- [Instructor] Alright, before we get
to the actual chapters,
I wanna squeeze in a movie here in order to show you
one of the most exciting new features inside Illustrator,
and that is Puppet Warp.
Now, Puppet Warp allows you to apply
freeform distortions just by creating and dragging pins.
It first appeared as a motion feature inside After Effects.
It's also available in Photoshop as a command.
Inside Illustrator, it's available as a tool.
And so the first thing you wanna do
is select a path outline.
And so I'll just go ahead and click on this guy,
which is actually one big compound path,
as witnessed by the words "compound path"
over here on the far left side of the control panel.
And it comes to us from the Dreamstime image library,
about which you can learn more and get some great deals
and dreamstime.com/deke.php,
and they've got tons of vectors available
both as EPS and .ai files,
sometimes complete with dynamic effects,
meaning that you can easily grab those vectors
and integrate them into your own artwork.
Alright, now I'll go ahead and switch
to my Puppet Warp tool, which looks like a pushpin,
and notice that my anchor points disappear,
so that I can better focus on what I'm doing.
Now, you may see a little bit of animation
as well as some advice,
including the notion that you need three or more pins
to get good results.
Which isn't necessarily true,
so let me show you what's going on here.
I'm gonna click to set a pin right here at this elbow.
And notice when I do, I've got a pin, of course,
but I'm also seeing this mesh of gray triangles,
which shows me the area of the object
that's being affected at any given moment in time,
and it also shows me the degree of detail that's at work.
Now, if I were to drag this lone pin around,
I would move the entire object.
So I'm not applying any distortion
until I set a second pin,
which I will set at this other elbow.
And now notice if I drag this pin,
the other one remains stationary
and everything else distorts.
So we're seeing a little bit of distortion
over here in the left-hand wing.
We're seeing a little bit in the right-hand wing as well,
but most of the distortion is occurring
between the two pins.
And so if you wanna lock down the details,
such as the shoulders,
then just go ahead and lay down a couple of pins.
And now notice if I drag this wing around
that the rest of the skeleton is more stationary
at least than it was before.
And so now I might put a pin down here at the hips,
and that way I can make this guy dance back and forth
as we're seeing here.
Another option is to move your cursor
out slightly from the pin,
while keeping it inside of this dotted circle.
At which point, notice you get a little rotate cursor.
And so if I were to drag, I would rotate, in this case,
the ribs and the legs around that pin.
And now I can just go ahead and set some more pins
in order to move this leg out
and move this leg out as well.
So just bear in mind that you're using the pins
not only to move certain portions of a path outline,
but to keep other areas stationary as well.
And so I'll go ahead and set one guy here,
and then I could rotate this hand up and down if I want.
I could do the same with this hand if I like.
I could even stretch the skull.
I'll go ahead and set one pin here and another here,
and now notice that I can drag these guys outward
in order to stretch the face.
Also notice if I set another pin up here at the top
that I immediately apply a little bit of distortion.
So keep an eye out for that as well.
Alright, let's take a look at what happens
when you're working with multiple path outlines.
I'll go ahead and press Shift + PgDn
in order to advance to the next art board.
And I'll switch back to the black arrow tool,
which I can get by pressing the V key.
And I'll click on this central fish path.
Notice that it exists independently of the fins.
So I'll go ahead and put it back where it was,
and I'll Shift + Click on the fins like so.
So we have a total of three path outlines in all.
And now I'll switch back to the Puppet Warp tool,
at which point my anchor points disappear,
and that's just so you can better see what's going on.
And now I'll go ahead and set a pin right here in his face,
one over here in the spine, and one in the tail as well.
And now if I were to drag the face pin,
notice that the spine is moving back and forth.
It's deforming, that is to say, down and then upward.
The tail is moving a little bit as well,
but the fins are remaining stationary.
And that's because, notice if I undo that change,
that the triangular mesh right here
is not extending from the skeleton
up into or down into the fins.
And so what you need to do in that case,
if you want everything to move together,
is to increase the expand mesh value.
And I'm just gonna go ahead
and take that value up to 20, let's say.
And now if I were to drag the face up and down,
I would move the fins along with everything else.
And so now I'll just go ahead and move the spine down,
and I'll take the tail up.
And you can use Puppet Warp in order to add
a little bit of expression.
And so I'll go ahead and set a pin right there
at the top of the eye,
and I'll drag it down in order to make that eye angrier.
I'll go ahead and create a pin in the nose and lift it up,
and I'll create another pin down here at the chin
and move it downward in order to open up that jaw.
And then, as soon as I switch back to the black arrow tool,
you can see the effect applied.
Alright, now we're gonna move on
to a very complicated piece of artwork.
This skull right here, once again,
comes to us from Dreamstime.
And so notice if I click on this path
that we actually have a ton
of different path outlines going on.
And so you could try to select them all
and then make sure that they bend together,
once again using that expand mesh value.
But in this case, you're better off just combining
all of the path outlines
by first selecting them all.
Which you can do, where this document is concerned,
by clicking in the top-left corner
of this big skull layer here inside the layers panel.
Notice that it goes ahead and selects all those paths.
And then you can either group them together,
or in my case I could combine them
into a single compound path.
Alright, now I'll go ahead and once again
switch to my Puppet Warp tool,
and I'll go ahead and lay down some pins.
Now, because this is a much more complicated object,
it is gonna work a little more slowly as well.
And so I'll create some pins over here
at the top of the skull,
and I might create another one down here at the snout.
Alright, now what I wanna do
is I wanna move the horns outward.
And you can see what I mean,
because this object is so complicated,
things are happening a little more slowly.
And so really what's up is that Illustrator
takes a moment to catch up with me.
And so I'll go ahead and drag this guy upward like so.
And everything's working pretty hunky dory so far,
but notice what happens if I drag on this left horn.
I not only move out this pin
and drag the horn along with it,
but things become even more evident
if I move this guy out.
Notice that I end up stretching the eye,
which is not what I want.
So I'll go ahead and undo
those last couple of modifications
by pressing Ctrl + Z or Command + Z on the Mac
a couple of times.
The problem here is once again the mesh.
So pay attention to how it's formed.
Notice that the mesh from the eye
is getting caught on the horn.
So what you wanna do is take this expand mesh value down.
So it's a contract mesh value in my case.
I wanna take it down to zero,
but actually the lowest you can go is one.
Alright, now I'll just go ahead and zoom out once again,
and I will drag this horn like so.
And notice that I do not end up affecting the eye,
even if I drag this portion as well.
Then I'm gonna go ahead and drag this guy
up and to the left.
And one more thing I should note.
If you decide you don't want a pin anymore,
then just go ahead and click on it to select it,
and then press the Backspace key here on the PC.
That would be the Delete key on a Mac.
And that'll go ahead and get rid of that specific pin.
In my case, I wanna keep it, however,
so I'll just go ahead and press Ctrl + Z,
or Command + Z on the Mac, to undo that deletion.
Then I'll press the V key to switch back
to my black arrow tool,
and I'll click off that very complicated
compound path to deselect it.
And that's how you tale advantage of the new
and, I believe, terribly exciting Puppet Warp tool
here inside the most recent version of Illustrator CC.