1

00:00:00.05 --> 00:00:02.03

- [Voiceover] Alright, let's

take a look at object blending



2

00:00:02.03 --> 00:00:04.05

where Illustrator automatically creates



3

00:00:04.05 --> 00:00:07.04

a bunch of intervals between two shapes.



4

00:00:07.04 --> 00:00:08.09

And so the first thing I'm gonna do is



5

00:00:08.09 --> 00:00:11.05

go up to file menu and

choose "New from Template"



6

00:00:11.05 --> 00:00:13.00

or I could press "control shift n"



7

00:00:13.00 --> 00:00:14.06

or "command shift n" on the Mac



8

00:00:14.06 --> 00:00:15.08

then I'll go ahead and open up



9

00:00:15.08 --> 00:00:17.08

my center guides document there.



10

00:00:17.08 --> 00:00:21.04

And I'll start by drawing

just a plain old rectangle



11

00:00:21.04 --> 00:00:22.09

and of course you can

get the rectangle tool



12

00:00:22.09 --> 00:00:24.06

by pressing the "m" key.



13

00:00:24.06 --> 00:00:25.05

Now I'll actually go ahead



14

00:00:25.05 --> 00:00:27.01

and press the shift key as I drag



15

00:00:27.01 --> 00:00:29.00

in order to create a square.



16

00:00:29.00 --> 00:00:32.00

And now let's give this guy

a yellow fill, let's say,



17

00:00:32.00 --> 00:00:35.06

and I'll change the stroke to

this darker shade of orange.



18

00:00:35.06 --> 00:00:36.06

But it doesn't really matter,



19

00:00:36.06 --> 00:00:39.00

you can obviously go your own way.



20

00:00:39.00 --> 00:00:41.07

Alright, now I'm gonna

switch to the ellipse tool



21

00:00:41.07 --> 00:00:44.08

and I'll go ahead and draw a circle



22

00:00:44.08 --> 00:00:47.04

by pressing and holding

the shift key as I drag.



23

00:00:47.04 --> 00:00:49.07

And let's go ahead and change this guy



24

00:00:49.07 --> 00:00:51.06

to the shade of light blue here.



25

00:00:51.06 --> 00:00:54.04

And I'll change the stroke

to a darker shade of blue



26

00:00:54.04 --> 00:00:56.07

and also thicken up that

stroke to, let's say,



27

00:00:56.07 --> 00:00:59.08

something like 12 points

to make it pretty obvious.



28

00:00:59.08 --> 00:01:00.06

And that way you can see



29

00:01:00.06 --> 00:01:03.03

that blends work with

both fills and strokes.



30

00:01:03.03 --> 00:01:04.05

Alright, now I'll go ahead and switch back



31

00:01:04.05 --> 00:01:05.07

to the black arrow tool,



32

00:01:05.07 --> 00:01:07.06

which you can get by pressing the "v" key.



33

00:01:07.06 --> 00:01:10.06

And I'll shift click on this

square in order to select it.



34

00:01:10.06 --> 00:01:12.06

Now to blend between the two shapes.



35

00:01:12.06 --> 00:01:14.01

You go up to the object menu,



36

00:01:14.01 --> 00:01:17.08

you choose blend, and you

choose the make command,



37

00:01:17.08 --> 00:01:20.03

which has a keyboard

shortcut of "control alt b"



38

00:01:20.03 --> 00:01:22.09

or "command option b" on the Mac.



39

00:01:22.09 --> 00:01:25.01

And we end up with this effect here



40

00:01:25.01 --> 00:01:28.02

so we're essentially creating

a kind of custom gradient



41

00:01:28.02 --> 00:01:30.04

between the two strokes.



42

00:01:30.04 --> 00:01:31.03

And as a result,



43

00:01:31.03 --> 00:01:34.04

the gradient is progressing

from this medium shade of blue



44

00:01:34.04 --> 00:01:38.00

to orange over here in the

upper left hand corner.



