Ai what is a compound path

When you create a compound shape, it takes on the paint and transparency attributes of the topmost component in Add, Intersect, or Exclude mode. Subsequently, you can change the paint, style, or transparency attributes of the compound shape. Illustrator facilitates this process by automatically targeting the whole compound shape when you select any part of it, unless you explicitly target a component in the Layers panel.

Original objects B. Compound shape created C. Individual shape modes applied to each component D. Style applied to entire compound shape. You can include paths, compound paths, groups, other compound shapes, blends, text, envelopes, and warps in a compound shape. Any open paths you select are automatically closed. Each component of the compound shape is assigned the shape mode you select. Select Make Compound Shape from the Pathfinder panel menu. Each component of the compound shape is assigned the Add mode by default.

Note: You never need to change the mode of the backmost component, because that mode isn't relevant to the compound shape. To sustain maximum performance, create complex compound shapes by nesting other compound shapes containing up to about 10 components each instead of using many individual components. Releasing a compound shape separates it back into separate objects. Expanding a compound shape maintains the shape of the compound object, but you can no longer select the individual components.

The shape layers and layer clipping paths vector masks in Adobe Photoshop are types of compound shapes. You can import shape layers and layer clipping paths into Illustrator as compound shapes and continue to manipulate them. In addition, you can export compound shapes to Photoshop. Keep the following in mind when using compound shapes with Photoshop:.

Only compound shapes that reside at the top level of the layer hierarchy are exported to Photoshop as shape layers. A compound shape painted with a stroke using a join other than round, or with a weight in points that is not an integer, is rasterized when exported to the PSD file format. A compound path contains two or more paths that are painted so that holes appear where paths overlap.

When you define objects as a compound path, all objects in the compound path take on the paint and style attributes of the backmost object in the stacking order.

Use the Direct Selection tool or the Group Selection tool to select part of a compound path. You can manipulate the shape of individual components of a compound path, but you can't change appearance attributes, graphic styles, or effects for individual components, and you can't manipulate components individually in the Layers panel. If you want more flexibility when creating compound paths, you can create a compound shape and then expand it.

Nonzero winding fill rule. Uses mathematical equations to determine if a point is outside or inside a shape. Illustrator uses the nonzero winding rule as the default rule. Even-odd fill rule. Self-intersecting paths are paths that intersect themselves.

When you create a nonzero winding compound path, you can specify whether overlapping paths appear with holes or are filled by clicking a Reverse Path Direction button in the Attributes panel. Four circular paths B. Circular paths selected, converted into compound path C. Reverse Path Direction applied to innermost path.

Using the Direct Selection tool, select the part of the compound path to reverse. Don't select the entire compound path. Legal Notices Online Privacy Policy. Adobe Illustrator Features What's New. Buy now. Combine objects Search. Methods of combining objects. Pathfinder effects. Compound shapes. Compound paths. Combine objects using Pathfinder effects.

Navigate the Pathfinder panel. Choose from the following shape modes:. Adds the area of the component to the underlying geometry. Cuts out the area of the component from the underlying geometry. Uses the area of the component to clip the underlying geometry as a mask would.

Specify Pathfinder options. Removes unnecessary points as you click a Pathfinder button. The objects we are going to clip will be images of them swimming. To start, we will do a clipping mask for Job. You can expand the layer view to see the text and object image separately:.

When dealing with clipping masks, you will often find that either the clipping path or object underneath needs to be altered to fit together. In this case, I want to edit the letters individually. First, I converted the text to outline so each letter can be edited. Each letter has now become an object that can be edited but not like regular text.

You will notice that anchor points appear on each letter — they can be moved and edited individually:. Luckily, compound path allows several paths to be combined into one path.

As you saw, compound paths combine all selected paths into one. You can also use this tool to make some pretty cool designs quickly. Play around with it by taking a few basic shapes and stacking them on top of each other. Although, there can not be two or more clipping paths without making them a compound path , you CAN clip two or more objects underneath. As you can see, clipping masks and compound paths are some pretty cool and easy tools that make designing that much more fun.

Our newsletter is for everyone who loves design! Let us know if you're a freelance designer or not so we can share the most relevant content for you. They can interact in different ways, using the 4 top buttons in the pathfinder panel - the shape modes:.

In the layers panel compound shapes are more complex as well since they are container objects that have the original paths as content. This also allows you to assign different effects to the single paths inside the compound shape only certain effects unfortunately.

As you can see in my example there are appearances applied dark grey target symbol in the layers panel. This is not all. In compound shapes you can create complex hierarchies and add more paths to already existing compound shapes by using different shapes modes. And you can use symbol instances as well as live text in a compound shape. All of this allows you to create complex shapes that are editable until a very late stage of production.