Meet Kevin Hulsey. I was made aware of Kevin's existence by a post from my good friend John Nack (Photoshop Product Manager) and Kevin's work is truly exceptional. Especially this illustration of a modern ocean liner, with descriptions on how he created it.
What kind of work do you specialize in?
Technical Illustration for Automotive and industrial applications.
What was the first vector application you ever used?
Adobe Illustrator is the only vector application I have used.
If you could make just one feature request for AI, what would it be?
Speed up the screen re-draws on large files.
What one thing most annoys you about Illustrator?
Slow screen re-draws on large files in the "preview" mode. Additionaly, gradient mesh sucks! This is why I do my color work in Photoshop!
What kind of design education do you have?
None. I am self-taught.
What’s your personal preference, Mac or Windows?
Mac - if you even need to ask.
What’s playing on your iPod right now?
Mostly, I work in silence. Otherwise, it would be 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s rock.
What was the nicest place you’ve ever vacationed in?
Venice and Florence, Italy
Do you have a favorite designer? If so, who is he/she, and why?
Lynne Grigg. She and the rest of the Nissan design team at The Designory in L.A. pushed the creative boundaries in car brochure design back in the 1980s and 1990s. She gave my career a big jolt and we won a lot of creative awards together.
What one thing has most inspired your own personal design style?
A poster of a David Kimble cutaway illustration of the Star Trek "Star Ship Enterprise" in 1982. When I saw that, I said to myself: "this career is for you"!
If you could pass some advice to someone looking to become a designer, what would it be?
1. Never let anyone tell you that you can't do something. 2. In my line of work, the most important skill is also the most elusive to many people - patience. It takes a long time (several hundred hours in many cases) to create a cutaway car illustration and most people can't sit still for that long.
A blog about Adobe Illustrator and design in general
March 29, 2006
March 28, 2006
Yes, I'm still alive...
I apologize for the lack of posts over the past week or so. I was in Miami for Photoshop World last week and today I'm on a plane heading to Monterey for Russell Brown's most excellent ADIM conference, where I'll be speaking all about Illustrator (of course). But I've gotten some great questions via email and will try to get to those shortly. I'll be back before you know it -- really... I promise... :)
March 21, 2006
Illustrator CS2 eSeminar now available on-demand!
In case you missed my live eSeminar on Illustrator back in February (or in case you want to see it again), Adobe has now made a recording of the event available via on-demand here.
The eSeminar covers the following topics in Illustrator: Control Palette, Workspaces, Live Trace, Scribble Effect, Opacity Masks, Layer Clipping Masks, Live Paint, 3D Extrude, and Envelopes -- along with lots of little tips. The on-demand recording requires registration with Adobe but is free.
So grab your favorite beverage, sit back, and enjoy!
The eSeminar covers the following topics in Illustrator: Control Palette, Workspaces, Live Trace, Scribble Effect, Opacity Masks, Layer Clipping Masks, Live Paint, 3D Extrude, and Envelopes -- along with lots of little tips. The on-demand recording requires registration with Adobe but is free.
So grab your favorite beverage, sit back, and enjoy!
I So Hate Isolate
Even though I've posted this before on the Adobe Illustrator User to User Forum, I thought I'd post something here as well only because I see so many people still asking about it. The questions range anywhere from "what is that gray box that always seems to appear on my screen when I'm working in Illustrator?" to "WHY DOES THIS STUPID GRAY BOX KEEP POPPING UP ON MY SCREEN AND WHY CAN'T I MAKE IT STOP?"
Ah yes, these people have all discovered Illustrator CS's ability to isolate groups. I personally refer to it as Group Isolation mode.
The actual premise for the feature has value, but the implementation leaves much to be desired. Hopefully, this post will clarify the behavior to at least help people understand what is happening, and maybe even to use it once in a while for benefit.
Basically, the idea is that when you have several objects that have already been grouped, you might want to draw additional objects into that existing group. Rather than draw a new shape, ungroup all of your objects, and then regroup them with the new shape, you can double click on the existing group first, to isolate that group. This action will cause a gray box to appear around the boundary of the grouped objects, and is an indication to you that you're now in this group isolation mode.
Any new shape that you draw will now be drawn into that isolated group. To exist group isolation mode, double click anywhere outside the gray box, or select any object outside the isolated group.
Another to activate group isolation mode is to click on the icon that appears in the Control palette whenever a group is selected. The icon looks like a rectangle with four arrows within it.
In truth, the isolation feature was added mainly to assist in the creation and editing of Live Paint groups. When you isolate a live paint group, the gray box appears with stars on the corners, indicating the live paint group (as opposed to a regular group).
So why do I hate this "feature" so much? Mainly because I find myself double clicking often enough that I enter group isolation mode when I don't intend to. It seems to always get in the way. Also, I don't really think the way this feature asks me to. Usually, I have all of my objects created and then I group them. In this case, group isolation only works when I'm drawing a new shape that will be added to an existing group. It just isn't often when that happens (with the exception of working with live paint groups, where I admit that such a feature is useful).
I just wish there was some way to turn this feature off, or to disable it somehow. It's almost as annoying as when I accidentally double click on a text object and my tool changes to edit the text. Let's hope Adobe modifies the behavior of this feature in the next version so that we can derive the most benefit from it with experiencing isolation frustration.
Ah yes, these people have all discovered Illustrator CS's ability to isolate groups. I personally refer to it as Group Isolation mode.
The actual premise for the feature has value, but the implementation leaves much to be desired. Hopefully, this post will clarify the behavior to at least help people understand what is happening, and maybe even to use it once in a while for benefit.
Basically, the idea is that when you have several objects that have already been grouped, you might want to draw additional objects into that existing group. Rather than draw a new shape, ungroup all of your objects, and then regroup them with the new shape, you can double click on the existing group first, to isolate that group. This action will cause a gray box to appear around the boundary of the grouped objects, and is an indication to you that you're now in this group isolation mode.
