hi everyone Simona here from Vecortwist.
I's time for another type effect tutorial and in
this tutorial today I would like to show you how to create a broken glass effect.
As you can see in the background I'm going to show you how you can break up your text
and then turn it into a shattered glass effect but that's not all the steps I'm going to show!
I will help you even create other effects here in Illustrator as well.
Let me quickly show you once you've broken up your text you can even give it funky colors
and then use the 3D Tools to create a thick block or junk like effect.
So let's start right away. First we need some text so I already prepared the text here. It’s
“Vectortwist” I'm using a really bold font. The font is called “Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold”.
And once we’ve written out our text, we want to outline it. So with the text selected,
we’ll go to Type and choose “Outline”.
Now our text is a vector shape and then we can start splitting it up into pieces
so we can create our glass effect. In Illustrator you can use different tools
to come to the same outcome and I'm a fan of finding the easiest way to do things.
So in order to cut up our shapes here from our text I think the best way to
go about it is choosing the Knife Tool. Now the Knife Tool you can
find over here in the Tool Bar where you can see our Eraser Tool. Just click and
hold with the mouse key and all the way on the bottom you have your Knife Too.
Now we will select the Knife Tool and then we will start cutting up our text. Now before we
use the Knife Tool, we want to make sure that we select all of our text.
So let's select it, then go back to the Knife Tool and then we want to cut it into pieces.
We want to pay attention that were cutting in straight lines and in order to do that with the
Knife Tool all we have to do is press and hold the Option or Alt Key on the keyboard and then
we can start dragging across our text and as you can see we are cutting in straight lines.
So just start and cut it into pieces. Where you want your pieces to be,
how long, how small, how tied together, that is really up to you.
Now once you cut everything up we want to pull the shapes away from each other.
First we have to select our text. Go to Object and then select Ungroup and
then after that we can select our shape singly and then either with
the cursor or with the arrow keys on the keyboard you can move them out of the way.
How far the gap is in between the shapes this is really up to you.
This step is a little bit tedious so it takes some time but this is
how we can create the shattered glass effect.
Here on the text now I have separated all of the shapes.
So let me just show you what the end result will look like.
Now here you have two shapes in Illustrator moved
apart and you can already get the idea of the shattered glass effect.
Now the next step is to create the background with a blue gradient.
So let's select the rectangle tool and create a
rectangle on top of the text and then move it to the back.
Go to Object > Arrange > Send to Back and then here in my toolbar
just to show you that we were behind the text.
I'm just going to quickly apply a white and black gradient but I have
already created a blue gradient for us so I'm going to apply it.
I'm going to turn on the Gradient Annotator by pressing G on the keyboard and then
just move the gradient upwards a little bit and stretching it out.
Next we want to lock our background, so we select it, then we go to
Object > Lock and choose Selection. We want to apply a gradient to our shapes here.
If I select all of them and open up the Swatches Panel,
I'm going to choose the white and black gradient and as you can see it applies the
white and black gradient to each shape singly but in order to turn it into a glass-like
effect we want to apply it as if it was one single gradient on top of one single shape.
In order to do that we need to create a compound path. So let me show you.
With all of the shape selected let's go to Object > Compound Path > Make.
Now when I applied a gradient you can see how it applies it
to all of the shapes as if all of the shapes were one single shape.
Next we need a radial gradient instead of a linear
one and I've already created one for us so I'm just going to apply it.
Press G again on the keyboard to turn on
the Gradient Annotator and then just stretch it out a little bit.
Next we're going to open up the Transparency Panel and
then we're going to set the Blend Mode from Normal to Color Dodge.
The next step is to apply a 3d effect so we're going to select our shapes,
we'll go to Effects > 3D > Extrude and Bevel. Here in the pop-up we're going to set all of
the values of the degrees to zero we're going to drag it up a little bit to approximately
about six or seven degrees, then we'll turn on the preview and then we press
“Ok” and now you can see that we've created a shattered glass like effect onto our shape.
If you would like to have another idea what you could do instead of
working with a Fill you could just work with the Stroke.
So here let me show you.
I've taken the same text and instead of using a fill I've just applied a Stroke.
It is set it to color Dodge as well in the Transparency Panel, but I've used a custom
brush. But more on custom brushes and how to use them for glows and strokes in another tutorial.
Before we end this tutorial I would just like to
show you what else you could do by breaking up text like this.
Instead of creating a shattered glass effect you
could get a little creative and create a broken up stone effect.
The breaking up with the Knife Tool is the same and instead
of using a blue gradient to create a glass effect,
I've just colored the pieces in different pastel colors and then again I've used the 3d tools.
Let me show you.
When I go here into the Appearance Panel and simply applied a different custom rotation to it.
And this is it. Now I hope you enjoyed this tutorial so please give it a like, subscribe
to the channel here on vectortwist and at the same time go to a vectortwist.com to the blog to find
more tutorials on how to learn Illustrator and get really efficient with it. I'll see you next time