45

00:01:38.00 --> 00:01:39.04

But if I were to zoom in,



46

00:01:39.04 --> 00:01:41.02

you can see that the strokes



47

00:01:41.02 --> 00:01:43.01

are growing incrementally thinner



48

00:01:43.01 --> 00:01:45.00

and as a result towards

the end we're seeing gaps



49

00:01:45.00 --> 00:01:47.02

between the strokes that appear yellow



50

00:01:47.02 --> 00:01:49.07

because that's the color

of the square's fill.



51

00:01:49.07 --> 00:01:51.07

Alright, I'm gonna go

ahead and zoom out here.



52

00:01:51.07 --> 00:01:53.02

Now let's say what you wanna do



53

00:01:53.02 --> 00:01:57.06

is change the number of

intervals between the two shapes.



54

00:01:57.06 --> 00:01:59.09

Then you would go up to the object menu,



55

00:01:59.09 --> 00:02:01.04

revisit the blend sub-menu,



56

00:02:01.04 --> 00:02:03.04

and choose blend options,



57

00:02:03.04 --> 00:02:05.04

which will bring up this dialogue box.



58

00:02:05.04 --> 00:02:06.07

Now notice by default,



59

00:02:06.07 --> 00:02:08.07

spacing is set to smooth color.



60

00:02:08.07 --> 00:02:11.02

And so what that does is

it instructs Illustrator



61

00:02:11.02 --> 00:02:13.07

to automatically choose

the number of intervals



62

00:02:13.07 --> 00:02:17.02

it needs in order to

create a smooth gradient.



63

00:02:17.02 --> 00:02:20.00

I want to change that

spacing to specified steps.



64

00:02:20.00 --> 00:02:22.00

You can, however, do distance.



65

00:02:22.00 --> 00:02:24.03

That's going to be the distance

between your intervals,



66

00:02:24.03 --> 00:02:26.03

but if you choose specified steps



67

00:02:26.03 --> 00:02:29.08

that's going to be the number

of intervals inbetween.



68

00:02:29.08 --> 00:02:32.00

And notice that Illustrator's telling me



69

00:02:32.00 --> 00:02:35.04

well right now you're

seeing 240 intervals.



70

00:02:35.04 --> 00:02:36.07

If you want to change that value



71

00:02:36.07 --> 00:02:39.00

presumably you'd want to

turn on the preview checkbox



72

00:02:39.00 --> 00:02:40.04

so that you can see what you're doing.



73

00:02:40.04 --> 00:02:42.09

And I'll go ahead and take

this value down to just two



74

00:02:42.09 --> 00:02:44.06

and press the tab key.



75

00:02:44.06 --> 00:02:48.01

And now you can see our

two intervals right there,



76

00:02:48.01 --> 00:02:51.08

which again Illustrator

refers to as steps.



77

00:02:51.08 --> 00:02:54.00

And so we have a first

object in the background,



78

00:02:54.00 --> 00:02:56.00

we have a second object in the foreground,



79

00:02:56.00 --> 00:02:58.04

and then two intervals inbetween.



80

00:02:58.04 --> 00:03:01.08

I'm gonna take that value

up to six, let's say,



81

00:03:01.08 --> 00:03:05.00

and then press the tab key

so we can see the effect.



82

00:03:05.00 --> 00:03:08.06

And now I'll click okay in

order to accept that change.



83

00:03:08.06 --> 00:03:11.00

Alright, now the great thing

about an object blend like this



84

00:03:11.00 --> 00:03:13.06

is that it's entirely dynamic.



85

00:03:13.06 --> 00:03:16.04

So if I make any changes

to the square or the circle



86

00:03:16.04 --> 00:03:19.06

those changes will be reflected

by the intervals inbetween.



87

00:03:19.06 --> 00:03:21.08

And so now that we've got live shapes,



88

00:03:21.08 --> 00:03:24.04

I'll go ahead and switch

to the ellipse tool



89

00:03:24.04 --> 00:03:26.05

so that I can see the specialized widgets.



90

00:03:26.05 --> 00:03:30.02

And notice now that I can drag

the center of this ellipse,



91

00:03:30.02 --> 00:03:32.06

assuming that you're seeing

your widgets on screen,



92

00:03:32.06 --> 00:03:35.00

and the ellipse will move

to a different location



93

00:03:35.00 --> 00:03:36.07

and all the intervals inbetween



94

00:03:36.07 --> 00:03:39.07

will move to a different location as well.



