- [Deke] In this movie, we're going to add some colors
to our mesh points
and I'll also show you how to sharpen
and smooth color transitions inside
of a Gradient Mesh object.
Now, we're going to be changing the colors
of an awful lot of mesh points here,
which is why I've created this diagram
here inside Photoshop,
just the easiest way to work,
and so any place where you see a one,
that means that the mesh point is colored with Blue 1,
as is already the case, by the way,
because the original path outline was filled
with that color.
Two indicates Blue 2, three is Blue 3,
four is the Bright Blue 4,
and then W, the three Ws that appear
inside this diagram are White,
and so I'm just providing this in case you need
to come back to it.
So, I'll go ahead and switch back to Illustrator here,
and I'm going to zoom out just a little bit
so I can better see what I'm doing.
And I'll press the A key to switch
to the White Arrow tool
because that'll allow me to select multiple points,
and I'll click on this guy
and I'll Shift+click on this one
and then I'll also Shift+click on this guy,
which is in the next row up,
and I'll Shift+click on the points
along this row line right here,
so I'll select this guy as well.
So, that's clicking and Shift+clicking
with the White Arrow tool,
it's not going to work with a Mesh tool.
Then, make sure your Fill is selected here
inside the Swatches panel
and go ahead and select Blue 2.
And if you want to get a sense for what that looks like,
you can press Ctrl+h, or Command+h on a Mac,
in order to hide those selection edges,
at which point, I can see that as usual I've lost my Stroke.
And so here, inside the Appearance panel,
which of course you can get by going to the Window menu
and choosing the Appearance command,
I'm going to select that entire object
by double-clicking on it, but that doesn't work,
so I'm going to press Ctrl+h or Command+h again
in order to bring back my selection edges.
I'll press the V key to switch
to my Black Arrow tool
and I'll click anywhere on the path outline
to select the whole thing,
at which point we see the word Mesh,
which is what I want.
Then I'll go ahead and drop down
to the Add New Stroke icon in the bottom left corner
of the panel.
It's set to one point by default, which is great,
color's a weak Black,
I want it to be a nice, rich, arch B Black.
And now you can see,
if I press Ctrl+h, or Command+h on a Mac,
that I have indeed restored that Stroke.
I'll press Ctrl+h, or Command+h on a Mac,
in order to bring back my selection edges
so I can see what I'm doing
and then I'll zoom way in here
and I'll press the A key to switch
to my White Arrow tool.
I'll select this point right there,
not the bottom right point but the one above it,
and I'll select a Fill once again in the Swatches panel,
and I'll change it to Blue 2
and then I'll select the point above it right there,
and I'll change it to Blue 3.
And this is all subjective, by the way,
I just came up with these colors through trial and error.
And now I'll select this mesh point right there,
which is two rows up from where I was before,
so counting from the bottom right point,
it's one, two, three, four points upward,
and I'll change it to White
in order to create this very bright transition.
Now, I want it to be sharper as well,
so notice right now, it's pretty smooth,
that is, this transition between
what is ultimately Blue 1 right here.
I'll go ahead and select Blue 1 and White.
What I want is a sharper transition
and so I'm going to select this point right there,
the White point, and I'm going to drag its control handle
downward until I move it past the control handle
for the point below.
And any time you do that,
you're going to get a sharper transition
as we're seeing right here.
Now, you need to be careful
because you don't want to modify the actual path outline,
so just make sure you're dragging in the proper direction.
All right, now we want to select this guy right here
and notice that his control handle comes out too far
so I'm going to drag it back, like so,
and you also want to Shift+click on this mesh point
and change them both to Blue 3
in order to add a little bounce of brightness there.
And now, I'll select these two points,
the two in the top row,
where they intersect with the first
and second columns right here,
reading from the right to the left,
and I'll change them to White
so we get this big blast of highlight.
All right, now I want to select these two mesh points
and I will change them to Blue 4
in order to add some more highlight
to the top of that hood.
