Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

1.

Open a simple path outline. In

the Lesson 10 subfolder, open

the document called Circle.ai

which appears in all its glory Figure 10-42.

2. Stroke the circle with a dashed outline.

Select the circle with the black arrow

tool. Then click the second swatch on

the left side of the control panel, select

the swatch just to the left of bright yellow

(called Custard), and press Enter or Re-

turn. Next, click the Stroke link to bring

up a pop-up panel and do the following:

•

Reduce the Weight value to 2 points.

•

Turn on the Dashed Line check box.

• Enter a Dash value of 6 points and a

Gap of 2 points.

Figure 10-44 (facing page) shows the set-

tings. Press Enter or Return to hide the

panel and accept your changes.

Figure 10-42 .

Figure 10-43 .

Building Up a Complex

Transformation Series

By now, you have a sense for how transformative the Transform ef-

fect can be. But you’ve seen the merest glimmer of its full potential.

You can use Transform not only to change a piece of artwork, but

also to create one. I fi rst got an inkling of the full power of this com-

mand when playing around with one of Adobe’s ancient predefi ned

graphic styles. (Other people’s styles can be highly illuminating!)

Which naturally inspired me to take the Transform effect out for a

test drive and see how far I could push it.

The result is this exercise. In the following steps, we’ll take a single

geometric shape—specifi cally, the circle pictured in Figure 10-42—

and turn it into the costume-jewelry-inspired, Spirographic explosion

pictured in Figure 10-43. That lone circle is a kind of foundation

that supports one fi ll, fi ve strokes, three blend modes, a couple of

blurring effects, and nineteen applications of Transform—applied

as many as seven times to a single attribute—each of which serves

a unique and indispensable function. Granted, without the circle,

you’d have nothing but the background gradient. But subtract a

single fi ll, stroke, or dynamic effect, and Figure 10-43 would suf-

fer for its absence.

358

Lesson 10: The Amazing World of Dynamic Effects

3.

Scale and rotate the stroke. As I say, we’ll be applying the

Transform effect nineteen times. (Although thankfully, in many

cases, we’ll be replicating it, which will cut down on the grunt

work.) This fi rst application is designed to scale and orient the

circle in anticipation of repeating it. Here’s how:

•

Bring up the Appearance panel and click on the Stroke

attribute to select it.

•

Choose Effect→Distort & Transform→Transform or, if

you loaded dekeKeys, press Ctrl+E (-E) to bring up the

Transform Effect dialog box.

• Turn on the Preview check box.

•

Change the Horizontal value in the Scale area to 36 percent.

•

Enter a Rotate Angle value (at the bottom of the dialog box)

of 15 degrees. The settings and effect appear in Figure 10-45.

• Click the OK button.

This fi rst transformation may seem arbitrary, but it sets up the

stroke for the next transformation. And because this is a dy-

namic effect, the original circle remains intact.

Figure 10-44 .

Figure 10-45 .

Between the Refl ect Y and Random check boxes

on the right side of the dialog box is a matrix that

permits you to defi ne the transformation origin.

Throughout the fi rst portion of this exercise

—

that is, until I tell you to change it

—

the matrix

should be set to

, as by default.

359

Building Up a Complex Transformation Series