1 00:00:00.05 --> 00:00:02.01 - [Voiceover] Alright, our first project is going 2 00:00:02.01 --> 00:00:04.03 to be to create this cube of cubes, 3 00:00:04.03 --> 00:00:05.08 and in case you saw me do this 4 00:00:05.08 --> 00:00:09.00 back in Deke's Techniques 241 and 242 5 00:00:09.00 --> 00:00:11.07 which came out in the year 2013, 6 00:00:11.07 --> 00:00:13.08 you should know that I've updated the technique 7 00:00:13.08 --> 00:00:16.04 and I've streamlined it to make it easier to pull off. 8 00:00:16.04 --> 00:00:17.05 Now, we're going to start things off 9 00:00:17.05 --> 00:00:19.08 by creating this first orthogonal cube 10 00:00:19.08 --> 00:00:21.04 right here in the center. 11 00:00:21.04 --> 00:00:22.09 And, I think this is the kind of skill 12 00:00:22.09 --> 00:00:25.02 that every Illustrator user should have 13 00:00:25.02 --> 00:00:28.02 because it doesn't actually rely on skewing 14 00:00:28.02 --> 00:00:30.05 or slanting or anything like that. 15 00:00:30.05 --> 00:00:32.02 Rather, you're best off drawing it 16 00:00:32.02 --> 00:00:34.03 using the plain old line tool. 17 00:00:34.03 --> 00:00:36.02 And so, I'm going to be creating this effect from scratch 18 00:00:36.02 --> 00:00:39.01 by going up to the File Menu and choosing New from Template 19 00:00:39.01 --> 00:00:40.08 or you can press Control + Shift + N 20 00:00:40.08 --> 00:00:42.08 or Command + Shift + N on the Mac 21 00:00:42.08 --> 00:00:44.08 and then I'll locate that center guides document 22 00:00:44.08 --> 00:00:47.06 and double-click on it in order to create a new file. 23 00:00:47.06 --> 00:00:49.00 And, I'm going to start off 24 00:00:49.00 --> 00:00:51.05 by renaming this drawing layer Primitive 25 00:00:51.05 --> 00:00:54.01 because will be our first primitive side. 26 00:00:54.01 --> 00:00:56.03 Alright, now you want to select the Line Segment tool 27 00:00:56.03 --> 00:00:59.01 which you can get from the Line Tool fly-out menu, 28 00:00:59.01 --> 00:01:00.08 and then, we want to click at the intersection 29 00:01:00.08 --> 00:01:01.09 of these two guidelines 30 00:01:01.09 --> 00:01:03.09 but in order to pull that off effectively 31 00:01:03.09 --> 00:01:05.09 I need for my Smart Guides to be turned on. 32 00:01:05.09 --> 00:01:08.08 So I'll go to the View Menu and choose Smart Guides 33 00:01:08.08 --> 00:01:10.07 and then, I'll click right there at the intersection 34 00:01:10.07 --> 00:01:13.05 of those two guides to bring up this dialog box 35 00:01:13.05 --> 00:01:16.04 and I'll change the length value to 60 points 36 00:01:16.04 --> 00:01:18.02 and I want the angle to be straight down 37 00:01:18.02 --> 00:01:19.07 which is negative 90 degrees, 38 00:01:19.07 --> 00:01:22.00 but you can't enter -90 into this dialog box, 39 00:01:22.00 --> 00:01:27.02 so instead I'll enter 360-90 which gives me 270 degrees 40 00:01:27.02 --> 00:01:29.01 and I'll click OK. 41 00:01:29.01 --> 00:01:31.02 Alright, I'm zoomed out a little bit too far here 42 00:01:31.02 --> 00:01:33.05 so I'm going to zoom in a little bit 43 00:01:33.05 --> 00:01:35.08 and then, I'll go up to the Effect Menu, 44 00:01:35.08 --> 00:01:37.06 choose Distort and Transform 45 00:01:37.06 --> 00:01:39.03 and choose the Transform command 46 00:01:39.03 --> 00:01:43.07 in order to bring up the big Transform Effect dialog box. 47 00:01:43.07 --> 00:01:45.05 And, I want to rotate this guy 48 00:01:45.05 --> 00:01:47.09 360 degrees divided by three 49 00:01:47.09 --> 00:01:50.00 because there's going to be a total of three sides 50 00:01:50.00 --> 00:01:52.00 and that gives me 120 degrees 51 00:01:52.00 --> 00:01:53.06 but if I turn on the Preview check box 52 00:01:53.06 --> 00:01:57.02 you can see that it's rotating from the wrong point. 