- [Instructor] In this movie, we'll talk about
placing and editing assets, because so far,
even though we've collected a lot of assets
here inside the Libraries panel,
we haven't really done anything with them,
and so let's say where this artwork is concerned,
I want these two shadows to fade in on top of each other.
I don't want them to be flat the way they are now.
So let's start off by editing the forward shadow
which is Shadow 2 here inside the Libraries panel,
and so any time you want to edit an asset, just go ahead
and double-click on its thumbnail
there inside the Libraries panel,
and Illustrator will go ahead and open that asset
in an independent document window.
And notice the title up here.
It's Shadow 2 followed by a long serial number
which identifies the artwork in the Creative Cloud.
So bear in mind that none of this stuff is living
on your local hard drive or anywhere on a network
you control.
It's up in the cloud.
And so I'm going to go ahead and select this shape
with the black arrow tool,
and then I'll go up to the Window menu
and I'll choose the Gradient command
to bring up the Gradient panel, which as you can see,
is fully expanded.
Then, I'll grab the second-to-darkest shade of brown,
which begins R equals 96 here in the Swatches panel,
and I'll drag it and drop it to the end of the gradient,
and then I'll once again drag that swatch
to the beginning of the gradient.
And then, with that first gradient stop selected,
I'll go ahead and select the opacity value
and set it to 0%, and then I'll change the angle value
to 90 degrees, after which point, all you have to do
to update the asset is close the artwork,
at which point you want to click the Yes button.
That would be the Save button on the Mac
in order to save your artwork and as you can see here,
nothing has happened.
So what in the world's going on?
We still have a flat shadow, and the problem is
that this is still the original artwork right here.
It's not an instance, if you will, of this asset.
So compare this to symbols for example.
When you create a new symbol by dragging a piece of artwork
into the Symbols panel, and so if I were to grab this guy
and drag him and drop him into the Symbols panel
and call it Shadow 2 for example, and select Static Symbol,
just so we're getting better feedback, as soon as I click OK
I can see a rectangular bounding box around this item
which demonstrates to me that it is an instance
of the static symbol as we're seeing on the far left side
of the control panel.
That's not what I want, so I'll go to the Edit menu
and choose Undo New Symbol, or I can just press control + z
or command + z on the Mac, and it'll hide the Symbols panel.
So my point is, even though that happens
when you create a new symbol, it doesn't happen
when you create a new asset in the Libraries panel.
This is still the original path outline,
and so if you wanted to update,
then you need to get rid of it.
Just go ahead and delete it
and then I'll go ahead and scroll so I can see
the bottom left corner of the red bounding box
and I'll go up to the View menu and choose Smart Guides
in order to turn them on, and then I'll grab this guy.
It's hard to see it selected.
So I'll go ahead and collapse my Gradient panel for a moment
and I'll grab Shadow 2 and I'll just drag it and drop it
into the artwork in order to place it.
So now I have what amounts to an instance
of this online asset.
And so now I'll go ahead and drag its bottom left corner
so it snaps into alignment with the bottom left corner
of the bounding box and we have a fading shadow
as we're seeing right here.
All right, so the way to work is if you want to create
any kind of link between your artwork and your assets,
then you need to make that happen manually,
and so I'm going to grab this other shadow here,
the one in the background, and I'll press the backspace key
or the delete key on the Mac to get rid of it,
and then I'll grab Shadow 1, drag it and drop it
into the artwork.
Then I'll move it around
until I can find its bottom right point
and I'll drag it till it snaps into alignment
with the bottom right corner of the artwork.
Now initially that doesn't make anything happen
and that's because this particular shadow is still flat.
If I want to edit it,
then I could just deselect the artwork.
It doesn't have to be selected at this point,
and I'll press control + 0 or command + 0 on the Mac
to zoom out, and now I'll double-click on Shadow 1
in order to open this art in an independent document window.
I'll select it once again.
I'll go ahead and expand the Gradient panel,
and I'll drag that selected brown swatch
to the end of the gradient bar,
and then I'll drag another copy to the beginning
and with that first color stop selected,
I will change the opacity value to 0%
and then I will change the angle value to 90 degrees,
and we end up with this result here, at which point,
I'll just go ahead and close the artwork
and click the Yes button here on the PC,
that would be the Save button on the Mac,
and we now have a fading shadow.
Now at this point, I want to select both of them
and then I'll click on the word Opacity up here
in the control panel, and I'll change the blend mode
to multiply, or if you loaded d.keys,
you have that keyboard shortcut of shift + 1.
And then finally, I'll click off the shapes
to deselect them, I'll click on the left-hand shadow
to select it, and I'll reduce the opacity value to 50%,
which if you loaded d.keys, you can do just by tapping
the five key, and I want you to see that regardless
of which of the shadows is selected, you're going to see
the words Linked File over here on the far left side
of the control panel, and so if you click on that,
you will see that this particular item is linked
to Shadow 2 and that particular asset is found in the cloud.
Now you may wonder what you do
if you want to relink an asset.
You don't just click on it.
So if I wanted to switch this guy out for Shadow 1,
clicking on Shadow 1 wouldn't do me any good,
and double-clicking doesn't help either.
That's just going to bring up a bunch of additional information
about this particular asset.
Instead what you want to do is click on Shadow 2,
click on the little cloud icon, which reads
Relink from CC libraries, in order to bring up
the Libraries panel, which I find to be
a little bit confusing, but you do have to shift
your attention to this panel now, and I'll go ahead
and switch to the Stroke panel just to give myself
a little more room on screen and then you click
on Shadow 1 to select it or whichever asset you want
and then you click on the Relink button down here
at the bottom of the panel.
So it is a multi-step process to change the link
to a different asset.
Anyway, that's not what I want to do,
so I'll just press control + z or command + z on the Mac
to undo that change.
And that is how you place and edit assets
to create dynamic instances from the Libraries panel.