add curvature
just the easiest way possible,
then I'm going to switch to the curvature tool
which is a much newer tool than a reshape tool
and it works a lot better as well.
So notice I'll just go ahead set a point there,
by clicking on a segment
and then I'll drag it up to add some curvature.
Then I'll click here to add another point
and I'll drag it down to add curvature
and now let me show you the difference.
If I press the a key in order
to switch to the wide arrow tool,
and I click on this anchor point right there,
it has a control handle.
And so we now have two control handles
devoted to this segment.
Just as we should.
And if I were to drag this control handle right there,
the opposite control handle would move
indicating that we have a bonafide smooth point.
Alright I'm just going to go ahead
and put that guy back by pressing control z
or command z on a Mac,
because I'm pretty happy with what I have.
And then I'll just go ahead and click
off the path outline to deselect it
and you know what,
I'm going to turn off the guidelines as well.
And that friends,
for better or for worse,
is how you work with what I consider to be
the screwiest of the transformation tools
which is the reshape tool
here inside Illustrator.