- [Instructor] All right, now it's time
to transition from libraries to actions.
And as I was saying in the intro,
an action is a recorded sequence of operations
that you can playback with a single click.
And so in this movie, we're going to use one of the actions
that ships with Illustrator to take this image,
which we've seen before,
I've just changed up the color scheme,
and we're going to mask it inside of the hot metal type
in order to create this effect right here.
And incidentally, in case you're curious about the title,
Untethered assets, the idea is that I've removed
all of the links to the Creative Cloud
so that you can use this file without any problem.
All right, so to record or playback an action,
you go up to the Window menu and choose the Actions command
to bring up the Actions panel.
At which point, you'll see at least one folder
that reads Default Actions.
This folder is known as an action set
and you have to have it in order to create actions.
Now notice if you twirl this guy open,
you'll reveal a bunch of prerecorded actions here,
most of which are very simple.
For example, this Revert action, if you twirl it open,
it shows you that all it does
is playback the Revert command.
This action probably isn't one of the most stellar examples,
which is why we're going to drop-down to this guy right here,
Unite (selection).
And the fact that we're seeing
the word selection right there
indicates that you have to have selected
some portion of your artwork for this action to work.
At which point, if you twirl it open,
you can see that it references the Pathfinder panel
and it goes ahead and applies the Unite operation.
Let me show you one potential use for that action.
I'll go ahead and hide the panel for a moment
and then, armed with my black arrow tool,
I'll go ahead and partially marquee
all of these path outlines right here
to select that gray hot metal type.
Next, what you want to do is turn that image layer on
and then notice this red square right here
on the far right side of the Layers panel,
that indicates a selected object.
You'll want to copy those objects by pressing the Alt key
or the Option key on the Mac,
and dragging them upward like so.
And notice that I'm seeing a plus sign
next to my pointing finger cursor.
That shows me that I am going to copy those paths
as opposed to move them.
Now we need to unite them together,
and so I'll bring back the Actions panel,
which you can get by clicking on that Play icon right there.
And then I'll just click on this Unite item.
And I'll drop down to the Play button and click on it
and it just goes ahead and plays that Unite operation.
It's not necessarily wildly easier
than bringing up the Pathfinder panel,
but it is convenient
if you already have the Actions panel on screen.
All right, now notice that we have this big shape here
with a couple of items inside of it.
To get rid of that extra stuff,
go up to the Object menu,
drop all the way down to Compound Path
and choose Release.
And then Shift + Click on this outer path right there
to deselect it, which leaves these guys selected,
at which point, just press the Backspace key
or the Delete key on the Mac to get rid of them.
Then go over here to the Layers panel,
just make sure the image layer is selected
and then drop-down to this little icon on here,
which reads Make Release Clipping Mask
and go ahead and click on it in order to convert
that united path into a mask for the entire layer.
Then go ahead and target the layer
by clicking on this meatball
and go up here to the Opacity option in the control panel,
click on it, and then switch the Blend mode
from Normal to Overlay in order to produce this effect here.
And then finally, you can just press Control + Shift + A
or Command + Shift + A in the Mac to deselect the artwork.
All right, now let me show you another example.
I'm going to bring up the Brushes panel right here
and notice that we have quite a few brushes
that are disposable, none of which we're using
in this particular piece of artwork.
Same with the Symbols panel.
We've got five default symbols
in the case of this illustration
and we've got a handful of Graphic Styles,
none of which are doing us any good.
We also have a whole bunch of swatches.
The reason I bring that up
is if you bring back the Actions panel
and twirl close Unite action,
just to save a little bit of space here,
notice we got this one
that's called Delete Unused Panel Items.
If you twirl it open, you'll see that the action starts
by getting rid of the stuff in the Symbols panel,
then Graphic Styles, then the Brush panel,
and then finally the Swatches panel.
And I want you to notice the name here,
Delete Unused Panel Items,
so only the unused stuff gets thrown away.
And so I'm going to go ahead and select this action,
and I'll drop-down to the Play icon and click on it
but before I do, I want you to keep an eye
on what's happening here inside the Actions panel.
Notice after I click Play, we can see the Action playback,
so you see every one of those steps highlight.
After which point, you'll notice that the Brush panel
is now very nearly empty.
We just had that one default calligraphic brush.
The Symbols panel is altogether empty
and the Graphic Style panel just has this one default.
We've also lost a lot of our swatches.
Now let's say I don't want to lose the swatches,
the good news is that was the last operation applied.
So once again, if I was to bring back the Actions panel,
swatches were the last things to get thrown away.
And so all I need to do to bring them back
is press Control + Z here on the PC
or Command + Z on the Mac.
And so that's my introduction to the Actions panel.
In the next movie,
I'll show you how to record an action of your own.