Any new shape that you draw will now be drawn into that isolated group. To exist group isolation mode, double click anywhere outside the gray box, or select any object outside the isolated group.
Another to activate group isolation mode is to click on the icon that appears in the Control palette whenever a group is selected. The icon looks like a rectangle with four arrows within it.
In truth, the isolation feature was added mainly to assist in the creation and editing of Live Paint groups. When you isolate a live paint group, the gray box appears with stars on the corners, indicating the live paint group (as opposed to a regular group).
So why do I hate this "feature" so much? Mainly because I find myself double clicking often enough that I enter group isolation mode when I don't intend to. It seems to always get in the way. Also, I don't really think the way this feature asks me to. Usually, I have all of my objects created and then I group them. In this case, group isolation only works when I'm drawing a new shape that will be added to an existing group. It just isn't often when that happens (with the exception of working with live paint groups, where I admit that such a feature is useful).
I just wish there was some way to turn this feature off, or to disable it somehow. It's almost as annoying as when I accidentally double click on a text object and my tool changes to edit the text. Let's hope Adobe modifies the behavior of this feature in the next version so that we can derive the most benefit from it with experiencing isolation frustration.
March 19, 2006
ASK MORDY: Duplicating and Distributing Objects
Jennie, who uses Illustrator 9, asked the following question:
I am trying to find out how to align say 100 1" squares, in an Illustrator document that has a size of 20"x20" with rows of 10 squares across and 10 squares down. I need to be able to try, first a space of 1" between the squares and later 1/2" between the squares to see which I prefer.
I managed to do it manually, first drawing a 1" square and copying and pasting it in a row then aligning the row with the align tool...then copying the whole row and pasting it beneath, this is a lot of trouble and I think there must be an easier way.
There's always an easier way, isn't there?
In reality, I've always marveled at how Illustrator -- and all Adobe products for that matter -- never has just one way to accomplish a task. People always ask me how to do something, and the first thing I'll usually say is, "well, tell me what it is that you are trying to do". In this way, I can tell them the best way to accomplish the task. In truth, this approach also make Adobe products that much more difficult to learn because there are all of these tools or functions, each used for a different specific situation or need.
But I digress. Let's get to the answer to Jennie's question.
One way to do this would be to create a blend where you specify the number of steps. But I want to present another way which also shows off one of the most powerful features in Illustrator -- Live Effects.
Step 1: To start, create your 1" square. Select the Rectangle tool, click ONCE on the artboard and enter Width and Height values of 1". Click OK to create the square.
Step 2: With the square still selected, choose Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Most people don't think of applying a transform as an effect, but in my book I speak of several reasons about why this is so beneficial. In the Transform Effect dialog box, enter a value of 9 for the number of copies (your original square, plus the 9 copies will make 10). Then enter a value of 2" in the Move Horizontal field. This will move your one inch square so that exactly one inch will appear between it and the original. Check the Preview button if you want to double check the results before you apply them. Then click OK to apply the effect..
Step 3: With the square still selected, choose Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Illustrator will throw up a dialog telling you that "hey, you already applied that effect!" and to which you reply "I know what I'm doing" and you click the Apply New Effect button. This time, again enter a value of 9 for the number of copies, but set the Move Horizontal value to 0 and set the Move Vertical setting to 2". Click ok to apply the effect.
So let's review what we've done. We've drawn a single shape, but used two Transform effects to create the duplicates that we needed. Now it comes time to adjust the amount of space between each shape...
Step 4: With the square selected, take a look at your Appearance palette. You'll see the two Transform effects listed there. Double click on one of them and change the 2" value to 1.5" -- which will result in a .5" space between each shape. Do the same for the other Transform effect. Basically, to change the size of the square, do that by adjust the size of the original square that you created. To adjust the amount of space between each square, change the amount in the Transform effects.
If you need to access the individual squares, select the original square and choose Object > Expand Appearance.
I am trying to find out how to align say 100 1" squares, in an Illustrator document that has a size of 20"x20" with rows of 10 squares across and 10 squares down. I need to be able to try, first a space of 1" between the squares and later 1/2" between the squares to see which I prefer.
I managed to do it manually, first drawing a 1" square and copying and pasting it in a row then aligning the row with the align tool...then copying the whole row and pasting it beneath, this is a lot of trouble and I think there must be an easier way.
There's always an easier way, isn't there?
In reality, I've always marveled at how Illustrator -- and all Adobe products for that matter -- never has just one way to accomplish a task. People always ask me how to do something, and the first thing I'll usually say is, "well, tell me what it is that you are trying to do". In this way, I can tell them the best way to accomplish the task. In truth, this approach also make Adobe products that much more difficult to learn because there are all of these tools or functions, each used for a different specific situation or need.
But I digress. Let's get to the answer to Jennie's question.
One way to do this would be to create a blend where you specify the number of steps. But I want to present another way which also shows off one of the most powerful features in Illustrator -- Live Effects.
Step 1: To start, create your 1" square. Select the Rectangle tool, click ONCE on the artboard and enter Width and Height values of 1". Click OK to create the square.
Step 2: With the square still selected, choose Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Most people don't think of applying a transform as an effect, but in my book I speak of several reasons about why this is so beneficial. In the Transform Effect dialog box, enter a value of 9 for the number of copies (your original square, plus the 9 copies will make 10). Then enter a value of 2" in the Move Horizontal field. This will move your one inch square so that exactly one inch will appear between it and the original. Check the Preview button if you want to double check the results before you apply them. Then click OK to apply the effect..
Step 3: With the square still selected, choose Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Illustrator will throw up a dialog telling you that "hey, you already applied that effect!" and to which you reply "I know what I'm doing" and you click the Apply New Effect button. This time, again enter a value of 9 for the number of copies, but set the Move Horizontal value to 0 and set the Move Vertical setting to 2". Click ok to apply the effect.
