Quote from: Grimace on June 06, 2013, 08:36:07 AMExpand your layer and then by clicking on the center portion of the sublayers you can select multiple layers either by shift clicking or command clicking the sublayers you want.
With those layers still selected, go to the little black arrow/flyout menu and choose Collect in New Layer. Once you have all in the new layer you can select all in that layer and group.

Not as easy, but works.

Right (if I understand this) I can shift click each individual sublayer one at a time and then group...but I'm looking for a way to scroll and select, or select the first and last and have the computer select everything in between. I have really long lists of sublayers I want to group, but keep inside it's original layer.

In Illustrator CS5 there was a neat little trick where you select the first sublayer, then hold down the option key on the Mac and slowly scroll and it would keep adding selections so you could group a long list of sublayers. That doesn't work in Illustrator CS6...instead it attempts to move the first selection by dragging it.

Anyone know of a way to do this in CS6?

I've tried selecting the first and last while holding the shift key, it doesn't select what's inbetween the two. Any suggestions?

In the video "What is Pantone LIVE" they say..
"Match your brands color across multiple print surfaces...regardless of surface, substrate, medium..whatever printing technique you can think of...absolute color control."

Um...wow. That just seems like an over the top, pie-in-the-sky, not real world ability to me. I'm imagining every branding company out there will jump on this. And I'm wondering if there's a standardized ink set that has to be used (Sun Chemical is listed as a partner).

I'm curious to hear feedback from anyone that's had to use this system...what all it entailed.

http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone.aspx?pg=20984

Anyone using this? Opinions?

Quote from: david on September 24, 2012, 01:35:18 PMsorry, late to the rodeo here, but Esko has come a long way in their packaging software. I haven't used it, but they have a pretty good distort program from what I hear (saw it briefly at a demo earlier this year). It's called PowerWarp

Not sure what your budget is, but...
Linkage:
http://www.esko.com/en/Products/overview/artpro/modules

They may have finally perfected it, I know in the past it worked the same as Illustrator. Extremely expensive, and can't just buy the "warping" aspect.

I've been searching the Adobe forums and anywhere else online that I could think of. The Strada plug in did get back to me telling me they couldn't do the warping. I appreciate them answering my question.

One of the things that I learned from the Adobe forums is that Photoshop actually does a better job of warping than Illustrator. However, that's not really a solution, but it makes me believe that Illustrator is CAPABLE of this...it just hasn't been developed yet.

And....most of all...thank you to everyone that took the time to respond to this thread. I appreciate the help.

Quote from: andyfest on September 23, 2012, 05:06:21 PM

Quote from: CMYKFrustrated on September 23, 2012, 07:56:06 AM

Quote from: DigitalCrapShoveler on September 21, 2012, 05:54:31 PMWhat if you were to say cut the contents of the mask, then use the mask as the center of a compound path after drawing a larger rectangle around it. Then copying it and using it to punch the art underneath and extending beyond the original clipping mask. Each time pasting the new compound mask in front and punching each shape. After all the art is trimmed, releasing the new compound path and reclipping to the original mask? Follow me?

Yes I do follow you, and you're beginning to understand, however, what's described here is simply a way to trim the art back to make it symmetrical, and that's the crux of the problem. Plus....to be accurate, the warp has to be calculated from the trim/dieline and not the bleed. Imagine that you have something that has to match up across the seam of the cup. Even if you trim everything to the bleed, and get Illustrator to use the bleed size to calculate the warp, it's still off.

I need Illustrator to KEEP the bleed, but use the trim as the size to warp to.

Can't you mask the art to the required size, warp to the dieline and then offset your now-warped mask path out by 1/8 in to get the needed bleed? Just speculation here as I am at home and can't try it.

No, reason being, Illustrator won't use just what's visible inside the mask to warp to the dieline. It will use the entire art that exists under the clipping path, ergo, everything has to be manually trimmed back by hand. But even that doesn't really work, especially if one of the elements needing "trimmed" is a complex placed photo.

I think I need to marry a computer aided drafting program with Illustrator, so that's the kind of plug in I'm looking for. I need an accurate distortion to a specific size on a complicated piece of art created with Adobe CS.

I actually think Adobe could make this happen. If I do an arc using the envelope mesh tool, I can manually distort the individual points.

I want the computer to do that accurately for me. Use the dieline as the "active" area, calculate the warp to the designated size templet, then warp the art...letting what's in the bleed and beyond go along but not be calculated in the warp area.