53 00:01:57.02 --> 00:01:58.00 And so, to fix things, 54 00:01:58.00 --> 00:01:59.02 go ahead and click on the top-left point 55 00:01:59.02 --> 00:02:01.05 in that little reference point matrix right there 56 00:02:01.05 --> 00:02:04.06 and you'll end up rotating this guy like so. 57 00:02:04.06 --> 00:02:06.05 Then, click inside the Copies field 58 00:02:06.05 --> 00:02:10.01 and press the Up-Arrow key to create one and only one copy. 59 00:02:10.01 --> 00:02:11.07 Then, click OK. 60 00:02:11.07 --> 00:02:13.05 Alright, now we want to create the opposite edges 61 00:02:13.05 --> 00:02:15.02 of this first side 62 00:02:15.02 --> 00:02:17.05 and to do that, go up to the Effect Menu 63 00:02:17.05 --> 00:02:20.02 and choose the second instance of Transform, 64 00:02:20.02 --> 00:02:22.02 the one that ends in dot dot dot, 65 00:02:22.02 --> 00:02:24.01 and what that's going to do is bring up the dialog box 66 00:02:24.01 --> 00:02:25.07 complete with our last settings, 67 00:02:25.07 --> 00:02:26.07 but before that happens 68 00:02:26.07 --> 00:02:28.01 Illustrator's probably going to ask you 69 00:02:28.01 --> 00:02:29.06 if you really want to assign 70 00:02:29.06 --> 00:02:31.05 another instance of the same effect 71 00:02:31.05 --> 00:02:32.07 and the answer is yes, you do. 72 00:02:32.07 --> 00:02:35.00 So go ahead and click on the Apply New Effect button 73 00:02:35.00 --> 00:02:37.09 and then return the Rotate value to zero 74 00:02:37.09 --> 00:02:40.00 and go ahead and turn on the Reflect X 75 00:02:40.00 --> 00:02:42.08 and Reflect Y check-boxes, both of those guys, 76 00:02:42.08 --> 00:02:45.01 and then turn on the Preview check-box 77 00:02:45.01 --> 00:02:47.07 and you'll get more of less the sides you're looking for 78 00:02:47.07 --> 00:02:49.05 but they're in totally the wrong location. 79 00:02:49.05 --> 00:02:51.05 To get them more or less in the right place, 80 00:02:51.05 --> 00:02:53.01 go ahead and click in the center 81 00:02:53.01 --> 00:02:54.07 of the reference point matrix 82 00:02:54.07 --> 00:02:57.02 and I say more or less because you can see 83 00:02:57.02 --> 00:02:59.02 that things are off right here. 84 00:02:59.02 --> 00:03:01.09 Notice how these guys don't quite line up with each other? 85 00:03:01.09 --> 00:03:04.02 And that's because the Transform Effect 86 00:03:04.02 --> 00:03:07.02 is always basing its result off of the appearance 87 00:03:07.02 --> 00:03:08.09 of the selected objects 88 00:03:08.09 --> 00:03:11.00 and in this case the thickness of the strokes 89 00:03:11.00 --> 00:03:12.06 are throwing things off. 90 00:03:12.06 --> 00:03:14.00 And so, you could scooch things around 91 00:03:14.00 --> 00:03:15.07 using the Move options here 92 00:03:15.07 --> 00:03:17.06 but you'd have to do some rather intense math 93 00:03:17.06 --> 00:03:19.01 in order to get the right results. 94 00:03:19.01 --> 00:03:21.03 So, the best thing to do is to just click OK 95 00:03:21.03 --> 00:03:22.06 and accept the fact 96 00:03:22.06 --> 00:03:24.02 that things aren't quite as they should be 97 00:03:24.02 --> 00:03:26.07 and then, go over here to the Layers panel, 98 00:03:26.07 --> 00:03:28.03 click on the flyout-menu icon 99 00:03:28.03 --> 00:03:30.01 and choose Duplicate Primitive 100 00:03:30.01 --> 00:03:31.04 in order to make a copy of it 101 00:03:31.04 --> 00:03:33.05 and then, turn the original off 102 00:03:33.05 --> 00:03:35.07 and go ahead and double-click in an empty portion 103 00:03:35.07 --> 00:03:37.00 of this new layer 104 00:03:37.00 --> 00:03:38.08 and