So let's review what we've done. We've drawn a single shape, but used two Transform effects to create the duplicates that we needed. Now it comes time to adjust the amount of space between each shape...
Step 4: With the square selected, take a look at your Appearance palette. You'll see the two Transform effects listed there. Double click on one of them and change the 2" value to 1.5" -- which will result in a .5" space between each shape. Do the same for the other Transform effect. Basically, to change the size of the square, do that by adjust the size of the original square that you created. To adjust the amount of space between each square, change the amount in the Transform effects.
If you need to access the individual squares, select the original square and choose Object > Expand Appearance.
March 15, 2006
ASK MORDY: Artboard Size
Today's question comes from Michael Hamm:
As a longtime Illustrator user, I just sometimes take things for what they are but I recently had a student write, "When one has an open document (image) in Illustrator, you know the scroll bars for vertical, and horizontal for the image you are working on? Well, even if I have an [Artboard] area that is say, (total) 200px by 400px, the work area, or "white area" outside of the actual image is HUGE."
I'm not sure what to tell her really but I though you might have some insight into this. Maybe it's one of those nagging questions everybody thinks but rarely asks.
Well, I'm not sure if my answer is the "official" one, but it's what I can muster up based on my understanding of the application. Teri or others might be able to offer more insight.
From a historical perspective, Illustrator was never much a "page" based application. Basically, you create a document and draw an illustration. More often than not, that illustration would end up being saved as an EPS and dropped onto a page in a real page layout application. So the actual page size didn't really mean much to Illustrator. In fact, when you save your file as an EPS file, the artwork bounding box is honored. So no matter what size your artboard is, the final size of the artwork is based on the art that you draw. For more detail about bounding boxes, and Illustrator's new behavior in where PDF honors page size by default instead of artwork size, see EPS is dead to me (or is it?)....
Illustrator's largest artboard size is 227.5" square. But if the artwork bounding box is what really defines the size of an exported graphic (and not the artboard size), then by definition, Illustrator would need to allow me to create artwork up to that size, regardless of the page size itself. Therefore, no matter what size your "page" is, Illustrator will always give you a canvas of the full 227.5".
Now, if we could only add real multiple artboards within that overall 227.5" area....
As a longtime Illustrator user, I just sometimes take things for what they are but I recently had a student write, "When one has an open document (image) in Illustrator, you know the scroll bars for vertical, and horizontal for the image you are working on? Well, even if I have an [Artboard] area that is say, (total) 200px by 400px, the work area, or "white area" outside of the actual image is HUGE."
I'm not sure what to tell her really but I though you might have some insight into this. Maybe it's one of those nagging questions everybody thinks but rarely asks.
Well, I'm not sure if my answer is the "official" one, but it's what I can muster up based on my understanding of the application. Teri or others might be able to offer more insight.
From a historical perspective, Illustrator was never much a "page" based application. Basically, you create a document and draw an illustration. More often than not, that illustration would end up being saved as an EPS and dropped onto a page in a real page layout application. So the actual page size didn't really mean much to Illustrator. In fact, when you save your file as an EPS file, the artwork bounding box is honored. So no matter what size your artboard is, the final size of the artwork is based on the art that you draw. For more detail about bounding boxes, and Illustrator's new behavior in where PDF honors page size by default instead of artwork size, see EPS is dead to me (or is it?)....
Illustrator's largest artboard size is 227.5" square. But if the artwork bounding box is what really defines the size of an exported graphic (and not the artboard size), then by definition, Illustrator would need to allow me to create artwork up to that size, regardless of the page size itself. Therefore, no matter what size your "page" is, Illustrator will always give you a canvas of the full 227.5".
Now, if we could only add real multiple artboards within that overall 227.5" area....
Warm, warm thoughts...
Cold and windy here in NY today, and that has my mind on warmer things down south. Like Photoshop World Miami.
Photoshop World is always a fun show, and I enjoy talking about Illustrator when I'm there. I'll be making my rounds at the show, speaking at the Adobe booth, probably the Logitech booth (helping them show off the NuLOOQ device), and probably at the Peachpit booth as well. If you'll be there, please do hunt me down -- would love to say hello!
On a smiliar topic, special thanks to Dave Cross and Scott Kelby who gave me a shout out on their weekly Photoshop TV podcast. Looking forward to seeing you guys later next week!
Photoshop World is always a fun show, and I enjoy talking about Illustrator when I'm there. I'll be making my rounds at the show, speaking at the Adobe booth, probably the Logitech booth (helping them show off the NuLOOQ device), and probably at the Peachpit booth as well. If you'll be there, please do hunt me down -- would love to say hello!
On a smiliar topic, special thanks to Dave Cross and Scott Kelby who gave me a shout out on their weekly Photoshop TV podcast. Looking forward to seeing you guys later next week!
March 13, 2006
ASK MORDY: Styles with Text
Ok, so I've been getting some questions recently from readers and have decided to begin a new section of my blog, called "ASK MORDY" where I attempt to answer those very same questions.
Today's question comes from Michael Phillips:
Your "What if... you apply the convert to shape effect to text" tip in Real World Illustrator is extremely useful for much of the work that I do. It would be even more useful if I could save boxed text as a style but I cannot find a way of doing it. (At present I'm setting up a sample in a template and then using copy/paste attributes). I suppose, because it's a combined text/graphic style, it's not possible... unless you know otherwise?
Michael is referring to a technique on page 261 of my book which details how to create text that has a background of color behind it. First of all, I think one of the things that is throwing Michael off is an odd behavior with text objects and graphic styles.
After you've completed the steps in the book, you should be able to drag the entire text object right into the Graphic Styles palette. However, in doing so, the black appearance of the characters is lost and the character color is actually set to none (see below). I don't know why this happens, and maybe the Goddess of the Appearance Palette (Teri) can offer some insight here.
