Blend and Envelope

Making a blend

Draw two objects. They can differ in shape, colour, size and position; that difference is the whole point, because the blend interpolates between them.

1. Pick the Blend tool It lives in the build slot on the tool rail, which shows Shape Builder by default. Click the small triangle on the slot to open the flyout and choose Blend, or press Shift+B. Your pick sticks in that slot until you change it.
2. Click object A The first click marks the start of the blend.
3. Click object B The second click fires the blend and the interpolated copies appear between them.

The Blend tool is a click sequencer, not a drawing tool. It writes no geometry itself; it fires the same Make command you would get from Object ▸ Blend ▸ Make. That is also why it has no option bar of its own and shows the Select bar instead. Nothing is broken. Everything you tune afterwards lives in Object ▸ Blend.

Tuning the blend afterwards

Everything about a blend is adjustable from Object ▸ Blend once it exists:

• Blend Options… opens the parameter dialog for the blend.
• Replace Spine swaps the invisible path the copies march along. Draw a curve, select it with the blend, and replace the spine to send the run around a corner.
• Reverse Spine flips the direction of travel along that path.
• Reverse Front to Back flips the stacking order of the interpolated copies. This is the fix when the blend is stacked the wrong way round and the far end covers the near end.
• Release removes the blend and gives you the two source objects back.
• Expand turns the interpolated copies into real, separately editable objects.

Keep it live for as long as you can. While a blend is live, editing either source object updates every copy between them. Recolour object B and the whole gradient of shapes follows. Expand and you inherit a pile of independent objects that no longer track anything.

Envelope Distort

Envelope takes a selection and pushes it through a distortion cage. Select the artwork first, then pick the Envelope tool from the same build slot flyout. It has no keyboard shortcut.

The option bar is one Style dropdown plus the controls that style needs. The styles are the fifteen warp presets (Arc, Arc Lower, Arc Upper, Arch, Bulge, Shell Lower, Shell Upper, Flag, Wave, Fish, Rise, Fisheye, Inflate, Squeeze, Twist), plus Mesh (grid), Mesh with fit to shape, Top Object and Perspective.

• Warp styles expose Bend, Dir, H and V, each running from −100 to 100. Bend is the amount, and H and V skew the distortion off-centre.
• Mesh styles expose Rows and Cols from 1 to 20, with Edit, add row, add column and Reset. More rows means finer control and more handles to manage. Start at 3×3.
• Top Object uses the frontmost selected shape as the cage, which is how you pour a logo into a custom silhouette.
• Perspective maps the artwork onto a plane.

Every style carries Release and Expand in the bar. Release removes the envelope and restores the artwork. Expand bakes the distorted result into real geometry.

The menu route

Object ▸ Envelope Distort does the same work without the tool, which is often quicker when you already know what you want. It offers Make with Warp…, Make with Mesh at 3×3, Make with Mesh at 4×4, Make with Perspective, Make with Top Object and Make with Mesh fit to object. Below that sit Edit Mesh, Add Mesh Row, Add Mesh Column, Reset Mesh, Release and Expand.

Release and Expand in this menu are deliberately broad: each fires the commands for every envelope kind, so one item works whether you used a warp, a mesh or a top object. You do not have to remember which route you took.

Keys worth knowing

Rayzia's tool keys are single letters and they work anywhere the canvas has focus. The blend and envelope workflow needs very few of them.

The Envelope tool has no shortcut. Reach it through the build slot's flyout triangle, or use the Object ▸ Envelope Distort menu.

Common questions