- [Instructor] In this movie,
I'll show you how to use the last of the shape tools,
which actually isn't a shape tool at all.
It's this guy right here.
If you click and hold on whatever shape tool
you're seeing inside your toolbox,
then notice down here at the bottom of the toolbox,
it's the Flare tool
and as opposed to drawing a shape
the way the other shape tools do,
this tool draws a ton of lines
and shapes in order to create a special effect.
So, in other words,
it just happens to be grouped with the shape tools.
Still, I want to show you how it works
because it's a fair amount of fun
and we're going to use the tool
to achieve this effect right here,
which gives us a little bit of balance
on the inside of the magnifying glass.
Alright, so if you're still out there working with me,
go ahead and click on the lone star layer to make it active
and then drop down to the tiny page icon
at the bottom of the Layers panel
and alt or option click on it
to bring up the Layer Options dialogue box.
I'm going to call this layer "flare"
and I'm going to change its color to green
and then I'll click OK.
Alright, now what you want to do is drag with this tool
and I'm going to start a little bit down
and to the left of the center of the star,
right about here.
And notice as you drag,
you're just going to create a cacophony of stuff.
So basically, we have a ton of rays
that are coming out from the center of the drag
and then we have this halo,
which is represented by those two rings.
Now, you can change the number of rays,
much as you might expect by now,
by pressing the down arrow key
in order to reduce their number
or pressing the up arrow key
in order to increase their number.
You could also press the control key
or the command key on a Mac as you drag
in order to change the size of that halo.
Can you see how that outer ring
is expanding and contracting?
And that's a function of pressing
and holding the control key or the command key on a Mac
and you can also press the space bar if you like
in order to move this effect on the fly
and you don't really need to worry
about getting it exactly right
because you can always come back
and change it later, as I'm about to show you.
Alright, after you do that,
you can click and drag a second time
to create these rings
that are emanating from the flare effect.
Alright, now let's say you want to edit
this wacky effect you've created.
You have one of two options.
Notice your cursor, if you look very carefully,
appears as a kind of cross with some dots around it.
If you move your cursor over the
center of that ring right there,
those lines in the cross,
they become tiny, itty bitty arrows,
which allow you to then move the rings
to a different location.
I know right?
And then, you can do the same thing
at the center of the effect over here near the star.
And you can drag that to wherever you like.
Not only that, if that's not enough for you,
then I'll just go ahead and move this down a little.
You also have the option of pressing the enter key,
as long as the Flare tool is active,
that's the return key on a Mac,
in order to bring up the Flare Options dialogue box.
Now I'm not going to wander through each
and every one of these,
but I do want you to have a sense for what's going on here.
If you change the diameter value,
you're going to increase the size of this halo.
So notice, if I take it up to 400 points, for example,
I'm increasing the halo
so that it's exceeding the edge of the glass,
which is, of course, not what I want,
so I'll just go ahead
and take that back down to, let's say 300.
You can also experiment with
these other center values if you'd like.
The growth value here inside the halo
is going to expand how big the halo gets,
that is, the region between these two circles right here.
I'm going to go ahead and take it down a little bit
so that we have this kind of edge right there.
And you can also change the number of rays, if you'd like.
I think I might be up to the maximum at 50 right there.
Yes, indeed I am.
But I kind of like that effect.
You can turn the rays off if you don't want them, like so,
or you can turn the rings off, which is what I'm going to do.
I really don't want the rings associated with this effect
and so, having done that,
I'll just go ahead and click OK
in order to apply that effect
and I might move this guy up
into the right just a little bit
in order to better fill the magnifying glass.
Alright, now if you deselect this effect
by going up to the Select menu
and choosing the Deselect command
or once again you can press Ctrl + Shift + A
or Cmd + Shift + A on a Mac.
You'll see that it's kind of leaking out down here
along the bottom left edge of the magnifying glass,
which doesn't really make any sense,
but you can mask that effect.
And again, this is getting a little ahead of ourselves,
but I think we should do it,
if only in the name of creating quality art.
So what I'm going to do here
is I'm going to go over to the lone star layer
and notice that it has a triangle next to it,
which means that you can click the triangle
to expand the layer,
at which point I'm going to go ahead
and target right there by clicking on the circle
associated with that red circle
that's located behind the white star.
Now, you want to press Ctrl + C
or Cmd + C on a mac to copy it.
Alright, having done that,
just go ahead and collapse that lone star layer
and then expand the flare layer, like so,
and go ahead and target the flare
by clicking on its circle
and that's going to select all that garbage,
as you're seeing right there,
at which point you want to press Ctrl + F,
or Cmd + F on a Mac,
in order to paste that circle in front of it.
Alright, now what you want to do
is drop down to the bottom of the Layers panel once again
and notice this icon right there,
Make/Release Clipping Mask.
Just go ahead and click on it.
And that will convert that circle
that you just pasted to a mask
and now everything about that flare
is contained inside that circle
and no longer leaks into the blue star background,
at which point you can go ahead
and click that triangle in front of the flare layer
to once again collapse it.
And now I'll press Ctrl + Shift + A,
,or Cmd + Shift + A on a Mac, to deselect my artwork
and just to make sure I don't mess things up
any further using the Flare tool,
I'll press the "V" key
to switch back to my black arrow tool.
And that's how you use the Flare tool,
the one shape tool that's actually a special effects tool
here inside Illustrator.