Blended Effects

[AdobeAce]

Hi All,

Have any of you played with Blending Effects? (Using the Blend tool on two or more Paths that contain variations of the same Effects)

It's an area of Illustrator that produces really amazing results with very little effort, yet there's virtually no mention of it in most Illustrator books. Less than a page is devoted to it in the Illustrator Bible and one sentence in the Illustrator Visual QuickStart Book.

I was so blown away with can be done with the Blend tool and Effects that I have included a whole section on it in my new training DVD -- "Inside Adobe Illustrator CS2."

I'm attaching a sample of a Blended 3-D Revolve Effect. It was simple to create. I just drew a profile, Revolved it, copied the revolved object and changed it's 3D settings in the Appearance palette and blendend the two objects with the Blend tool.

The best part of it is that Blends can be Exported DIRECTLY to Flash (File > Export >Flash SWF) in CS2 without being Expanded. Each Blend instance can be made into an individual frame in Flash. I know less that nothing about Flash, yet was able to create flash animations in seconds. Really cool!

Ace

[scottie]

U R my hero. Thanks

[VectorMike]

That's really cool there Ace. If you export that as a series of PNG files you could drop it into After Effects, I bet.

I'll have to give it a try.

One thing I miss from Adobe Dimensions is the ability to expost a seriesof files. some thing that didn't make the transistion from Dimensions to the 3D filter in AICS.

Tahnks for sharing,

Mike

[AdobeAce]

Hi VectorMike,

I'm no expert in After Effects (I've only watched others use it), but with the latest version you can bring the AICS2 Blended 3D art directly into the program as separate frames.

But first you have to prepare the art in Illustrator so it can be imported coprrectly into AE.

In Illustrator's Layers palette, under the Arrow Options menu, you'll find to way to break up the pieces of the Blend into separate Layers (frames) -- "Release to Layers" as a "Sequence" or a "Build." Give it a try and you'll see the difference.

Have fun!

:D

Ace

[The Repro Kid]

Hi All,

Have any of you played with Blending Effects? (Using the Blend tool on two or more Paths that contain variations of the same Effects)

It's an area of Illustrator that produces really amazing results with very little effort, yet there's virtually no mention of it in most Illustrator books. Less than a page is devoted to it in the Illustrator Bible and one sentence in the Illustrator Visual QuickStart Book...
Ace

Hiya Ace, I noticed this post earlier. In my older manuals form Illustrator there is a good deal mentioned on advanced drawing. Below is screen capture of a picture from "Beyond the Basics" book from Illustrator 5. It shows example of the blend being used to create perspective drawing, as well as how to create bevels and emboss effects, and lots more. But even if adobe was still including this kind of material with their software, It would be hard to include "older" topics like working with blends because there are so many new things that would have to be covered. These older versions of Illustrator came with a "Manual", a "tutorial" book, and a "beyond the basics" book.

But as for books today not covering Blends, there are books out there because I bought one several months ago. Not specifically for info on blends, but because I wanted a nice, new, modern book that showed newer techniques in Illustrator. I just pulled this book from the shelf and sure enough it has some good info on blends. It covered exporting 3D blends like the one you created, as flash animations. According to the book, (I haven't tried it) you first expand the blend, then ungroup the blend, then release to layers as a sequence.

It's a great book, it's called "Illustrator CS Most Wanted: Techniques and Effects." I went down to ultra-expensive Boarders and Books and browsed through every Illustrator book they had. This one was really what I was looking for, I still need to go through it, cover to cover.

[The Repro Kid]

That's really cool there Ace. If you export that as a series of PNG files you could drop it into After Effects, I bet.

I'll have to give it a try.

One thing I miss from Adobe Dimensions is the ability to expost a seriesof files. some thing that didn't make the transistion from Dimensions to the 3D filter in AICS.

Tahnks for sharing,

Mike

Hi VectorMike,
one thing I miss about Dimensions is ability to work with multiple objects in a true 3D environment. And the ability to combine 3D primitives to create a single shape, such as creating a capsule shape from two spheres and a cylinder.

Now that personal computers are so mega-powerfull, Adobe did us Dimension users a large disservice by hobbling the legs right off this once excellent program. To make something as simple as combining three primitives to make one shape can only be done by purchasing a program like strata and a separate rendering plug-in to render a vector drawing or a sequence.

The present move from Dimensions to 3D in IllustratorCS is worse than a downgrade. To me, it's more like a near total loss -- hardly worth salvaging.

The Screenshots shown below are taken forma Dimensions manual. They represent what can no longer be done in 3D IllustratorCS.

[AdobeAce]

Hi Repro,

Ah Dimensions! The good old days.

It did have great advantages.

But, what I remember most was the time it took to render. Getting all your settings just right. Clicking OK, and sitting down to a relaxing lunch while waiting and waiting for that lovely bell.

Rendering finished!

Oh no! :eek: It needs a minor tweek.

Coffee Break!

But, to get serious for a second -- It would be nice to render multiple objects sharing the same vanishing point in CS2.

Ace

[The Repro Kid]

Hi Repro,

...But, what I remember most was the time it took to render. Getting all your settings just right. Clicking OK, and sitting down to a relaxing lunch while waiting and waiting for that lovely bell.

Rendering finished!

Oh no! :eek: It needs a minor tweek.

Coffee Break!...

Ace

Well yes I remember the days before 2GhzDualG5 with 4 gigs of memory, but that was a long time ago. I have Strata files that will render in minutes, on my iMac 1.8 ghz. If dimensions existed and was written halfway adequately, it'd be flying on a new mac. What a waste. I need to pay-up and buy a Vector rendering plug-in for my Strata. I'm still confused why dimensions didn't become an image-ready type of additional-separate-yet-built-in add-on to Illustrator. That would have been ideal.