let's name this guy Cubes 105 00:03:38.08 --> 00:03:41.00 plural, because eventually we'll have multiple cubes, 106 00:03:41.00 --> 00:03:44.03 and then change the color to gold, let's say, 107 00:03:44.03 --> 00:03:46.03 and then click OK. 108 00:03:46.03 --> 00:03:48.07 Alright, now we need to get the stroke out of the equation 109 00:03:48.07 --> 00:03:51.03 and you do that by clicking on the Stroke swatch right there 110 00:03:51.03 --> 00:03:53.00 and setting it to None. 111 00:03:53.00 --> 00:03:55.01 Now that goes ahead and gets rid of our problems 112 00:03:55.01 --> 00:03:57.01 but it also gets rid of the effect, as you can see, 113 00:03:57.01 --> 00:03:59.00 because Illustrator doesn't really have 114 00:03:59.00 --> 00:04:01.03 anything to hang the effect on at this point. 115 00:04:01.03 --> 00:04:04.06 And so what we need to do is give this thing a fill 116 00:04:04.06 --> 00:04:05.08 which doesn't really make any sense 117 00:04:05.08 --> 00:04:08.04 because, after all, it's a single segment open path 118 00:04:08.04 --> 00:04:11.07 but go ahead and do it by clicking in that first swatch 119 00:04:11.07 --> 00:04:13.00 on the left side of the control panel 120 00:04:13.00 --> 00:04:15.05 and let's just go ahead and set it to Black. 121 00:04:15.05 --> 00:04:18.04 It won't look any different than it did before 122 00:04:18.04 --> 00:04:20.07 but you can see it here inside the thumbnail 123 00:04:20.07 --> 00:04:23.01 in the Layers panel, so it must be there. 124 00:04:23.01 --> 00:04:26.07 And now, to render out that side, go up to the Object Menu 125 00:04:26.07 --> 00:04:30.04 and choose this command right here Expand Appearance 126 00:04:30.04 --> 00:04:32.08 and you should know that Expand is Illustrator's term 127 00:04:32.08 --> 00:04:35.00 for basically taking something dynamic 128 00:04:35.00 --> 00:04:36.05 and making it static. 129 00:04:36.05 --> 00:04:38.05 And so, I'll go ahead and choose Expand Appearance 130 00:04:38.05 --> 00:04:41.05 and you can see that we now have four segments 131 00:04:41.05 --> 00:04:43.00 just as we need 132 00:04:43.00 --> 00:04:45.00 after which point we need to join them together, 133 00:04:45.00 --> 00:04:47.09 because they're currently four independent segments, 134 00:04:47.09 --> 00:04:49.03 by going up to the Object Menu, 135 00:04:49.03 --> 00:04:51.03 choosing Path and choosing Join 136 00:04:51.03 --> 00:04:52.09 or of course you can just press 137 00:04:52.09 --> 00:04:54.02 that ages-old keyboard shortcut 138 00:04:54.02 --> 00:04:57.07 of Control + J here on the PC or Command + J on the Mac 139 00:04:57.07 --> 00:05:00.02 and that goes ahead and gives us a filled shape. 140 00:05:00.02 --> 00:05:02.00 And if you want to confirm that everything is joined 141 00:05:02.00 --> 00:05:04.01 the way it should be, then just press the A key 142 00:05:04.01 --> 00:05:05.09 to switch to the white arrow tool 143 00:05:05.09 --> 00:05:07.07 and click on any old anchor point 144 00:05:07.07 --> 00:05:09.08 and just drag it around and you'll see 145 00:05:09.08 --> 00:05:13.09 that the points are fused together just as they ought to be. 146 00:05:13.09 --> 00:05:15.05 Alright, so I'll just go ahead and press 147 00:05:15.05 --> 00:05:17.01 Control + Z or Command + Z on the Mac 148 00:05:17.01 --> 00:05:20.00 a couple of times in order to restore that filled shape. 149 00:05:20.00 --> 00:05:22.02 And that is how you create the first side 150 00:05:22.02 --> 00:05:24.04 in what will be an orthogonal cube 151 00:05:24.04 --> 00:05:28.03 by applying and then expanding a dynamic Transform Effect 152 00:05:28.03 --> 00:05:30.03 here inside Illustrator.