To get around this "problem", you have to add another fill to your object (and color it black) -- and set the fill to appear above the characters (see below). Dragging this object into the Graphic Styles palette will create a style that can then be used.
Now the reality is that Graphic Styles only store the settings that are found in the Appearance palette, and so font information (family, size, leading, etc.) is not preserved using just the Graphic Style. So you'll notice that in my screenshots above, I also created a Paragraph Style that contains the correct text settings for my Dynamic button. Basically, it's two clicks to get my text to look right. Once on the Graphic Style, and once on the Paragraph style.
So here's an added bonus: I noticed that Michael also posted the following question to the Illustrator User to User forum earlier today:
Why are there separate graphic, character and paragraph style palettes? Wouldn't it be more sensible to have only one?
And I have to agree with Michael on this one. Why have different palettes if all of these do basically the same thing (albeit for different reasons and in different ways). Well, I can see it would be difficult to create or define all these different styles from a single palette. Especially since text can have graphic styles applied to it as well. However, one shouldn't have to dance between all of these palettes to apply these styles.
In fact, InDesign CS2 does just that, with a feature called QuickApply. When you have text or an object selected, you press Command-Return (Ctrl-Enter) on your keyboard and a window pops up in the upper left corner of your screen.
The windows constains a list of every style in your document. Little icons indicate the type of style that each one is (paragraph, character, object) and you can even type in the first few letters of a style to jump right to the one you need. This allows you to apply styles right from the keyboard in a quick fashion (hence the name of the feature). Might be nice to see Illustrator adopt a similar behavior.
Today's question comes from Michael Phillips:
Your "What if... you apply the convert to shape effect to text" tip in Real World Illustrator is extremely useful for much of the work that I do. It would be even more useful if I could save boxed text as a style but I cannot find a way of doing it. (At present I'm setting up a sample in a template and then using copy/paste attributes). I suppose, because it's a combined text/graphic style, it's not possible... unless you know otherwise?
Michael is referring to a technique on page 261 of my book which details how to create text that has a background of color behind it. First of all, I think one of the things that is throwing Michael off is an odd behavior with text objects and graphic styles.
After you've completed the steps in the book, you should be able to drag the entire text object right into the Graphic Styles palette. However, in doing so, the black appearance of the characters is lost and the character color is actually set to none (see below). I don't know why this happens, and maybe the Goddess of the Appearance Palette (Teri) can offer some insight here.
To get around this "problem", you have to add another fill to your object (and color it black) -- and set the fill to appear above the characters (see below). Dragging this object into the Graphic Styles palette will create a style that can then be used.
Now the reality is that Graphic Styles only store the settings that are found in the Appearance palette, and so font information (family, size, leading, etc.) is not preserved using just the Graphic Style. So you'll notice that in my screenshots above, I also created a Paragraph Style that contains the correct text settings for my Dynamic button. Basically, it's two clicks to get my text to look right. Once on the Graphic Style, and once on the Paragraph style.
So here's an added bonus: I noticed that Michael also posted the following question to the Illustrator User to User forum earlier today:
Why are there separate graphic, character and paragraph style palettes? Wouldn't it be more sensible to have only one?
And I have to agree with Michael on this one. Why have different palettes if all of these do basically the same thing (albeit for different reasons and in different ways). Well, I can see it would be difficult to create or define all these different styles from a single palette. Especially since text can have graphic styles applied to it as well. However, one shouldn't have to dance between all of these palettes to apply these styles.
In fact, InDesign CS2 does just that, with a feature called QuickApply. When you have text or an object selected, you press Command-Return (Ctrl-Enter) on your keyboard and a window pops up in the upper left corner of your screen.
The windows constains a list of every style in your document. Little icons indicate the type of style that each one is (paragraph, character, object) and you can even type in the first few letters of a style to jump right to the one you need. This allows you to apply styles right from the keyboard in a quick fashion (hence the name of the feature). Might be nice to see Illustrator adopt a similar behavior.
A Cursor Speaks a Thousand Words
One of the frustrations of working with Illustrator (and in reality, all Adobe applications) is that getting the right selection can be a tedious task. Especially for those coming from FreeHand, the approach to selecting parts of objects is very different. Having two selection tools (a Selection tool and a Direct Selection tool) certainly don't make this task any easier. In fact, when trying to select a specific anchor point on a path with no fill or stroke, we're being asked to click on an anchor point without even seeing it. Anyone up for a game of pin the tail on the donkey?
So it's with this in mind that I pass on to you some little bit of advice to hold on to. The problem is that while we have a way of communicating to Illustrator what our intentions are (by moving the mouse, clicking, typing commands, etc.), it would seem that Illustrator has no way to communicate back to us, to confrim our intentions. The classic example -- in baseball, a catcher flashes signs to call a pitch. The pitcher may shake his head back which means, no, not that pitch, give me a different one. When the pitcher gets the sign for a pitch he agrees with, he nods his head and there's that silent communication that gives the catcher the confidence that he knows what kind of pitch to expect. If the pitcher wouldn't acknowledge the signs, how would the catcher know if the pitcher accepted his request? Or if he decided to throw something else instead?
When using Illustrator and trying to select objects, we can often feel that we're a catcher behind the plate. We call for a slow curve but instead, we get a rising fastball, and we're totally unprepared for it.
Well, in reality, Illustrator is communicating with us, but we just may not be aware of it. No, I'm not referring to those times when you're working really late and you hear your computer talking to you (you should get that checked out by the way), but I'm referring to the subtle changes in the cursor that Illustrator uses to indicate its intentions. The classic Illustrator example here is the Pen tool. When drawing and editing paths, Illustrator will use a variety of cursors, each with a slightly different appearance, to help you understand what Illustrator is thinking.
