- [Voiceover] In this movie, we're back to blending.
And I'm going to show you how to correct for problems
that may occur when creating blends,
using the dedicated blend tool.
And so I'm going to start by pressing Ctrl + -
or Command - on the Mac to zoom out.
And notice these two light blue shapes right here.
There's this guy,
and then there's this one.
So go ahead and select both of them
with the black arrow tool.
And now, imagine that I want to create a sequence
of blue rays across the top of the sky.
Then I'd go up to the object menu,
choose blend,
and choose make.
Or of course you have that keyboard shortcut
of Ctrl + Alt + B
or Command + Option + B on the Mac.
The problem is this didn't work out the way I wanted it to.
And that's because whenever you're blending in illustrator,
you're always trying to pair anchor points.
And so for example,
the top right anchor point in left-hand shape
wants to map to the top right anchor point
in the right hand shape.
However, that is not what's happened in our case.
Very likely it's because I created one of these rays
by reflecting the other one.
And so the direction of one path is backward
with respect to the other.
As a result, it's anyone's guess
how the anchor points are being paired up.
But there is a solution,
which to first press Ctrl + Z
or Command-Z on the Mac
to undo the creation of that blend.
And then drop down to the dedicated blend tool
which look like a square blending into a circle
and then go ahead and click on it
or you've got that keyboard shortcut of W
which is just a leftover letter.
Now notice that if I hover over a path outline,
I'm going to see a little asterisk next to my cursor.
That's telling me I'm beginning the process of blending.
So blending is a two-step process
when working with the blend tool.
You start by clicking on an anchor point.
At first when you hover over the anchor point
you're going to see a little asterisk.
So then click.
And the find the matching anchor point in the other shape.
Hover over it,
At which point you'll see a + sign next to the cursor,
which says you're about to add that shape to the blend
And then click again.
For some reason, that didn't work.
And again, my guess is that this path
is going in the wrong direction.
So I'll press Ctrl + Z or Command-Z on the Mac
to undo that blend
and I'll just try again.
This can require a fair amount of patience
and experimentation.
I'll just go ahead and click on this anchor point
and then I'll click on the inside one
on the other path.
That is to say the top-left point.
And I, again, get the wrong effect.
So I'll just press Ctrl + Z or Command-Z on the Mac.
What gets me about this,
is that I've already tried this in advance,
using this very same file,
and I got the right results right off the bat.
So I'm not sure what kind of sorcerer's magic is up here.
But let's try it the other way.
I'll start at this path this time,
by clicking its top-right point,
and then I'll click the top-right point
in the left hand path.
And this time I get the right effect.
So even if you're working along with me,
you might get a different result.
Just one more thing I want you to know.
I'll go ahead and press Ctrl + Z or Command-Z on the Mac
to undo that successful blend.
I want you to see that in addition to clicking
on an anchor point,
you can also click on a segment.
So for example
I'll click the right hand segment in this right hand shape.
Then I'll click on the right segment in the left shape,
and that also goes ahead and produces a successful blend,
because I'm indicating this time,
what segments should be paired when creating that blend.
Now I'm going to zoom back in.
And I want to change the number of intervals.
Currently, I just have three
but I want more.
So I could go up to the Object menu,
choose blend and choose blend options.
But there's an even easier way to get to this function
when the blend tool is active.
All you have to do is, once again,
when the tool's active,
or after you press the W key,
just go ahead and press the Enter key
or Return key on the Mac,
to bring up the blend options dialogue box.
Then, turn on the preview checkbox.
Change spacing to Specified Steps.
Incidentally, Specified Distance
is for when you know the distance
between each one of your intervals.
In our case it would have to be higher than four points,
unless we want a solid wall of light-blue.
For example,
I could try 40 points
and that's still not doing me any good.
So I'll take this value up to 100 points
in order to create some room between these objects.
But I generally prefer to work with specified steps,
and so I'll go ahead and select that option,
and change that value to seven,
and then click Okay.
Finally, I'll just go ahead and press Ctrl + Shift + A
or Command-Shift-A on the Mac
in order to deselect my artwork.
And that is how you correct for problem blends.
By clicking on each of two paired endpoints
in independent path outlines,
using the blend tool inside Illustrator.