[ Music ]
>> Hello, and welcome to this video tutorial brought
to you by TastyTuts.com.
In this tutorial I'm going to talk about vector basics,
and how we can begin to operate in Adobe Illustrator.
In this video, you will get a good understanding of the basics
so we can move on later
and start building our own creative elements.
Now, we are going to be covering a lot in this video
and in quite some depth.
If you wish to skip ahead to any point in this video,
you can do so quite simply.
The topics covered in this video are listed
in the description along with their times.
So be sure to check that out.
To follow along with this tutorial, you will need
to open this document I have prepared especially
for this tutorial.
This can be found in the introduction folder
in the project folder.
Now, you can download this project folder for free.
The download link is in the description.
Along the way, I will be mentioning some useful shortcut
keys which you can find in the description
and in the shortcut key page in the project PDF,
which you can also download in the description.
So with the project folder open, click introduction,
vector basics, versions, and select the version
of Illustrator you're using.
In my case, it's CC, and open the vector basics file
and you should have something that looks like this.
So once you have opened this document, I want you to zoom
into the top section of the first art board.
So the first object I want to talk
about is this line stroke I have created earlier.
Now, it does not get any simpler than this.
Every shape that is made
in Illustrator has a stroke outline.
Next, we have a square shape, and as you can see,
this is a complete stroke line
that is joined around the outside.
In Illustrator, a stroke that is joined creates a fill
within which we can see here in gray.
So the first thing I want you to do is choose the selection tool.
This is the top tool on the menu recognized as the black arrow.
This tool is one of the most used tools in Illustrator
and the shortcut key for this is a V on the keyboard.
So at any point, by pressing V,
this will activate your selection tool.
The selection tool is a basic tool which allows you
to select objects on your canvas and move them around
and make simple modifications.
So here we have our stroke, and below our square.
With the selection tool, I want you to place your mouse cursor
over the stroke and go ahead and click the shape.
Upon click, you will now select that shape,
and will now see a bounding box around the shape like so.
Next, I'm going to click on to the square shape
and a new bounding box will appear around the shape.
In Illustrator, every object exists as an individual element,
and every element can be selected, edited,
and moved around individually.
Illustrator does work in layers,
like in programs such as Photoshop.
But in Illustrator, you can have multiple objects
on a single layer.
Now, if you come over to our side panels and navigate
to the layers panel, you can see this document contains
two layers.
We have the work area and the work sheet layer.
If you cannot see this, come to window and click layer
to break up your layers panel.
If I toggle the visibility of the work layer,
we can see that three of our shapes disappear,
so we know that the three objects exist on the same layer.
When using the selection tool, when you select an object,
you will always get a bounding box around it.
This bounding box helps communicate to you
which object is currently selected in your artwork
and will also allow you to move the object around
and make simple changes.
The bounding box also communicates to you
which layer the object is on.
For example, as you can see the bounding box
on this shape is currently red.
If we take a look at the layers panel,
we can see that this shape is sitting
on the layer called work area, which is highlighted in red.
If, for example, we select a shape on the worksheet layer,
we will see the bounding box is blue
because the layer is labeled blue in the layers panel.
Okay, so now we have the square selected,
we can start to move this around.
This can be done really easy by simply clicking
and dragging it around like so.
So any object at any time can be clicked and moved
around in this way using the selection tool.
In Illustrator, objects usually have either a stroke,
a fill, or both applied.
With our square selected, if we look closely at the bottom
of our tools menu, we can see that the fill
of this vector is a light gray and the stroke is black.
Now, if we look carefully at the bounding box,
you will see eight white squares around the shape.
Now, these squares allow us
to make simple modifications to the shape size.
For example, if you move your mouse cursor over each of these,
you will notice your cursor change from the black arrow
to a double-ended arrow.
This is Illustrator asking you if you wish to make a change.
For example, if I put my mouse on the far right box and click
and hold, I can either make this shape wider or slimmer.
The same applies to the top and bottom squares,
and if you put your mouse over one of the corners,
I will select the bottom right, I can increase
or decrease the size, like so.