For example, as you move your mouse over an anchor point to close an open path, Illustrator changes the Pen tool cursor to show a circle ("you complete me") -- this is Illustrator's way of saying "hey, I noticed you moved the cursor over that existing anchor point, and I assume you want to close the path, are we on the same wavelength here?".
Well, when it comes to selecting and moving objects, Illustrator similarly uses this method of communication to help us get in sync with Illustrator's behavior. To get a better idea of what I mean, I've broken up the selection tool cursors into three groups.
In Group A, we have the Direct Selection tool -- mainly used to select PARTS of an object (a single anchor point, etc.). When just mousing around, we see the regular white (or hollow) arrow (left). However, when you mouse over an object that Illustrator can select, a small black solid box appears near the cursor (center). That's Illustrator telling you "hey, click here and I'll select the ENTIRE object for you". Now, move your mouse over an anchor point and Illustrator gives you a hollow box near the cursor, indicating that you can click and select just a single anchor point. If you're trying to select an object that isn't selected (necessary if you want to select a single anchor point), and that object just happens to have a fill and stroke of none, watching the cursor will let you know exactly where to click (granted that you know the general vicinity of where to look -- press Control-A to select all first to see where it is -- then deselect and do your thing).
In Group B, we have the move icons. Once an object is selected, Illustrator shows this cursor (left) to indicate that dragging now will move the object. Press the Option (Alt) key and you'll get the double icon (right), indicating that dragging will move a copy of the object, and leave the original in place.
Finally, we look at Group C. Most experienced Illustrator users will tell you that they use this tool less frequently (if at all), but I show it here anyway. The left icon is the tool, the middle icon indicates the cursor is above an object that can be selected, and a the right icon indicates that your cursor is sitting right over an anchor point.
It's like SONAR, without the depth charges (now THAT would be fun...)
So it's with this in mind that I pass on to you some little bit of advice to hold on to. The problem is that while we have a way of communicating to Illustrator what our intentions are (by moving the mouse, clicking, typing commands, etc.), it would seem that Illustrator has no way to communicate back to us, to confrim our intentions. The classic example -- in baseball, a catcher flashes signs to call a pitch. The pitcher may shake his head back which means, no, not that pitch, give me a different one. When the pitcher gets the sign for a pitch he agrees with, he nods his head and there's that silent communication that gives the catcher the confidence that he knows what kind of pitch to expect. If the pitcher wouldn't acknowledge the signs, how would the catcher know if the pitcher accepted his request? Or if he decided to throw something else instead?
When using Illustrator and trying to select objects, we can often feel that we're a catcher behind the plate. We call for a slow curve but instead, we get a rising fastball, and we're totally unprepared for it.
Well, in reality, Illustrator is communicating with us, but we just may not be aware of it. No, I'm not referring to those times when you're working really late and you hear your computer talking to you (you should get that checked out by the way), but I'm referring to the subtle changes in the cursor that Illustrator uses to indicate its intentions. The classic Illustrator example here is the Pen tool. When drawing and editing paths, Illustrator will use a variety of cursors, each with a slightly different appearance, to help you understand what Illustrator is thinking.
For example, as you move your mouse over an anchor point to close an open path, Illustrator changes the Pen tool cursor to show a circle ("you complete me") -- this is Illustrator's way of saying "hey, I noticed you moved the cursor over that existing anchor point, and I assume you want to close the path, are we on the same wavelength here?".
Well, when it comes to selecting and moving objects, Illustrator similarly uses this method of communication to help us get in sync with Illustrator's behavior. To get a better idea of what I mean, I've broken up the selection tool cursors into three groups.
In Group A, we have the Direct Selection tool -- mainly used to select PARTS of an object (a single anchor point, etc.). When just mousing around, we see the regular white (or hollow) arrow (left). However, when you mouse over an object that Illustrator can select, a small black solid box appears near the cursor (center). That's Illustrator telling you "hey, click here and I'll select the ENTIRE object for you". Now, move your mouse over an anchor point and Illustrator gives you a hollow box near the cursor, indicating that you can click and select just a single anchor point. If you're trying to select an object that isn't selected (necessary if you want to select a single anchor point), and that object just happens to have a fill and stroke of none, watching the cursor will let you know exactly where to click (granted that you know the general vicinity of where to look -- press Control-A to select all first to see where it is -- then deselect and do your thing).
In Group B, we have the move icons. Once an object is selected, Illustrator shows this cursor (left) to indicate that dragging now will move the object. Press the Option (Alt) key and you'll get the double icon (right), indicating that dragging will move a copy of the object, and leave the original in place.
Finally, we look at Group C. Most experienced Illustrator users will tell you that they use this tool less frequently (if at all), but I show it here anyway. The left icon is the tool, the middle icon indicates the cursor is above an object that can be selected, and a the right icon indicates that your cursor is sitting right over an anchor point.
It's like SONAR, without the depth charges (now THAT would be fun...)
March 12, 2006
Teri's Wisdom: Arrowheads Positioning
In perusing the Feature Requests posted on the Illustrator User to User forum, I came upon an interesting discussion with regards to how arrowheads are positioned at the ends of paths.
As you might already know, when you draw a path of a specific width, and then choose to add arrowheads (via the Filter > Stylize or Effect > Stylize menu), the arrowheads are added at the ends of the path. This makes the path longer than you actually specified and requires that you now make an adjustment to the path (such adjustments could be made easier when the Show Preview Bounds setting is used -- see Overstepping Your Bounds).
The feature request -- which make a whole lot of sense to me -- was centered on having Illustrator add arrowheads to a path without adding additional size to the path. I'm always fascinated as to how certain features or settings "came to be" in Illustrator, and when I worked on Illustrator, I tried to make a point of learning many of these settings, their causes, and their effects. However, I was never aware of the reason of why Illustrator drew arrowheads in this way. Which is why I have included Teri Pettit's explanation here, of why things are as they are. Teri's response is to a question that Jamees Talmage (JET) actually posed, in where he hypothesized on whether maybe arrowheads were drawn this way due to some legacy PostScript rules or regulations...
