- In this movie, I'll share with you
a few curvature tool curiousities.
First of all, I'll show you how to extend
an open path outline.
I'll show you how to delete and convert points.
We'll see how to interrupt and thereby open
a closed path outline, that one's really interesting,
and also show you how to constrain the angle of a segment.
So, first starters here, notice that
I have the black arrow tool active.
Let's say I go ahead and click in the spiral,
in order to select it.
The second I switch to the curvature tool,
which you could get once again by pressing shift tilde,
it leaps upon this path outline.
It's just gung-ho to extend it,
starting from the last point that you created,
which means if I click over here,
that I'm going to add more points to that spiral
from the inside out.
That's not what I want, so I'll press ctrl+z
or cmd+z on a Mac to undo those changes.
If what you want to do is extend
the spiral from the outside,
then you need to press the esc key
to get rid of that rubber band line right there,
and then you want to click on that outside endpoint
and then continue clicking to add points.
Now let's say that you want to delete a point.
For example, I want to get rid of this point right there.
Then, just go ahead and click on it to select it
and then press the backspace key
or the delete key on the Mac to remove it
and draw a new segment between the remaining points.
If you press backspace or delete again,
you're going to get rid of the entire path outline.
That's not what I want
so I'll just go ahead and press ctrl+z or cmd+z on the Mac
to bring that path back and you can see
the curvature tool is already on it.
It's ready to add points from the center out again.
That's not what I want.
So I'll press the esc key
in order to get rid of that rubber band.
And then I'll click on this point to select it
and I'll press the backspace key
or the delete key on the Mac to get rid of it.
All right, now let's you want to convert a point
from corner to smooth or smooth to corner.
Then, I'll go ahead and click on this path outline
right here to select it.
And notice, for whatever reason,
if I drag this top point down,
it was actually a corner point just a moment ago,
but as soon as I start dragging it with a curvature tool,
Illustrator converts it to a smooth point
and that is just sometimes
what the curvature tool is going to do.
It's going to automatically convert
and invent points for you,
depending on its interpretation of a path outline.
If you want to convert this guy back to a corner point,
then you can double click on it, like so.
And I could do the same thing to this point, for example.
I could double click on it to covert it to a corner point.
If you want to convert a corner point to a smooth point,
you just double click once again.
And I want you to notice the difference
between smooth points and corner points.
They actually appear differently.
You'll have to look very closely at the video here.
The smooth points appear as hollow circles.
The corner points appear as hollow circles
with dots inside of them.
Another way to convert points is to
alt or option click on them.
So, if I alt or option click on this guy,
he goes from being a smooth point to a corner point.
And, if I click on a different point,
you can see now that he has a dot inside of him.
If I want to convert him back to a smooth point,
then I would alt or option click on him again.
Now, here's one of the most interesting things.
It's a little bit of a gotcha, might even be a bug,
I'm not sure, but you can have fun with it.
When you have a closed path outline selected
and you click on the end point of an open path,
that's going to open up the closed path outline
and fuse things together.
Now, depending on the position of the points,
you may end up with this effect here,
where you have a new closed path outline
that includes a spiral.
I'll go ahead and press ctrl+z or cmd+z on the Mac
to undo that and I'll grab the stop point right there
and drag it upward a little bit.
And now, I'll click on that end point again
and this time it just opens up the entire path outline,
so it's all going to depend on where the points are
in the first place.
All right, here's another one.
If you want to constrain the angle of your cursor
with respect to the active point,
then you can press the shift key and notice,
with the shift key down, you're going to move your cursor
at some multiple of 45 degrees.
And finally, if I go ahead and double click on this point,
this end point here to convert it to a corner point.
And then, I shift click with my cursor.
Then, I'm going to create a straight segment
at an angle that's a multiple of 45 degrees.
In my case, of course, horizontal.
And then finally, I'll deactivate the path
by pressing the esc key and that will make
that rubber band connection go away.
And then I'll press ctrl+shift+a or cmd+shift+a on the Mac
in order to deselect my path outline.
And so, in other words, there's a ton
you can do with the curvature tool,
some of which is predictable and some of which is not.