1 00:00:00.04 --> 00:00:01.09 - [Deke] In this movie, I'll show you how 2 00:00:01.09 --> 00:00:03.05 to create Gradient Type 3 00:00:03.05 --> 00:00:06.04 and I'll also show you how to assign a Dynamic Stroke 4 00:00:06.04 --> 00:00:08.08 that you can move behind the Fill. 5 00:00:08.08 --> 00:00:10.07 Now, both of these operations are fairly 6 00:00:10.07 --> 00:00:13.01 straight-forward once you know how, 7 00:00:13.01 --> 00:00:16.03 but until then, they seem nigh on impossible. 8 00:00:16.03 --> 00:00:17.09 And to demonstrate what I'm talking about, 9 00:00:17.09 --> 00:00:20.02 I'll go ahead and switch over to this document, 10 00:00:20.02 --> 00:00:22.01 and I'll click on my point text 11 00:00:22.01 --> 00:00:24.06 with the Black Arrow tool to select it. 12 00:00:24.06 --> 00:00:26.00 And notice up here on the far-left side 13 00:00:26.00 --> 00:00:27.05 of the Control panel, 14 00:00:27.05 --> 00:00:29.05 that the text has an orange Fill, 15 00:00:29.05 --> 00:00:31.04 currently has no Stroke, however, 16 00:00:31.04 --> 00:00:35.00 so I'm going to dial in a Line Width value of 12 points 17 00:00:35.00 --> 00:00:37.07 and I'm going to change that Stroke to white. 18 00:00:37.07 --> 00:00:39.02 Now let's say I want to get rid 19 00:00:39.02 --> 00:00:41.08 of these harsh corners around the Strokes, 20 00:00:41.08 --> 00:00:43.09 then I would click on the word Stroke 21 00:00:43.09 --> 00:00:47.06 and I would switch the Corner setting to Round Join. 22 00:00:47.06 --> 00:00:48.08 Now, I also want you to notice 23 00:00:48.08 --> 00:00:50.07 that the Strokes are currently centered 24 00:00:50.07 --> 00:00:53.02 around the outlines of the letter forms, 25 00:00:53.02 --> 00:00:56.04 meaning that the Strokes are encroaching on the letters. 26 00:00:56.04 --> 00:00:58.09 So, let's say I want to move the Strokes outside. 27 00:00:58.09 --> 00:01:01.01 Well, one way, normally to work, 28 00:01:01.01 --> 00:01:03.07 would be to change this Align Stroke setting 29 00:01:03.07 --> 00:01:06.01 to Align Stroke to Outside, 30 00:01:06.01 --> 00:01:08.07 but the thing is, this option is not functional 31 00:01:08.07 --> 00:01:10.02 when you're working with Type. 32 00:01:10.02 --> 00:01:12.02 So, instead, I need to move the Stroke 33 00:01:12.02 --> 00:01:13.08 in back of the Fill. 34 00:01:13.08 --> 00:01:15.04 And so, normally, I would do that 35 00:01:15.04 --> 00:01:16.07 by going to the Window menu 36 00:01:16.07 --> 00:01:18.08 and choosing the Appearance command, 37 00:01:18.08 --> 00:01:20.05 but notice here inside the Appearance panel, 38 00:01:20.05 --> 00:01:23.04 we're not even seeing the Fill and Stroke attributes. 39 00:01:23.04 --> 00:01:25.00 If you want to see those attributes, 40 00:01:25.00 --> 00:01:26.03 then you need to double-click 41 00:01:26.03 --> 00:01:28.05 on the word Characters right here, 42 00:01:28.05 --> 00:01:30.02 and that's going to do a couple of things. 43 00:01:30.02 --> 00:01:32.06 It's going to automatically switch you to the Type tool, 44 00:01:32.06 --> 00:01:34.04 it's going to highlight all the text, 45 00:01:34.04 --> 00:01:35.09 and it's going to show you those Fill 46 00:01:35.09 --> 00:01:37.05 and Stroke attributes. 47 00:01:37.05 --> 00:01:40.01 All right, so I want to move the Stroke behind the Fill, 48 00:01:40.01 --> 00:01:43.04 so I'll just go ahead and drag it down, like so, 49 00:01:43.04 --> 00:01:46.03 problem is Illustrator ignores me. 50 00:01:46.03 --> 00:01:49.02 Now, things appear to fare a little bit better if I want 51 00:01:49.02 --> 00:01:51.04 to change the Fill to a Gradient. 52 00:01:51.04 --> 00:01:53.02 So, I'll go ahead and select the Fill, 53 00:01:53.02 --> 00:01:55.02 then I'll click on this orange swatch 54 00:01:55.02 --> 00:01:59.00 and I'll select this default Gradient here, White/Black. 