No, curiously enough, the actual code for positioning the arrowheads on the lines is flexible enough to handle arbitrary placements. It assumes that the backmost path in the arrowhead "design" is a straight stroked line in which the first endpoint should be placed on the endpoint of the path you are putting the arrowhead on, and the straight line should be made tangent to the path, sort of like it was a direction handle, and scaled so that the stroke weight of the guiding line is made the same as the stroke weight of the path you are applying the arrow to. When inserting an arrowhead, it copies the design definition, positions, scales and rotates the entire design by the same matrix that it uses to place the "guiding line", and then deletes the guiding line. (I looked into the code one day when I was trying to see how hard it would be to make the arrowheads be positioned at the endpoints.)
It is a mystery to me why the designers of the arrowheads in AI 5 decided to make those placement guidelines have their endpoints towards the back or center of the arrow instead of at the arrow tip. That's the only reason the arrowheads are getting placed past the end of the stroked path. The actual arrowhead designs were created not by engineers, but by a team of graphic artists, like the patterns and symbols are. So it was those artists who decided where the arrow tips should end, not the engineer writing the plugin filter.
But the filter was written a very long time ago (for AI 5), and hasn't been modified significantly since. (The live effects call the core of the corresponding filter code, not the other way around. When live effects came on the scene, what we mostly did was split each plugin filter into the part which found the selected objects, and the part which modified an object, and made the latter part be callable either by the filter on a selected object, or by the live effect on an object "under construction" by an appearance recipe. We didn't make hardly any changes to any of the actual "modify an object" code. There wasn't time to do so.) Way back in AI 5, there was no such thing as Symbols, and even pattern definitions were not yet accessible through the plugin API's. So the arrowhead "designs" are actually fragments of Illustrator 5 EPS syntax, similar to what got put on the clipboard, stored in the plugin's resource fork, indexed by the numbers that show up on the options dialog. And since plugins have no access to Illustrator's parser, the Arrowhead plugin has its own little mini-parser for a subset of the AI 5 Illustrator syntax, enough to cover paths with solid color strokes or fills.
So, we could make the arrowheads end on the lines simply by going in and modifying those fragments of AI 5 EPS in the resource fork to put the end of each positioning line at the tip of the arrow. But if that was all that was done, there would be backwards compatibility issues causing arrowhead effects saved by earlier versions to get repositioned. Which wouldn't be good, since usually the base path has been shortened to make the arrowhead end at the right place. So actually, you would want to leave the old designs as they were, and add new ones that would be available for newer files. But if you're going to go in and modify the Arrowhead filter, what you really want to do is make arrowhead designs be symbols, sort of like 3D bevels are, so that the user can define their own, and refer to them by name, not by a numerical index. Of course you'd still need to support the old indexed centered arrowheads for backwards compatibility.
Also, in order to keep the main stroke from sticking out past the arrow tips, you would want to do something to clip off any part of the main stroke past a certain point. (Actually, come to think of it, that might be part of the reason the positioning guidelines don't end at the arrow tip - because when the arrow tip got narrower than the stroke, you would be able to see the solid stroke sticking out at the edges. But there is still room in most of them to position the endpoint much closer to the tip than it is. It is usually quite far back, especially on designs like the pointing hand.) So the designs should probably contain another guideline besides the positioning one, which would be a "stroke clip point" guideline.
Teri goes on to mention that such a new feature would require some amount of work, and while it's certainly possible that such functionality might appear in Illustrator one day, it requires enough work in of itself that it must compete with other similar proposed new features and enhancements.
As you might already know, when you draw a path of a specific width, and then choose to add arrowheads (via the Filter > Stylize or Effect > Stylize menu), the arrowheads are added at the ends of the path. This makes the path longer than you actually specified and requires that you now make an adjustment to the path (such adjustments could be made easier when the Show Preview Bounds setting is used -- see Overstepping Your Bounds).
The feature request -- which make a whole lot of sense to me -- was centered on having Illustrator add arrowheads to a path without adding additional size to the path. I'm always fascinated as to how certain features or settings "came to be" in Illustrator, and when I worked on Illustrator, I tried to make a point of learning many of these settings, their causes, and their effects. However, I was never aware of the reason of why Illustrator drew arrowheads in this way. Which is why I have included Teri Pettit's explanation here, of why things are as they are. Teri's response is to a question that Jamees Talmage (JET) actually posed, in where he hypothesized on whether maybe arrowheads were drawn this way due to some legacy PostScript rules or regulations...
No, curiously enough, the actual code for positioning the arrowheads on the lines is flexible enough to handle arbitrary placements. It assumes that the backmost path in the arrowhead "design" is a straight stroked line in which the first endpoint should be placed on the endpoint of the path you are putting the arrowhead on, and the straight line should be made tangent to the path, sort of like it was a direction handle, and scaled so that the stroke weight of the guiding line is made the same as the stroke weight of the path you are applying the arrow to. When inserting an arrowhead, it copies the design definition, positions, scales and rotates the entire design by the same matrix that it uses to place the "guiding line", and then deletes the guiding line. (I looked into the code one day when I was trying to see how hard it would be to make the arrowheads be positioned at the endpoints.)
It is a mystery to me why the designers of the arrowheads in AI 5 decided to make those placement guidelines have their endpoints towards the back or center of the arrow instead of at the arrow tip. That's the only reason the arrowheads are getting placed past the end of the stroked path. The actual arrowhead designs were created not by engineers, but by a team of graphic artists, like the patterns and symbols are. So it was those artists who decided where the arrow tips should end, not the engineer writing the plugin filter.
