The Curvature Tool

Quick reference

• 00:04 So hopefully by this point, you guys will have a little bit more practice just
• 00:07 drawing some shapes, even basic ones, with the pen tool.
• 00:11 And like I was saying in the last section, you can use the pen to either create
• 00:15 straight lines that will make up a hard edge shape like this, or you can click and
• 00:19 hold to create curved paths.
• 00:22 And you can use the handles to manipulate those even further, and
• 00:27 you can use this as a guide to tell you where your next point will be and
• 00:30 the shape that it's going to take.
• 00:32 So if I click my last point here, I'll have more control over where I end up.
• 00:38 All right, because if I were to just continue right now,
• 00:40 you can see that my handle is extended pretty far.
• 00:43 So if I try and close this shape, it's going to arc out really far and
• 00:46 then close the shape.
• 00:48 But if, instead, I click on this last point first,
• 00:51 I'll have more control over that next point.
• 00:57 I can then select that with my direct selection tool, and grab one of
• 01:00 the handles to modify it and bring it in a little bit, if it sticks out too much.
• 01:05 Or I can click on one of these handles to bring it in even more,
• 01:09 to make something really exaggerated, almost like a comma kind of shape.
• 01:14 But from here, what I can do is I can grab the tool next to my Pen tool,
• 01:18 which is called the Curvature tool.
• 01:19 And this is a really useful tool because, let's say I have a harded-shape like this,
• 01:25 well, I can come over to one of these points and double-click on it, and
• 01:28 it will then suddenly turn this into a curved path.
• 01:32 And I can do that over any of these points,
• 01:34 to essentially just create this giant kind of egg shape,
• 01:37 which I can then grab one of those points and extend it further.
• 01:40 And if I double-click it again,
• 01:42 it will return to more of an angular type of shape.
• 01:47 All right, so this is a good way to easily and quickly create some curved shapes.
• 01:51 So let's try it on this one over here, as well.
• 01:54 If I double-click on this shape, it'll actually make that point rounded.
• 01:59 And if I try that on my shape that's already rounded,
• 02:03 it'll turn it into more of an angular shape.
• 02:07 Okay, so that's kind of how the Curvature tools works.
• 02:09 If I were to just do this on a regular old square,
• 02:12 you can kind of see it even better, how it's creating these curves on both sides.
• 02:17 And now, I basically have a circle.
• 02:20 And if I double-click again on either of those points, you can
• 02:24 make it more angular, which you can really start to notice as I drag it out.
• 02:29 Okay, and I can use this to manipulate my points even more.
• 02:33 So by using a combination of this with the Pen tool, we can really create just about
• 02:37 any shape that you want, and especially if you are trying to trace a drawing, or
• 02:42 a photograph, it can be really handy to get a shape that is just right.
• 02:48 So I can click on here, and I can move this point around, but
• 02:51 I can also double-click it, to make it curved.
• 02:56 Click on that, double-click here, and now you have this rounded, kind of orb shape.
• 03:02 So it's a really quick and easy way to kind of manipulate and
• 03:05 transform a hard-edged shape into a rounded one,
• 03:08 without having to go crazy manipulating handles.
• 03:11 If I did want to manipulate the handles, I could just grab my direct selection tool
• 03:15 and pull or push those handles out, as much as I need.
• 03:20 So, in addition to practicing using the Pen tool,
• 03:23 I want you guys to try this out on your own using some hard-edged shapes.
• 03:28 We're even using some of the default shape tools,
• 03:30 and double-clicking on some of the points to turn them into curved shapes.

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