With 3D Live Effects you can add dimension to your 2D drawings easily. Though the features are limited, you can still control the appearance of 3D objects with lighting, shading, rotation, and more. You can also easily map artwork onto the 3d surfaces. Let’s see how each 3D effects works…

3D Extrude & Bevel

3D Extrude adds depth to an object to make it 3D. Select your object and go Effect>3D>Extrude & Bevel. The options window pops up. Change the Extrude Depth to determine the amount of depth. The Bevel sets the type of edges for the 3D object. Click and drag the cube to define how the star rotate in 3d space. You can also change the surface shading to define the texture.

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Using filters and live effects we can creates lots of special effects instantly. You can smooth out sharp corners, create warp text, add drop shadows and make textures with the live effects. There are many filters in Illustrator and you can have lots of creativity in experimenting all the filters.

Live Effects or Filters

To create special effects, we can use either use Live Effects of Filters. Most of the time I will be using live effects as I can continue making changes using the Appearance Palette. The choice is up to you.

Live Effects: When you apply live effects to objects you can still continue to modify the effects and objects. You will need to expand the object break it into paths again.

Filters: When you apply filters, you can’t make changes to the effect anymore. It is already expanded.

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Symbols help you to create repeated design elements easily. First, you will need to create a symbol which acts like a master copy. New instances you created are linked with the master copy. Once you update the master copy, the instances will automatically update the graphic but retain all the transformations made to the symbols.
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Gradient Mesh allows you to create shapes with gradients. And many artist has been able to create photo realistic drawings of people, products and vehicles just by using Gradient Mesh. Here is an example of photorealistic artwork by Halim Ghobane. If you don’t believe your eyes, the gradient mesh line will show the answer.

Halim Ghodbane
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Illustrator Blend Tool does the trick of creating smooth transition between objects. You can blend open paths to create line effects and blend shapes to create realistic shadings. There are many creative things you can do with the Blend Tool and you will definitely be using it a lot in your illustrations.

Blend Effects

Here are some quick interesting stuff you can do with blending.

Realistic Shadings

With smooth blends you can create realistic shading which cannot be done with gradient.

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