But the filter was written a very long time ago (for AI 5), and hasn't been modified significantly since. (The live effects call the core of the corresponding filter code, not the other way around. When live effects came on the scene, what we mostly did was split each plugin filter into the part which found the selected objects, and the part which modified an object, and made the latter part be callable either by the filter on a selected object, or by the live effect on an object "under construction" by an appearance recipe. We didn't make hardly any changes to any of the actual "modify an object" code. There wasn't time to do so.) Way back in AI 5, there was no such thing as Symbols, and even pattern definitions were not yet accessible through the plugin API's. So the arrowhead "designs" are actually fragments of Illustrator 5 EPS syntax, similar to what got put on the clipboard, stored in the plugin's resource fork, indexed by the numbers that show up on the options dialog. And since plugins have no access to Illustrator's parser, the Arrowhead plugin has its own little mini-parser for a subset of the AI 5 Illustrator syntax, enough to cover paths with solid color strokes or fills.
So, we could make the arrowheads end on the lines simply by going in and modifying those fragments of AI 5 EPS in the resource fork to put the end of each positioning line at the tip of the arrow. But if that was all that was done, there would be backwards compatibility issues causing arrowhead effects saved by earlier versions to get repositioned. Which wouldn't be good, since usually the base path has been shortened to make the arrowhead end at the right place. So actually, you would want to leave the old designs as they were, and add new ones that would be available for newer files. But if you're going to go in and modify the Arrowhead filter, what you really want to do is make arrowhead designs be symbols, sort of like 3D bevels are, so that the user can define their own, and refer to them by name, not by a numerical index. Of course you'd still need to support the old indexed centered arrowheads for backwards compatibility.
Also, in order to keep the main stroke from sticking out past the arrow tips, you would want to do something to clip off any part of the main stroke past a certain point. (Actually, come to think of it, that might be part of the reason the positioning guidelines don't end at the arrow tip - because when the arrow tip got narrower than the stroke, you would be able to see the solid stroke sticking out at the edges. But there is still room in most of them to position the endpoint much closer to the tip than it is. It is usually quite far back, especially on designs like the pointing hand.) So the designs should probably contain another guideline besides the positioning one, which would be a "stroke clip point" guideline.
Teri goes on to mention that such a new feature would require some amount of work, and while it's certainly possible that such functionality might appear in Illustrator one day, it requires enough work in of itself that it must compete with other similar proposed new features and enhancements.
March 10, 2006
Plugging Plugins: HotDoor
Plenty of people use Illustrator every day. If you've read the introduction to my book, you know that there are all kinds of uses for Illustrator ranging from general graphic design, to fashion design, environmental graphics, and packaging.
Many architects and engineers also use Illustrator to design buildings, layout interiors, and specify mechanical specifciations for products that we use every day. However, such work requires extreme precision and such work is commonly done in dedicated CAD (Computer-Aided Design) applications and systems.
Brendan Cheves always wished that some of the precision tools found in CAD applications would exist in Illustrator and so he set out to create them. Through his company, HotDoor, Inc., Brendan created CADtools, a plugin for Illustrator. Currently in version 4, the plugin adds a plethora of tools and functions to Illustrator including the abilty to draw and work in scale, automatic dimensioning, isometric capabilities, and automatic labeling.
Above and beyond the tools, HotDoor also has several other items to support CAD-type use including a full collection of patterns to simulate environmental textures (stone, wood, brick, etc.) and collections of symbols as well, specific for elements like landscaping, electrical, etc. CADgate is also a utility that can be used to convert files between many different CAD formats.
Brendan also developed a plugin called MultiPage (currently in Version 2, although support for CS2 isn't available yet). This plugin allows you to simulate multiple pages in Illustrator, using Layers.
For more information on these plugins, check out www.hotdoor.com.
Many architects and engineers also use Illustrator to design buildings, layout interiors, and specify mechanical specifciations for products that we use every day. However, such work requires extreme precision and such work is commonly done in dedicated CAD (Computer-Aided Design) applications and systems.
Brendan Cheves always wished that some of the precision tools found in CAD applications would exist in Illustrator and so he set out to create them. Through his company, HotDoor, Inc., Brendan created CADtools, a plugin for Illustrator. Currently in version 4, the plugin adds a plethora of tools and functions to Illustrator including the abilty to draw and work in scale, automatic dimensioning, isometric capabilities, and automatic labeling.
Above and beyond the tools, HotDoor also has several other items to support CAD-type use including a full collection of patterns to simulate environmental textures (stone, wood, brick, etc.) and collections of symbols as well, specific for elements like landscaping, electrical, etc. CADgate is also a utility that can be used to convert files between many different CAD formats.
Brendan also developed a plugin called MultiPage (currently in Version 2, although support for CS2 isn't available yet). This plugin allows you to simulate multiple pages in Illustrator, using Layers.
For more information on these plugins, check out www.hotdoor.com.
March 8, 2006
Object Alignment Tips
I can't even begin to tell you how often I get the following request:
"Hey Mordy, is there a way to align objects in Illustrator where all the objects don't move? I want to align my objects to a specific object (so that one of them stays still). Other programs like Corel Draw and FreeHand can do this, and I'm surprised you can't do it in Illustrator"
This is actually a setting that has been inside Illustrator since version 9, but since there's no indication in the user interface, people are unaware of its existence.
To align multiple objects to a specific object, use the Selection tool to select all of the objects that you want to align. Then, click on the object that you want to remain in place. Then click on the desired align button (either in the Align palette or the Control palette). This action of clicking on an object that you want to remain motionless is referred to as "defining a key object"
While we're on the subject of the Align palette, let's talk about a few other options as well.
The Align palette, sadly, doesn't work on individual anchor points within an object. You can only align whole objects, not parts of them.
From the Align palette's palette menu, you can choose Align to Artboard, which will allow you align your objects to the artboard instead of to eachother.
From that same palette menu, you can choose Use Preview Bounds, and you can find out what that setting does here.