And then, I'll go ahead and click
and Shift+click on these guys,
actually I can Shift+drag around these two,
and that's only going to work, by the way,
if you've turned on that Object Selection
by Path Outline Only checkbox
in the Preferences dialogue box,
and then, with all those points selected,
I'll switch to Blue 2
in order to add some additional brightness
as we're seeing here.
All right, now I want this guy to be Blue 3,
so I'll select and switch it to Blue 3, like so.
I want this one to be Blue 2
and I want this guy to be Blue 2 as well,
so I'll select this one and this one,
and then I'll go ahead and select Blue 2
here inside the Swatches panel,
then I'll select this guy right here.
I want to brighten him up by changing him to Blue 4,
that's going to give us a very nice highlight,
and now I'm just going to check what I've got here.
This should be Blue 2, and it is,
this should be Blue 3, so I'll select it
and change it to Blue 3, like so,
and I also want this guy to be Blue 3,
so I'll select him and click Blue 3 here
inside the Swatches panel
and then I'll go ahead and select this guy,
I think this is the last one,
and I'll change it to Blue 2.
So, just remember, Blue 1 is the darkest one
over here on the left side of the group
and Blue 4 is the brightest one
over here in the right-hand side.
Now let's say I want to sharpen some
of these transitions once again
and I want the sharpening to appear right along here.
So, I'll go ahead and click on this anchor point
and I'll drag it's control handle past the one above it
and I'll do the same for this guy,
drag it up and past,
and I'll go ahead and select this guy
and drag him up and past,
and notice how that sharpens that highlight right there.
And you can make it even sharper if you want to
by dragging this control handle down.
So, the more that the two control handles
overlap each other,
the more of a sharp transition you'll get.
And I'm going to move this guy over just a little bit
and I'll drag this one down, too,
so that we get a sharp transition all the way over
to this edge right here.
And so, I'll go ahead and select this point
and I really want to drag, I think I need to zoom in
so I can tell what I'm doing,
I really want to drag, I think, this guy down.
Is that what I want?
So, I'll go ahead and try it and see what happens,
and sure enough, that sharpens things up pretty nicely there
and then I'll just drag this guy up a little more
so that we have some nice, sharp highlights.
All right, now I'll press Ctrl+h, or Command+h on a Mac,
in order to hide the selection edges.
Over here we have the opposite problem.
We've got too much sharpness going on,
and if you encounter that problem,
press Ctrl+h, or Command+h on a Mac,
in order to bring back your selection edges
and then you want to select this point right there,
press the U key to switch to the Gradient Mesh tool,
and now, drag this point while pressing
the Shift key upward, like so,
in order to create a little more distance
between the two points,
and I'll drag that control handle down.
And so, the closer the control handles come together,
the sharper the transitions.
The more you spread them apart,
the softer the transitions.
And so, I'll go ahead and Shift+drag this guy
up a little bit
and that should work out nicely, I think.
If I press Ctrl+h, or Command+h on a Mac,
I can see that I still have a very sharp edge there,
so I'll press Ctrl+h, or Command+h on a Mac,
to bring back my points
so that I can see them, at any rate,
and I'll go ahead and try to drag this point down.
But I didn't get it,
so I'll just press Ctrl+z, or Command+z on a Mac,
in case I made a mess of things
because I'm using the Mesh tool, after all.
And I'll drag this mesh point
and I'm still not getting the effect I want,
so I'll go ahead and zoom farther in
and I'll grab this guy right here
and I'll press the Shift key
in order to constrain the point along this path outline.
It's not working very well though,
but I did make a little bit of progress, I guess,
and now I'll take this control handle and drag it down,
and I'll go ahead and grab this point right there
and I'll drag its control handle down as well,
and I'll press Ctrl+h, or Command+h on a Mac,
in order to hide the selection edges.
And that is looking pretty good to me,
and so, I'll press Ctrl+h, or Command+h,
to bring back the edges.
I'll press the V key to switch back
to the Black Arrow tool
and I'll click off the path outline to deselect it.
And that's how you add some shine, shading,
and color to your complex Gradient Mesh
as well as how you sharpen
and smooth color transitions
between your colorful mesh points.