Blend Objects

[Gidget]

I aspire to make a series of circles that start tiny and get larger.

I created a blend to this. However, I want to the circles to be equidistant from each other and I cannot figure out how to control that in the blend.

Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way?

Thanks!

[FreeTransform]

I just tried this, with a small cirlce on the left, blending, in steps, to a larger circle on the right. The circles are equidistant, as they are measured from the center. But the fact that the circles are different sizes makes it look like some are closer than others. Expand the blend, ungroup, then try to align, and you will see this is the case.

[Gidget]

My goal is to create a line of graduated dots that follow a path.

I tried so far by creating the blend and replacing the spine, but i am getting the circles overlapping instead of an equal distance edge to edge.

Any ideas for me? I know if I replace it with a circle and cut it, they snap to even spacing, but I can't get the same result on a path?

[tnp651]

I'm trying to follow Dave Cross's online video tutorial at http://www.illustratortechniques.com/blending.html but using stars instead of balls. My problem is that I can't orient the stars as I want.

As the tutorial states, I make a linear blend and a no-stroke, no-fill circle:
http://www.tnphoto.com/illy/Picture-1.gif
I choose Object>Blend>Replace Spine:
http://www.tnphoto.com/illy/Picture-2.gif
I click the spine with the Scissors tool to open it:
http://www.tnphoto.com/illy/Picture-3.gif
I've chosen the option in the Blend Options dialog to have the objects rotate to follow the spine. They do so, but there's no way to change their orientation in relation to it. In this case I'd like two arms of each star to align with the spine, with one arm facing straight out. Can this be done?

Tom Nelson

[natureday]

Can you blur the objects together?

[tnp651]

Can you blur the objects together?

??? How would that help? Is there something I don't understand? I want to rotate each red star.

Tom

[Phats57]

Buy, I tried messing around with this for the past 40 minutes. I have lots of interesting results, but not the ones I was looking for. I am wondering if it has something to do with moving either the center point of the circle, or the anchor point of the stars before blending. :cool:

[tnp651]

I tried aligning the big circle and the star blend left, right or center and it makes no difference. Even putting the center of the blend inside the center of the circle doesn't do it.

The closest I came was to click the left-hand Orientation button in Blend Options (to keep the stars in the same orientation instead of rotating to follow the circle). This let me choose the star that was closest to the orientation I wanted. I clicked with the Scissors in the center of that star and then changed Orientation to follow the angle of the circle. Whoops! The stars change to orient themselves 180° from what I wanted.

OK, maybe I need to choose the star that's 180° off my desired orientation and click it with the Scissors. No, the orientation is still 180° off.

Very strange. I don't think I can do what I want using this technique.
Tom

[TORCH511]

The top of the object will follow the path of the circle starting at "Illustrator Zero°" which like AutoCAD and a lot of other design software is at the 3 O'clock position.

To get the star to point inward, rotate the objects -90°, blend and then replace the spine with the circle... voila!

You can also cheat this by deleting that section of the path to create an open path rather than a closed one. Just make sure the deleted section is about the size of the spacing so it looks even, or make it teeny tiny, replace and then expand and delete one of the duplicates that are close together.

[Scott Weichert]

Actually in this case Effects > Distort & Transform >Transform will work better.

Draw 1 star, select it choose Effects > Distort & Transform >Transform from the menu Check the settings in the image below.

The blend trick is fabulous, but sometimes the effect works better depending upon the desired result and object being used.

[kazbear]

As another option, I would suggest a pattern brush. This will allow you to control the size and spacing of the stars and it will automatically fill the space of whatever size circle (path) you make.

One problem with this may be that the pattern will distort slightly to fit the path. In many cases you want this effect, but may not be appropriate for your stars. Try it out and see.

Another option without the distort effect of the the Pattern Brush is the Scatter brush. Lots of settings to choose there and you would need to play to get just the effect you need. Make sure you choose Rotation relative to Path to get the stars they way you want.

[tnp651]

I hadn't thought of a pattern brush, Kazbear. For those of you following along, here's what it looks like (with the original star beside it):
http://tnphoto.com/illy/star-brush.gif
Notice how the stars are distorted.

I tried text on a path, using the star symbol from Zapf Dingbats. I wasn't able to get the stars to fit evenly around the path:
http://tnphoto.com/illy/star-dingbat.gif

The technique that did work was to apply a transformation effect to the star (Effect>Distort & Transform>Transform). Doing that just to the star, however, I couldn't get it to rotate around anything but its center. The solution is to make another small object, place it where you want the center, and group that with the star. In the Transform dialog box, click the bottom-center icon (circled) to indicate the center of the transformation. That works perfectly.
http://tnphoto.com/illy/star-transform.gif
Tom

[Scott Weichert]

Check my post above Tom :) it's exactly what you've come up with, without any extra objects.

[tnp651]

For some reason I hadn't seen your posting, Scott. I'm not sure why setting a negative vertical move value does what I want but the result is almost perfect. I notice that the stars are rotated just slightly (the points don't quite line up). See http://www.illustratortechniques.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=42&d=1166668767. Any idea why that is?
Tom

[Scott Weichert]

It's probably just the degree of rotation I used. setting it to 19 or 18° should result in the points lining up.