55 00:01:59.00 --> 00:02:01.02 But even though it looks like it's applied 56 00:02:01.02 --> 00:02:03.00 here inside the Appearance panel, 57 00:02:03.00 --> 00:02:05.02 if I were to press the Esc key, 58 00:02:05.02 --> 00:02:09.01 you will see that the Fill is actually black. 59 00:02:09.01 --> 00:02:11.06 So, what in the world is the solution? 60 00:02:11.06 --> 00:02:13.06 Well, the first thing you want to do is double-click 61 00:02:13.06 --> 00:02:16.02 on the word Characters here in the Appearance panel 62 00:02:16.02 --> 00:02:17.04 and then click on a Stroke 63 00:02:17.04 --> 00:02:18.09 and Shift+click on a Fill, 64 00:02:18.09 --> 00:02:21.04 and then drop down to the little trash icon 65 00:02:21.04 --> 00:02:23.04 in the bottom right corner of the Appearance panel 66 00:02:23.04 --> 00:02:27.02 and click on it to get rid of what are ultimately 67 00:02:27.02 --> 00:02:30.03 some useless attributes for our purposes. 68 00:02:30.03 --> 00:02:32.03 Then you want to click on this top item, 69 00:02:32.03 --> 00:02:35.02 which currently reads Type: No Appearance 70 00:02:35.02 --> 00:02:39.04 in order to once again select the entire point text object. 71 00:02:39.04 --> 00:02:42.08 Now, at this point, you need to deliberately add a Fill 72 00:02:42.08 --> 00:02:45.04 or Stroke attribute by, in my case, 73 00:02:45.04 --> 00:02:47.04 clicking on Add New Stroke, 74 00:02:47.04 --> 00:02:50.01 you can just as easily click on Add New Fill, 75 00:02:50.01 --> 00:02:51.08 both of which are located down here 76 00:02:51.08 --> 00:02:54.05 in the bottom left corner of the Appearance panel. 77 00:02:54.05 --> 00:02:56.03 Now, if for some reason that doesn't work, 78 00:02:56.03 --> 00:02:57.07 as it didn't for me, 79 00:02:57.07 --> 00:03:00.02 then click on Add New Fill instead 80 00:03:00.02 --> 00:03:02.09 and you'll get both Fill and Stroke attributes 81 00:03:02.09 --> 00:03:04.06 as we're seeing here. 82 00:03:04.06 --> 00:03:06.02 All right, I'm going to start things off 83 00:03:06.02 --> 00:03:10.01 by changing my Fill to that White/Black Gradient, 84 00:03:10.01 --> 00:03:12.06 which, this time, works just fine. 85 00:03:12.06 --> 00:03:14.05 Then, I'll go up to the Window menu 86 00:03:14.05 --> 00:03:18.04 and choose Gradient in order to bring up the Gradient panel 87 00:03:18.04 --> 00:03:20.05 and I'm going to expand the panel as well 88 00:03:20.05 --> 00:03:22.05 so I can better see what I'm doing, 89 00:03:22.05 --> 00:03:25.03 and I'll go ahead and grab this dark gray, 90 00:03:25.03 --> 00:03:28.01 where the RGB values are all 26, 91 00:03:28.01 --> 00:03:30.02 and I'll drag it and drop it down here 92 00:03:30.02 --> 00:03:31.09 on this last Color Stop 93 00:03:31.09 --> 00:03:35.03 and I'll do the same for the first Color Stop, like so. 94 00:03:35.03 --> 00:03:36.07 And then I'll grab this guy, 95 00:03:36.07 --> 00:03:39.05 where the RGB values are all 204, 96 00:03:39.05 --> 00:03:42.05 and I'll drag it and drop it somewhere near the center 97 00:03:42.05 --> 00:03:46.00 and if necessary, I'll change that Location value manually 98 00:03:46.00 --> 00:03:47.07 to 50%. 99 00:03:47.07 --> 00:03:50.01 And I'm also going to change the Angle value 100 00:03:50.01 --> 00:03:52.05 to a hundred degrees 101 00:03:52.05 --> 00:03:55.03 in order to slant that Gradient like so. 102 00:03:55.03 --> 00:03:56.06 You could just as easily work 103 00:03:56.06 --> 00:03:59.04 with the Gradient tool if you like. 104 00:03:59.04 --> 00:04:01.09 All right, now I want to assign that Stroke, 105 00:04:01.09 --> 00:04:04.05 and so I'll just go ahead and click on that Stroke item 106 00:04:04.05 --> 00:04:07.08 and change the Line Weight value to 12 points once again, 107 00:04:07.08 --> 00:04:09.03 and I'll click on the word Stroke 108 00:04:09.03 --> 00:04:11.07 and switch the Corner to Round Join, 109 00:04:11.07 --> 00:04:13.00 just as I did before, 110 00:04:13.00 --> 00:04:15.01 and now I'll grab the Stroke and drag it 111 00:04:15.01 --> 00:04:17.00 and drop it below the Fill, 112 00:04:17.00 --> 00:04:19.08 and this time it works just fine. 113 00:04:19.08 --> 00:04:21.09 And we no longer have those Strokes 114 00:04:21.09 --> 00:04:23.08 encroaching into the letter forms. 