From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

735 Illustrator Puppet Warp tips and tricks

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

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735 Illustrator Puppet Warp tips and tricks

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- Hey, gang. This is Deke McClelland. Welcome to Deke's Techniques. This week, I'm gonna illustrate, you'll get that gag in just a moment, I'm gonna illustrate a few tips and tricks for working with the Puppet Warp tool in Illustrator, (laughs) CC 2018 and moving forward. Specifically, we'll take this fish skeleton right here, which poses a kind of challenge because the orange bits are a little bit far away from the purple bits, and so by default, they're not gonna move together. We want them to move together, ever so earnestly, and I'm gonna show you how to make that happen right now. All right, so here we are looking at that crazy bat from last week. I'm gonna advance to the next dart board by pressing Shift + Page Down. Now, at which point, we'll see still more path outlines from the Dreamstime Image Library, about which you can learn more and get some more deals at dreamstime.com/deke.php. Now, I've gone ahead and color-coded these paths not because that makes any difference. The Puppet Warp tool does not care about fills and strokes, but rather just so we can keep track of what's going on. All right, so armed with my Black Arrow tool, which I have selected up here at the top of the tool box, I'll go ahead and partially marquee all of these path outlines like so, and that goes ahead and selects all of them, at which point, I'll switch to the Puppet Warp tool, which looks like a little pushpin, again, you've gotta be working inside Illustrator CC 2018 or later. And now, I'll go ahead and set a few pins by first clicking inside the head right about there and then I'll click about midway along the spine and finally, I'll click at the tail. And now, I'll just go ahead and drag the head upward and I'll drag the spine downward and I'll drag the tail up just so that we have a ton of warping going on here, and I want you to notice what's happening. I'm modifying all the purple stuff but none of the orange paths are moving at all and that's a function of the mesh. Now, you may recall, I ended last week by turning off the Show Mesh checkbox up here in the control panel. Now I need to turn to back on so that we can see that mesh, which appears as a network of adjacent triangles and notice that the mesh extends all the way across all the purple paths but it does not necessarily extend into the orange ones. And to see what I mean, I'm just gonna go ahead and select all the pins by clicking on the Select All Pins button up here in the control panel, and then I'll get rid of 'em by pressing the Backspace key or the Delete key on a Mac. And notice that that restores the original path outlines. But that only works, as I'll be demonstrating in this movie, that only works as long as the Puppet Warp tool remains selected. If you switch to a different tool or revisit this document in another session, then deleting all the pins is going to expand the path outlines, that is, it's going to turn your dynamic effect into a static one. And again, I'll show you what that looks like in just a moment. But first, I'll go ahead and click in the head, once again, in order to add a single pin and now I want you to notice what's going on with the mesh. Notice that all these triangles are extending across all the purple paths, so all the way from the head to the spine to the tail because they're very near to each other, whereas the orange paths are sufficiently far away that their mesh networks are separated. And so, each one of these orange fins acts as a kind of Puppet Warp island and so if I were to click on this guy, for example, and drag it to a different location, notice that I moved that fin independently of everything else. I don't want that, so I'll go ahead and press Control + Z or Command + Z on a Mac a couple of times in order to not only undo the movement, but undo the laying down of that pin and I'm gonna go up here to the Expand Mesh value. Notice that it's set to two pixels by default, and that is to say two screen pixels. If I go ahead and take that value up to let's say 10 pixels, then notice that we have one big giant mesh, in which all these triangles abut each other, in other words, they are altogether adjacent, so we now have one big fish island, at which point, I'll go ahead and lay down a couple of additional pins just as I did before, and now, I'll drag that head upward and as I do, I not only distort the purple paths, but I distort the orange ones as well. Now I'll go ahead and drag the center of the spine down and I'll drag the tail upward, and notice that we're getting some pretty weird action at this point, so I'll go ahead and drag inside the ring here, in order to rotate that fin, and I might go ahead and add another pin down here along the lower portion of the spine. Notice that immediately changes the nature of the distortion and now I'll just go ahead and drag this guy upward a little bit. I might add another pin at this location and drag this guy around just so that we have a more organic effect, and then I'll click on the tail to light up that pin once again. And I'll rotate it back a little bit and I might drag it upward as well. And then, I'll click on the fish's snout and I'll click on its chin as well, and now I'll drag that bottom jaw downward and I'll drag the top jaw upward so that I'm opening up the mouth so you can see that you have a ton of flexibility when using this tool. And now I'll click right at the base of the jaw there and I'll drag it back a little bit and down as well, so the fish appears to have more of a voracious appetite. Right now, I want you to notice the difference between releasing the effect and expanding it and so with my Puppet Warp tool still selected, I'll go up to the control panel and click on the Select All pins button in order to select every single one of the eight pins that I've applied so far and then I'll press the Backspace key or the Delete key on a Mac, and notice that I restore that original fish. Compare that to what happens if I press Control + Z or Command + Z on a Mac, in order to undo that restoration, and then I switch to the Black Arrow tool. So I'll just go ahead and click on that arrow icon or I can press the V key. And now, I'll switch immediately back to the Puppet Warp tool, so I haven't made any changes whatsoever and notice that I can go ahead and drag one of these pins and so the effect appears to remain dynamic. However, if I click on the Select All Pins button once again but here in the control panel, and press the Backspace key, or Delete key on a Mac, I end up restoring the previous Puppet Warp effect. Notice all of my pins are gone and so, I'm left with a collection of static path outlines. And so, that's something that's very important to bear in mind. The Puppet Warp tool is technically dynamic, but only so long as it remains active. And so, those are a few tips and tricks for working with the Puppet Warp tool, here inside Illustrator CC 2018 and later. Good stuff, right? It may even make you wonder why would you ever reduce, or if you prefer contract, the Expand Mesh value? I know why. Because you're working with very complicated selections, which is why, if you're a member of lynda.com/linkedinlearning, like this guy is, I have a couple of followup movies in which I show you how to apply the Puppet Warp tool to very complicated selections inside Illustrate CC 2018 and moving forward. If you're looking forward to next week, I'm gonna introduce you to the 15, that is one five, irregular convex pentagons that tessellate perfectly. This is advanced geometry. Suddenly, I'm Khan Academy. Deke's Techniques each and every week. Keep watching.

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