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- [Voiceover] In this movie,

I'll show you how to mask



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the contents of an entire layer.



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And this is a really great feature



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that often times goes overlooked.



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So if you're working along with me,



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go ahead and turn on the Bird layer,



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here inside the Layers panel,



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and I don't know if it

makes much sense right now,



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but these are a bunch of

objects that are gonna



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serve as highlights and

shadows inside the bird's body.



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But, first we need to mask these objects



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so that they look like this.



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So I'll go ahead and switch back



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to our document in progress here.



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And what you want to do is

twirl open the Bird layers.



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So, go ahead and click on

a triangle in front of it,



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in order to expand that layer.



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And then go down to this guy

right here, at the bottom.



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It's a group, and you

can see that's the case



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if you go ahead and target

it by clicking on its



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circular meatball over here

in the left hand column.



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And now, what I want you to

do, is go to the Edit menu



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and choose the Copy command, or press



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control C, or command C on the Mac.



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And then, press control

shift A or command shift A



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on the Mac in order to

deselect the artwork.



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And then return to the Edit menu,



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and choose Paste in Front, or press



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control F, or command F on the Mac.



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And the reason we're pasting in front



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is that whole layer clipping masks



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have to be on top of a given layer.



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Alright, the thing to know

about the paths in this group,



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is that they both contain dynamic effects.



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And you can see what

those effects look like



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by double-clicking

anywhere inside the group



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in order to enter the isolation mode.



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And then go ahead and click

one of the path outlines,



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such as this circle right here,



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and go to the Window menu,

and choose the Appearance



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command, and you'll see this dynamic



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effect, Warp colon Shell Lower.



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And so if you click on that item,



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you'll bring up the Warp

options dialogue box.



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Notice that the style

is set to Shell Lower.



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We'll learn more about

these when we discuss



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dynamics effects in an upcoming chapter.



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But, for now, make sure

that the preview checkbox



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is turned on, and then you

can play with the Bend value,



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in order to modify the effect.



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And then I like what I have,

so I'm just gonna cancel out.



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If you select the skinny

ellipse up towards the



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top of the document, you can

see that it's responsible



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for all three of the feathers as a result



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of these various dynamic

effects working together.



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And if you wanna find exactly

how I put this bird together,



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then you can check out Deek's Techniques



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number 207 from the year 2013.



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But for now I'm just

gonna press the escape key



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in order to exit the isolation mode.



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Now here's the thing to

know about clipping masks.



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They generally speaking have

to be static path outlines.



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They can't have a bunch of

dynamic effects assigned to them.



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And so to turn this into a

path outline, go ahead and



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click anywhere inside the object

to select the entire group.



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And then go to the Object menu

and choose Expand Appearance.



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And that will give you

a group, as you can see



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on the far left side of the control panel



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of static path outlines.



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After which point, go to

the Window menu and choose



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Pathfinder, to bring up

the Pathfinder panel,



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and then click on the Unite

icon, which is the first



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icon in the first row, in

order to turn that group



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into a single static path outline.



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Alright, now you can

hide the Pathfinder panel



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and switch back to the Layers panel.



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Now, for this next technique to work,



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you need the layer, not the

mask, the layer to be selected.



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So, go ahead and click on the layer,



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you don't have to target it,



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just click on the layer

name, here inside the layers



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panel, and, by the way, the object



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itself doesn't have to be selected.



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So, if I press control shift

A, or command shift A on a Mac,



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to deselect the artwork,

we can still take advantage



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of this icon, down here at the

bottom of the Layers panel.



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Notice it?



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Make Release Clipping Mask?



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That is going to turn the top path outline



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into the clipping mask

for the entire layer.



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Even if some other object is selected.



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So, let's say I target

this thing called High,



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which are the highlights,

it doesn't matter,



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as long as the layer is active,



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as long as you've clicked on it,



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here inside the Layers panel, then you can



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click the Make Release Clipping Mask icon



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and that's gonna turn that top



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path outline into a clipping mask.



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And you can tell that's

the case by targeting it,



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at which point you'll see

these two clipping options



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up here at the top, Edit

Clipping Path, and Edit Contents.



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Alright, now at this point,

the reason the thumbnail



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for this object appears

as a jagged outline



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with no fill is because

converting a path outline



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to a clipping mask, at

least in this manner,



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goes ahead and sacrifices the

fill and stroke attributes.



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But you can bring it back up

here in the control panel.



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And so, for example, I want to assign



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this path outline a

stroke, and so I'll click



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inside the line weight value there



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and change it to three

points and that will



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automatically give me a black stroke



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as we're seeing in the swatches panel.



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Alright, I'll go ahead

and press the escape key



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to hide that panel, and

I'll press control shift A



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or command shift A on a

Mac, to deselect the path.



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Alright, now I wanna soften

the shading a little bit,



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and I'm gonna do that here

inside the Layers panel,



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by targeting this item called High,



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which represents the highlights.



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You also wanna shift click the meatballs



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for the next two objects down,



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which include this compound shape



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as well as this item called Rear.



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And so, it's very important

that you target the items



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by clicking and shift clicking

on their circular meatballs



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in the right hand column

of the Layers panel.



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Then, go up to the

Effect menu, choose Blur,



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and choose Gaussian Blur.



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And I came up with a radius

value of three pixels,



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you can see what that

looks like by turning on



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the preview checkbox, and as you can see



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it goes ahead and softens

those path outlines



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so that they more closely

resemble custom gradients.



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And so now, I'll click Okay,

in order to apply that change.



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I also figure that it didn't

make sense for the shadow



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to be just a standard ellipse,



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without any grass action in it.



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So, I'll go ahead and click

on that ellipse to select it.



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And then, I'll go up to the Effect menu,



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choose Distort and Transform, and choose



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the Roughen command, and

I'll dial in those same



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values I used a few movies ago.



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I'll go ahead and set

this guy to absolute.



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I want the size to be five points,



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and then I'll take the

detail up to 30 per inch.



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And you can see what that looks like by



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turning on the preview checkbox.



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Notice now we have a little bit of



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wiggling grass in that shadow.



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After which point, I'll click Okay,



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in order to accept that effect,



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and I'll press control shift A,



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or command shift A on a

Mac to deselect my artwork.



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And that's how you mask the

contents of an entire layer



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using the front most static

path outline on that layer



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here inside Illustrator.