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Illustrator 10 Pathfinder mystery resolved
I don’t know if you guys use Illustrator Pathfinder in animation projects. I use Shapemodes
for 3-d elements in Zaxworks and for vector shapes in AE.A lot of animators were bummed out by Illustrator 10.0 It seemed like Shapemodes was
not usable. Instead of joining layers into a single shape, it merely grouped 2 graphics.It turns out that there is a little button on the menu. To fake everyone out,
the button is labeled “Expand.”You click on the Expand button, and everything joins into one shape like the good old days.
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3 Replies
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The idea is that the two grouped objects are still editable. In theory, you could not expand anything and then use the pull-down to expand everything as a last step. Until then, you can tweak to your heart’s content.
I don’t use Illustrator in this way. Often I need that Pathfinder expanded “result” to cut something else out. I do a lot of logo design, but I’m probably not the most efficient Illustrator user as I am self taught and only crack the manual when I run into a roadblock.
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Yeah, it’s a beautiful program. Total Training illustrator shows amazing stuff you can do with it. I probably won’t have time till the next lifetime, though.
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I have used Illustrator since version 4 on Windows (on floppies) ….and when my change from 8 to 10 happened…I was totally lost with pathfinder until the day I discovered the “new” expand button… I appreciate the ability to edit vectors (in a combined pathfinder boolean) but I miss the simplicity of the earlier versions…
don’t get me started on the way they handle compound paths as layers now!….:)
Michael
(Pseudo-old school graphic guy)
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