Again, from the palette menu, you can choose Show Options, which will reveal a new section at the bottom of the palette called Distribute Spacing. While the Distribute Objects functions will evenly distribute the centers or edges of objects evenly, they have no control over the amount of space that appears BETWEEN those objects. The Distribute Spacing setting is a gem that allows you to distribute objects by specifying an amount of space that should appear between objects. For example, if you want all of your objects to appear with exactly one inch of space between them, set the value in the Distribute Spacing setting to 1" and then click the desired horizontal or vertical spacing button.
In fact, many times I will use the Distribute Spacing with a setting of 0 -- which will automatically "kiss fit" my objects.
"Hey Mordy, is there a way to align objects in Illustrator where all the objects don't move? I want to align my objects to a specific object (so that one of them stays still). Other programs like Corel Draw and FreeHand can do this, and I'm surprised you can't do it in Illustrator"
This is actually a setting that has been inside Illustrator since version 9, but since there's no indication in the user interface, people are unaware of its existence.
To align multiple objects to a specific object, use the Selection tool to select all of the objects that you want to align. Then, click on the object that you want to remain in place. Then click on the desired align button (either in the Align palette or the Control palette). This action of clicking on an object that you want to remain motionless is referred to as "defining a key object"
While we're on the subject of the Align palette, let's talk about a few other options as well.
The Align palette, sadly, doesn't work on individual anchor points within an object. You can only align whole objects, not parts of them.
From the Align palette's palette menu, you can choose Align to Artboard, which will allow you align your objects to the artboard instead of to eachother.
From that same palette menu, you can choose Use Preview Bounds, and you can find out what that setting does here.
Again, from the palette menu, you can choose Show Options, which will reveal a new section at the bottom of the palette called Distribute Spacing. While the Distribute Objects functions will evenly distribute the centers or edges of objects evenly, they have no control over the amount of space that appears BETWEEN those objects. The Distribute Spacing setting is a gem that allows you to distribute objects by specifying an amount of space that should appear between objects. For example, if you want all of your objects to appear with exactly one inch of space between them, set the value in the Distribute Spacing setting to 1" and then click the desired horizontal or vertical spacing button.
In fact, many times I will use the Distribute Spacing with a setting of 0 -- which will automatically "kiss fit" my objects.
March 5, 2006
Plugging Plugins: Rick Johnson
At times, we get frustrated with our favorite set of tools when they don't perform as they should. However, there are also plenty of times when our favorite apps simply don't have the features we might need, and that brings frustration to a whole new level. For example, why can't Illustrator join multiple paths at once (you can only join to anchor points at a time)? Why can't you cut through mutliple paths with the Knife tool? Why is it so hard to control the dashes on a path? Oh, the list goes on...
Well, let me introduce you to Rick Johnson. A wonderful man who decided that rather than get frustrated about these shortcomings, he was going to actually do something about it. And he did. He wrote Illustrator plugins. And to REALLY make a difference in the world, he decided to give some of them away for free, and the remainder he charges but only a small nominal shareware fee (we'll except for one plugin, which he charges $25,000 for...)
My favorites are: Concatenate, which allows you to combine multiple paths at once; Nudge Palette, which allows you to slowly adjust the dashes along a path to get them to fit better; and Select, which adds a boatload of settings to the Select menu to make it possible to select just about any kind of object or construct in a file.
Rick also has several scripts, including the ever popular Concat Text, which takes multiple broken up text strings (you know, the kind created by exporting text from CS and CS2) and sewing the text back together again, humpty dumpty style.
You can find Rick's plugins here.
Well, let me introduce you to Rick Johnson. A wonderful man who decided that rather than get frustrated about these shortcomings, he was going to actually do something about it. And he did. He wrote Illustrator plugins. And to REALLY make a difference in the world, he decided to give some of them away for free, and the remainder he charges but only a small nominal shareware fee (we'll except for one plugin, which he charges $25,000 for...)
My favorites are: Concatenate, which allows you to combine multiple paths at once; Nudge Palette, which allows you to slowly adjust the dashes along a path to get them to fit better; and Select, which adds a boatload of settings to the Select menu to make it possible to select just about any kind of object or construct in a file.
Rick also has several scripts, including the ever popular Concat Text, which takes multiple broken up text strings (you know, the kind created by exporting text from CS and CS2) and sewing the text back together again, humpty dumpty style.
You can find Rick's plugins here.
March 2, 2006
Flash Forward Roundup
So I'm back from FlashForward Seattle. What a show! Lots of folks and what an awesome interest in Illustrator! I always knew that most Flash designers use Illustrator, but it was refreshing just the same to see how passionate people were about it.
One of the coolest sessions at the show was one that Adobe ran, which was an informal chat about what users want in regards to future integration between tools. Adobe product managers for Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, and Flash were on stage and it was basically an open session. The product managers asked questions about what the crowd thought about certain features and technologies, and the crowd also had lots to say about current issues between applications (for example, the current issue wherein text cannot be copied and pasted between Illustrator and Flash).
At the show, I also had the chance to interface with users and answer questions (I got LOTS of those), and overall, it was a lot of fun. Looks like my next public appearance is going to be Photoshop World in Miami, followed immediately by ADIM 9 in Monterey.
One of the coolest sessions at the show was one that Adobe ran, which was an informal chat about what users want in regards to future integration between tools. Adobe product managers for Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, and Flash were on stage and it was basically an open session. The product managers asked questions about what the crowd thought about certain features and technologies, and the crowd also had lots to say about current issues between applications (for example, the current issue wherein text cannot be copied and pasted between Illustrator and Flash).
At the show, I also had the chance to interface with users and answer questions (I got LOTS of those), and overall, it was a lot of fun. Looks like my next public appearance is going to be Photoshop World in Miami, followed immediately by ADIM 9 in Monterey.
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