Adobe illustrator experts needed!

I am working on making a yellow submarine, and I want the 1/8 inch slots to be adjustable to the edge of the circle, even if I change the size of the circle. So I found this video that does exactly this, however the functionality does not seem to exist for me.

It’s at 6:15 into the video when he drags the shape to the edge of the circle holding shift, and the entire transformed duplicated item spreads apart. For me it just moves the lump of copied parts around.

There are other ways to do what I want to do, but I really like this method and just want it to work!

You can move this topic wherever it seems fit, I wasn’t really sure of the best category for it.

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It sounds like you’ve moved the entire group rather than double clicking to go into isolation mode and moving only the pink triangle. You need to leave the little circle base centered in the larger circle for this method to work.

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41%20PM

I think i have it isolated, but then it just moves the blob! Driving me batty.

What does the single element look like?

Sorry, not in front of my computer right now, it is those notches that are in the circle. So individually it is just one notch

Did you originally create them around a center circle before entering the Transformation menu? (I haven’t tried them yet, but I plan to play with that a little…I usually just manually copy…it looks like a sweet little technique.)

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No, I created it on the side like he did, then moved it. Not really sure what I’m doing wrong with that

The transform command is really powerful. There are a few YouTube tutorials on making mandalas with it—very cool.

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Thank you I will check them out!

I think his entire method (from the video) over complicates things. I’d skip the whole making the group off to the side and just create your parts in place with a center point at the center of the circle and your notch at the spot you want it, then group and apply the filter.

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I think you need to use something for the smaller piece that has the ability to have a fill. That way it will show up on top and you can select it. It looks like you used a line shape with no fill.

I can choose the middle one and adjust.

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I need to give it a go again, work is getting in the way!

Thanks! I will try it out.

That video is the absolute worst way to do it and he makes it take 11 minutes for what should take 30 seconds. It’s 11 minutes of what not to do.

Make your circle. Center it with the alignment panel (make sure artboard is selected). Draw a single slot. Center it horizontally, and then move it to the top of your circle, overlapping as necessary. Make sure you’re in the mode where you can see extra info (I can’t remember what it’s called at the moment and I’m on my iPad). The shortcut is Cmd/Ctrl + U. This will allow you to see the center point of the circle when you get your cursor near it. Hit R to bring up the rotation tool. Option/alt + click on the center. This will be your center of rotation. Your cursor should snap a bit to it and I believe it’ll say Center and highlight the circle. A dialog box will pop up. Enter 360/the number of desired copies. Hit copy. That will close the dialog and give you a copy at the new angle. Hit Cmd/Ctrl + D to duplicate that transformation including the copy. Do it until your slots are complete. Group those and use them with the pathfinder palette to subtract them, or select it all and hit Shift + M to bring up the shape tool where you can Opt/Alt + click the shapes you want to subtract or Opt/Alt + click and drag through the things you want to subtract. It’s easier to drag the line through multiple things to subtract them, especially since you’ll likely have 3 things to subtract for each slot.

Pathfinder is the way to go if you understand it. I think you’ll want “Minus Front” but it’s hard to know without being in front of it and seeing the layer order.

If you need more help, or if my explanation is confusing let me know. My side gig is doing straight to the point After Effects tutorials for advanced users on YouTube. I’ve been using AI for nearly 20 years and I still use it daily, so if you need more help I have no problem recording a quick video. I have everything set up.

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I completely understand your description! The end part is where I had trouble, but now you have explained that perfectly! I will return to my submarine preparation soon. This was the weekend of the treehouse building!

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Awesome. If you need anything else, let me know!

Mahalo!!!

Mahalo!

Feel free to drop hints anytime. I learned more from that paragraph than I thought possible.

If you decide to do a 30 second video in all for it :slight_smile:

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Sure thing. I’ll keep that in mind.

I will say this, after watching some of that (it’s still really long) I can see how that can be helpful if you’re doing a few different radiuses, but it’s really not that difficult to do it the way that I explained it, even if you have to do it more than once. Plus, I believe you can also use the scale tool to only move things positionally. But that’s another topic for another time.

If you did it using the effect version he shows, you’ll need to expand appearance and then you can use pathfinder as I mentioned previously.

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