95

00:03:39.07 --> 00:03:42.04

The other option is to create a pie



96

00:03:42.04 --> 00:03:44.05

by dragging this guy right here



97

00:03:44.05 --> 00:03:46.05

and I'll go ahead and drag it all the way



98

00:03:46.05 --> 00:03:47.04

over to this location



99

00:03:47.04 --> 00:03:50.04

and I'll drag this guy over to

the right hand side as well.



100

00:03:50.04 --> 00:03:51.05

So that we can see



101

00:03:51.05 --> 00:03:54.04

the evolution of a square

turning into a pac-man.



102

00:03:54.04 --> 00:03:56.00

Alright, I'll go ahead

and drag this guy up



103

00:03:56.00 --> 00:03:57.08

just a little bit and

the same's gonna happen



104

00:03:57.08 --> 00:04:00.01

if I move over to the square



105

00:04:00.01 --> 00:04:03.03

and adjust its round

corner, which is like so.



106

00:04:03.03 --> 00:04:04.07

And at that point we're gonna start to see



107

00:04:04.07 --> 00:04:07.09

some rounding at the top

of these initial shapes.



108

00:04:07.09 --> 00:04:09.00

And incidentally, just in case



109

00:04:09.00 --> 00:04:10.09

you turned off your live shape widgets,



110

00:04:10.09 --> 00:04:13.03

just go ahead and switch

over to the white arrow tool,



111

00:04:13.03 --> 00:04:15.01

which you can get by pressing the "a" key.



112

00:04:15.01 --> 00:04:16.04

And then just go ahead



113

00:04:16.04 --> 00:04:18.05

and click off the shapes to deselect them



114

00:04:18.05 --> 00:04:21.06

and then click inside one

of the shapes to select it.



115

00:04:21.06 --> 00:04:25.01

For example, I've clicked

inside my pie-shaped circle



116

00:04:25.01 --> 00:04:26.04

and then you would go ahead and select



117

00:04:26.04 --> 00:04:29.09

either the rectangle

tool or the ellipse tool,



118

00:04:29.09 --> 00:04:32.05

in which point you can

see the shape widgets icon



119

00:04:32.05 --> 00:04:34.00

up here in the control panel,



120

00:04:34.00 --> 00:04:37.00

and you can either turn it off

to make the widgets go away



121

00:04:37.00 --> 00:04:40.08

or you can turn it on to

make those widgets come back.



122

00:04:40.08 --> 00:04:42.01

Alright, and the other thing I can do is



123

00:04:42.01 --> 00:04:44.00

switch back to the white arrow tool



124

00:04:44.00 --> 00:04:45.09

and drag the shape around



125

00:04:45.09 --> 00:04:47.02

and that's gonna cause the blend



126

00:04:47.02 --> 00:04:49.03

to update automatically as well.



127

00:04:49.03 --> 00:04:51.04

And last, I just want you to notice



128

00:04:51.04 --> 00:04:52.04

in case you haven't already,



129

00:04:52.04 --> 00:04:54.09

that each one of the intervals

is gradually progressing



130

00:04:54.09 --> 00:04:57.01

in terms of fill and stroke color



131

00:04:57.01 --> 00:04:58.07

as well as line weight.



132

00:04:58.07 --> 00:05:00.06

And so with the circle selected,



133

00:05:00.06 --> 00:05:02.06

if I was to take that line weight up to,



134

00:05:02.06 --> 00:05:05.04

let's say, 24 points

and press the enter key



135

00:05:05.04 --> 00:05:06.08

or the return key on a Mac,



136

00:05:06.08 --> 00:05:10.08

that's going to affect all the

intervals inbetween as well.



137

00:05:10.08 --> 00:05:11.09

And so that's how you create



138

00:05:11.09 --> 00:05:14.03

an object blend between two shapes



139

00:05:14.03 --> 00:05:15.08

and have an update dynamically



140

00:05:15.08 --> 00:05:17.06

in response to any modifications



141

00:05:17.06 --> 00:05:20.09

you might make here inside Illustrator.