115 00:04:23.08 --> 00:04:26.01 So, this is before, pretty darn ugly, 116 00:04:26.01 --> 00:04:28.08 it looks like something you might create in PowerPoint, 117 00:04:28.08 --> 00:04:32.01 and this is the much more elegant After Effect. 118 00:04:32.01 --> 00:04:34.02 All right, now I really want the Stroke to be black, 119 00:04:34.02 --> 00:04:36.01 so I'm going to click on that Stroke swatch 120 00:04:36.01 --> 00:04:38.04 and change it to black, like so, 121 00:04:38.04 --> 00:04:41.02 and I also want to offset the Stroke a little bit. 122 00:04:41.02 --> 00:04:43.07 And I'm going to do that with the Stroke active 123 00:04:43.07 --> 00:04:45.05 here inside the Appearance panel 124 00:04:45.05 --> 00:04:47.02 by going up to the Effect menu, 125 00:04:47.02 --> 00:04:49.01 choosing Distort & Transform, 126 00:04:49.01 --> 00:04:51.01 and choosing the Transform command, 127 00:04:51.01 --> 00:04:52.07 or as I've said many times, 128 00:04:52.07 --> 00:04:55.00 if you've loaded D keys you have a keyboard shortcut 129 00:04:55.00 --> 00:04:57.00 of Ctrl+e here on a PC 130 00:04:57.00 --> 00:04:58.09 or Command+e on the Mac. 131 00:04:58.09 --> 00:05:01.01 Now I'll turn on the Preview checkbox, 132 00:05:01.01 --> 00:05:03.01 I'll click into Horizontal Move value, 133 00:05:03.01 --> 00:05:06.00 and I'll press the down arrow key three times in a row 134 00:05:06.00 --> 00:05:08.04 to nudge that Stroke to the left 135 00:05:08.04 --> 00:05:10.03 and then I'll tab to the Vertical value 136 00:05:10.03 --> 00:05:13.04 and press the up arrow key three times in a row 137 00:05:13.04 --> 00:05:15.09 to nudge that Stroke downward, 138 00:05:15.09 --> 00:05:18.06 so we have this nice offset Stroke 139 00:05:18.06 --> 00:05:21.08 that's lending the appearance of depth to our letters. 140 00:05:21.08 --> 00:05:24.00 All right, now I'll click OK to accept that change 141 00:05:24.00 --> 00:05:27.00 and then finally, with the Type selected, 142 00:05:27.00 --> 00:05:28.08 so I'll click on the word Type at the top 143 00:05:28.08 --> 00:05:30.02 of the Appearance panel, 144 00:05:30.02 --> 00:05:33.00 and I'm going to go ahead and switch to the Stroke panel, 145 00:05:33.00 --> 00:05:35.01 just so we have a little more room to work. 146 00:05:35.01 --> 00:05:38.04 And then, I'll return to the Effect menu, choose Stylize, 147 00:05:38.04 --> 00:05:40.00 and choose Drop Shadow 148 00:05:40.00 --> 00:05:43.01 or if you loaded D keys, you can press Ctrl+Alt+d 149 00:05:43.01 --> 00:05:45.04 or Command+Opt+d on a Mac. 150 00:05:45.04 --> 00:05:47.03 And I came up with these values right here, 151 00:05:47.03 --> 00:05:50.00 I set the Color to black, the Mode to Multiply, 152 00:05:50.00 --> 00:05:53.09 the Opacity value's 100%, the X Offset is negative five, 153 00:05:53.09 --> 00:05:55.07 the Y Offset is positive five, 154 00:05:55.07 --> 00:05:57.07 and the Blur is five points. 155 00:05:57.07 --> 00:05:59.09 And notice, if I turn on the Preview checkbox, 156 00:05:59.09 --> 00:06:02.05 that that gives us this soft Drop Shadow 157 00:06:02.05 --> 00:06:05.05 that accentuates the offset of the Stroke, 158 00:06:05.05 --> 00:06:10.01 at which point I'll click OK to accept that change. 159 00:06:10.01 --> 00:06:13.07 All right, so ultimately, it's easy peasy, lemon squeezy. 160 00:06:13.07 --> 00:06:17.03 Just remember, if you want to create Gradient Type 161 00:06:17.03 --> 00:06:20.09 with a Dynamic Stroke that you can move behind the Fill, 162 00:06:20.09 --> 00:06:23.02 then you need to deliberately add Fill 163 00:06:23.02 --> 00:06:26.08 and Stroke attributes to your entire text object 164 00:06:26.08 --> 00:06:29.00 from the Appearance panel.