I'm going to quickly undo that.
Also, if you carefully position your mouse just a little away
from one of the corners,
you will notice the mouse cursor change to a curved arrow.
This is Illustrator giving you the option to click
and rotate your shape easily.
So the bounding box can help you quickly change the shape, size,
and rotation of your object.
Next, we're going to change the scale of this square object.
So make sure you still have the square object selected.
You will know you have this selected
if you can see the outside bounding box.
Now, you can do one of two things here.
You can either select the scale tool from the menu,
or simply press the shortcut key S on the keyboard.
I'm going to go ahead and press S. Upon click,
you will now see your mouse cursor change
from the black arrow to a crosshair.
Now, what you can do here is simply click and drag anywhere
on the canvas area, and notice we can begin to alter the size
and shape of the object.
As you click and drag, you will see an outline.
Continue to drag your scale until you are happy.
I am going to create a tall, thin rectangle, like so.
I'm going to press undo to get back to what I had previously.
This time, I'm going to use the scale again,
but do something a little different.
So with the shape selected, I'll press S again
to activate my scale too, and again I'm going to press
and hold to begin to change the scale of my object.
But this time, I'm going to press
and hold shift on the keyboard.
Notice that as you press and hold shift and move your mouse
in and out, you will retain the scale of your shape,
and easily scale up or down your object.
So I'm going to go ahead and scale by shape down
and release the mouse to commit to my new shape size.
And just like that, we scale the object.
Okay, so this time, I'm going to rotate my square,
so currently we still have the scale to active.
Now, I'm going to either select the rotate tool
from the menu here, which is the circle arrow, or I'm going
to press the shortcut key R on the keyboard.
By pressing R, this is going to activate the rotate tool.
And you should notice that the mouse cursor remains the same
crosshair just like the scale tool.
So be careful.
Right. The rotator tool works similar to the scale tool.
With the rotator tool active, we are going
to put the move the mouse cursor up and around
in a general direction we want the shape to turn in.
And again, you will see the outline
of the shape as you turn.
Upon release, your shape will be rotated.
Pretty cool.
So I'm going to press undo to put it back
to where it was previously.
With the rotator tool still active, I'm going to click
to start to rotate again.
And as I rotate, I'm going to press and hold shift
on the keyboard, and you will then be able
to snap rotate the object like so in increments of 45 degrees.
So that's how you can change the scale
and rotate a vector shape in Illustrator.
Next, we are going to simply copy and paste this square.
So by pressing V on the keyboard, we are going
to activate our selection tool
and the mouse will change back to a black arrow.
Then, I'm going to select the square and press command C
to copy and then command V to paste.
And just like that, we have created a new shape identical
to the square.
So now we can see two squares
which are now two individual shapes.
Because I just pasted in a new square,
this one is currently selected, though if I wish to go back
to the other square with the selection tool active,
I will have to select it
and then move around, like so, if I wish.
Okay, so if we take a look to the right,
we have this little square outline.
What we are going to do now is take the new square we just
pasted in and scale it down and rotate it to match it.
So using the techniques we just learned, move the square over,
press R to rotate the square using the rotate tool
and hold shift to snap rotate.
Then press S to activate the scale tool,
and scale down again, holding shift to scale down and toggle
until you have just the right size, reposition.
And once you have it roughly in place, we are ready to move on.
Once you have successfully completed that exercise,
come back to the square on the left and select it
with your selection tool,
and again we can see its bounding box
with the wide squares to allow us
to potentially move it to make changes.
Now, I want to introduce you to the direct selection tool.
The direct selection tool is the white arrow which you can choose
under the selection tool on the menu, or as I like to use,
the keyboard shortcut which is A. so by pressing A
on the keyboard, I will activate the direct selection tool
and my mouse cursor will change to a white arrow.
But also notice that the bounding box
around the current selected shape disappears.
If I press V again to activate the selection tool,
the bounding box will reappear.
And if I press A to activate the direct selection tool again,
the bounding box disappears.
This is because we are now entering into a different mode
and now you can see for dark squares,
one on each quarter of our square shape.
