Tutorial help - can't make this illustrator thing work!!!

[Tom Jepson]

http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/gi ... e-new-sex/

hi! Can you help?

I've been following the tutorial in the link above and am stuck. It tells me to create long, thin shapes and duplicate. Fine! Then it asks me to 'add' the shapes together to make a new object; when I do this from the pathfinder pane, it groups the objects but makes them invisible! I want to intersect a shape with these lines (as per in the tutorial) but it just isn't happening. Am I missing something?

Running Illustrator Cs3 on a Mac.

[joeparis]

Are you sure you are selecting the correct action in the Pathfinder? It's the very first one, top left - Add to shape area.

[JohnMalcolm1970]

I'm not an expert in using Illustrator, but in that tutorial it mentions making and duplicating a lot of "skinny rectangles" (that look like heavy rules or lines) as opposed to lines or open paths. Also check that both the original shape and the intersecting shaped have the same fill and line colour.

[Tom Jepson]

Are you sure you are selecting the correct action in the Pathfinder? It's the very first one, top left - Add to shape area.

Hi Joe - Aye, am sellecting the top left icon (looks like a square & circle mashed together!)

I'm not an expert in using Illustrator, but in that tutorial it mentions making and duplicating a lot of "skinny rectangles" (that look like heavy rules or lines) as opposed to lines or open paths. Also check that both the original shape and the intersecting shaped have the same fill and line colour.

Hi John - Am using the rectangle tool, yes. When I duplicate, the all appear the same, but when I add (using the button), they group but dissapear and I canny change the colour etc. I must be doing something wrong here...!

[joeparis]

Hi Joe - Aye, am sellecting the top left icon (looks like a square & circle mashed together!)

Tom,

"Square & circle"? Just to be sure, it's this one:

[Tom Jepson]

Hi Joe - Aye, am sellecting the top left icon (looks like a square & circle mashed together!)

Tom,

"Square & circle"? Just to be sure, it's this one:

That's the sucker! I didn't have the machine on at the time... should have said 'square and square'!!!

[joeparis]

That's very odd then. What happens if you simply draw two objects, select them and click Add to shape area?
Anyway, for the purposes of the tutorial you an do the same thing by selecting all the rectangles and going to Object > Path > Compound Path > Make.

[JohnMalcolm1970]

Gave this a quick try using the rudimentary tools available in InDesign (it has Pathfinder regardless).

It works exactly as it should in the tutorial.

Make sure your first shape (the irregular splat type shape) is a compound path. Draw your rectangular boxes off to the side. Duplicate one and then use step and repeat to get the others, Select all these skinny rectangles and either: Click the Add button on Pathfinder or head up to the Object menu and make them into a compound path. Rotate this new object and overlap it over your splat shape. Select both shapes and click on the Intersect function of pathfinder. You should now have your new 'hatched' shape which you can fill or colour as you wish.

One question though. Does illustrator not have hatched type fills which you could apply and give the exact same effect?

John

[JohnMalcolm1970]

One other thing to try is what joeparis advised: Try drawing two large fat rectangles. not overlapping, then select them both and use the Add function of Pathfinder. If that works as it should and gives you a new composite object then it should be no different with a whole load of rule-like rectangles. Check there's nothing funny going on as far as strokes are concerned - Like your shapes aren't zero-weighted for example (shouldn't really matter though)

[Tom Jepson]

Hi guys,

Thankyou for all of your help! I've just sat down to my machine - after a day away from it (frustration got the better of me!) - and tried again. For whatever reason, it worked first time. Madness!

This community is - to use a really bad word - AWESOME. Thankyou, again!