- [Instructor] Alright, so, given that the contour
of the path outline ends up affecting the contour
of the rows and the columns inside the mesh,
it makes sense to take a moment to reshape
the original path outline before
you convert it into a mesh object.
And so what I'd like to do, is release this mesh
and regain my original path.
So what you might figure you could
right click on it and choose some command.
Or, you could go up to the object menu
and find some sub menu and then choose release.
But that's not the way it works.
Another thing you may try is alt or option clicking
on the existing rows and columns.
So if I alt or option click on this mesh point,
I'll get rid of a row and a column,
and then I'll just alt or option click on all these guys,
and you can now see that every single one
of the rows and columns is gone.
However, I still have a mesh object as indicated
on the far left side of the control panel
and that's going to make it very difficult
to reshape this path.
So what I want to do, is release the darn thing
and get access to my original path outline.
Now, the documentation recommends
that you go up to the object menu,
choose Path, and then choose Offset Path.
Which, if you've loaded D keys, has a shortcut
of control+shift+backslash.
That's command+shift+backslash on a Mac.
And, I want you to notice something here.
See how many anchor points we have.
Not really all that many.
A few more than we need,
but notice if I set the offset value to zero points,
which is again what the documentation recommends,
and I turn on the preview checkbox,
I'm going to see anchor points all over the place.
At which point, if I click OK,
I do indeed have a static path outline,
as indicated by the word path up here in the control panel.
The thing you have to bear in mind, however,
is if you press the V key
to switch to the black arrow tool
and then you click off the path
and you click on it again, you'll see the word mesh,
because you still have the original mesh object.
And so, you'd have to get rid of it.
And then select your path and work from there.
But this is a mess.
Which is why I very much recommend
that before you start creating your mesh objects,
you go ahead and duplicate all your base path outlines,
as we did a couple of movies ago.
So I'm just going to get rid of this hood path right there.
And then I'll turn on this paths layer,
and I'll press control+y, or command+y in a Mac,
to switch to the outline mode
so I can see this path right there
and so, I'll click on it.
That is, once again, that original compound shape.
So go ahead and select it,
and then press the alt key,
or the option key on a Mac,
and drag that blue square,
if you're working along with me,
up to the meshes layer
in order to create a copy of it, like so.
And again, that's an alt or option drag.
Then turn off the original paths layer so you don't harm it
and press control+y, or command+y on a Mac,
in order to switch back to the preview mode.
And if you click off the path outline,
you can see we've regained the original hood.
Alright, now I'm going to simplify the path a little bit.
You don't really need this shape cut out of the hood
because, after all, these grill elements
are sitting on the very top layer
and they're covering up the hood.
So, what I'm going to do is go to the window menu
and once again choose the Pathfinder command.
And then, rather than clicking on the expand button,
and by the way, if you're not seeing it,
click off the path and then click on it again.
This time what you want to do
is click on the flyout menu icon
in the top right corner of the panel
and choose Release Compound Shape.
And that will give you two path outlines
and it looks like it's still a compound shape,
but that's just because the grill's in front of it.
And notice if I turn the grill off,
we have two path outlines now.
And so I'll go ahead and shift click
on this hood path right there,
and I'll press the backspace key,
or the delete key on a Mac,
to get rid of that guy that was formerly cut out of it.
Then I'll go ahead and turn the grill, etc., layer back on.
And that's how you regain access
to your original path outline.
Either because you wisely duplicated it
before turning it into a mesh object,
or using the offset path command here inside Illustrator.