Now, these squares are not the same
as the squares on the bounding box.
These are anchor points that make up this square shape.
In Illustrator, any objects
that are created are made up of anchor points.
This is a difference between Photoshop,
which is primarily pixel based, and Illustrator,
which is primarily anchor based.
These anchor points contain mathematical values which work
to create vector shapes.
These paths can be used
to create either simple line strokes or complex vector shapes
which fill color and stroke effects can be applied.
The great thing about vector artwork is that it can be shrunk
to the size of a pinhead or blown up to the size
of a building, and still retain clarity and sharpness
and not become pixilated, like what can happen
with pixel based graphics.
Here we are with this square vector object selected
with the direct selection tool.
Now, I'm going to select the top anchor point
with the direct selection tool.
Upon click, you have now isolated that particular anchor
which makes up that particular part of the vector path.
Notice how the other anchor points
on the vector path have now turned to white.
This is Illustrator telling you
that you only have this one anchor selected.
So with this single anchor point selected,
you can now move this around.
So with the direct selection tool still active, you can click
and drag the anchor point around like so,
to change the vector shape.
You can even use the arrows on the keyboard
to fine tune your anchor position.
If you press and hold shift on the keyboard
and press the arrow keys, you can move the anchors
around in larger increments.
So I'm going to undo that to get back to the original state.
This time, with the direct selection tool,
I'm going to click and drag over just the top
and far right corners.
Upon release, you should now see the top
and far right anchor turned red and the others remain white.
This is because we have essentially just selected two
anchor points on the vector outline.
With the two anchor points selected, we can now move these
around together to change the shape by clicking and dragging
on just one of the anchor points.
So I'm going to click off the vector to deselect,
and this time I'm going to select the bottom anchor point.
Then press and hold shift on the keyboard
and then select the far left corner anchor point
and the top anchor point.
So by holding shift, this will allow us
to select particular anchor points.
With these selected, we can again move these
around if we wish, though if I want
to deselect a particular anchor point, simply press
and hold shift on the keyboard and re-click the anchor point
and you will deselect it
and keep the other anchor points selected.
So that's how you can use the direct selection tool
to modify anchor point positioning on vector shapes.
With the direct selection tool, I'm going to come back
to the line stroke above and select the line.
Now we can see that this stroke consists
of just two anchor points, a start and an end point.
If I click and drag on the end anchor point,
I can change the direction and length
of the stroke, just like so.
Excellent.
So next, I want to come down
and draw your attention to the circle.
With the direct selection tool, I want you to click
and drag an area over the circle like so and release.
Upon release, you will have now selected the anchor points
that make up this circle
and will now see some other lines coming
out of the anchor points with dots on the end.
These lines are called handles.
So now you can see not only the anchor points
but the anchor handles.
So we have already learned
that vector paths are made of anchors.
Now, vector paths that contain curves will also have anchor
handle values.
It's these handles that carry the information
which determines the curve value,
and each anchor will only ever have two handles.
For example, with the direct selection tool,
click the top anchor on the circle,
and we can see the handles on each side.
With the direct selection tool active,
I'm going to move my mouse cursor over one
of the handle points and click and drag down like so.
Now, you can see that we have drastically altered the curves
of that anchor.
The handles can be pulled out further at any time
to alter the curve value like so.
Once we are happy, we can click off the shape to deselect,
though if I want to edit more curves on the shape,
all I have to do is click on the path
and you will see the white anchor points.
Then select an anchor point you wish to edit,
and when the handles appear, we can click and drag like so.
So the selection tool is the black arrow and allows us
to simply select, move, and change the size of our vectors,
and the keyboard shortcut for this is V.
And the direct selection tool is the white arrow, and allows us
to select and edit anchor points and handles on our vector paths,
and for this the shortcut key is A. You will soon discover
that you will be using these two tools a lot to create
and refine your vector artwork.
So once you have had a little practice with both the selection
and direct selection tool, you are ready
to move on to the next video.
In the next video, I'm going to talk about fill
and stroke effects in Adobe Illustrator.
So see you in the next video.