If this doesn't currently exist....it ought to. It's doable.

Quote from: DigitalCrapShoveler on September 21, 2012, 05:54:31 PMWhat if you were to say cut the contents of the mask, then use the mask as the center of a compound path after drawing a larger rectangle around it. Then copying it and using it to punch the art underneath and extending beyond the original clipping mask. Each time pasting the new compound mask in front and punching each shape. After all the art is trimmed, releasing the new compound path and reclipping to the original mask? Follow me?

Yes I do follow you, and you're beginning to understand, however, what's described here is simply a way to trim the art back to make it symmetrical, and that's the crux of the problem. Plus....to be accurate, the warp has to be calculated from the trim/dieline and not the bleed. Imagine that you have something that has to match up across the seam of the cup. Even if you trim everything to the bleed, and get Illustrator to use the bleed size to calculate the warp, it's still off.

I need Illustrator to KEEP the bleed, but use the trim as the size to warp to.

Quote from: Tracy on September 21, 2012, 05:18:54 PMIs there a way to make it symmetrical?
my 2 cents :laugh:

Yes, that's the workaround now. But we're talking a complex piece of art with placed photos and vectors that aren't easy to accurately crop back to the bleed. Meanwhile the warp really has to be calculated from the TRIM.....not the bleed.

Quote from: DigitalCrapShoveler on September 21, 2012, 01:51:10 PM......If she could post some kind of example so I can see what the problem is, I might have a solution. It's too hard for me to try to sort through words that more times than not, confuse the issue.

Just create a bunch of slightly overlapping shapes in Illustrator. Place a rectangular box on top of all with no fill, no stroke. Make sure it's off center. Now...warp that and you'll get what I'm experiencing. (You can use arc...you can use envelope mesh.....)

If the rectangle was set up in ratio to the flattened shape of the cup, the art needs to warp symmetrically to wrap around the cup. Illustrator won't do it symmetrically because it selects everything, even the stuff that is not visible but exists under the clipping path.

Quote from: DigitalCrapShoveler on September 21, 2012, 02:16:49 PMI'm a Prepress guy, who but a warped individual would continue in this career?

A question I have asked in the mirror countless times.....

Quote from: DigitalCrapShoveler on September 21, 2012, 01:14:17 PMI'm still not really understanding what it is you're trying to do.

You have been sent in an Illustrator file, with placed photos and vector graphics that has a clipping path on top of it in a rectangular shape. You need to warp this to wrap around a cup. The placed photos and vectors are not symmetrical to the clipping path. You find that simply "selecting all" and warping or arcing will mean that the entire wireframe will be used to calculate the warp...not just what you need inside the clipping path. Ergo, you get a reeeeaaaaalllly distorted piece of digital crap to shovel instead of a nicely warped graphic. Comprende?

Surely will all the printed cups in the world....someone out there has a solution. Whether that's a designer, or a prepress guru.

Quote from: DigitalCrapShoveler on September 21, 2012, 01:05:57 PMNot in Illustrator.

Okay then a plug in. If the "align" tool can have the underlying mechanics to use the clipping path, then the arc or warp envelope should be able to have code written that would follow the same logic.

Quote from: t-pat on September 21, 2012, 12:13:43 PM

Quote from: CMYKFrustrated on September 21, 2012, 11:08:12 AM

Quote from: t-pat on September 20, 2012, 12:02:41 PMOur designer uses a plugin for Illy called Strata 3D

Quote from: CMYKFrustrated on September 20, 2012, 12:08:03 PM

Quote from: t-pat on September 20, 2012, 12:02:41 PMOur designer uses a plugin for Illy called Strata 3D

I'll check into that! Thank you!

From what I can tell from the short tutorials on the Strata 3D website....(and I may be missing something)....it's taking the art that's positioned on a folding/diecut templet and aligning it so that it would match along the folds. Nice....but I'm not seeing a warp aspect to being able to curve art to a rounded shape that doesn't fold.

I saw him doing something where he would put an actual product sample, in this case a spray can, on a turntable, photograph it 360 degrees in several shots, and merge 2 d illy art onto a wireframe the software would generate from the camera shots, yielding a complete 3d model of the product. He was grafting a label onto the can for modeling. He also did a blister pack for the can the same way. Maybe it's not what you need though, sorry!

That DOES sound like a great way to make a 3-D mock up, but you're right, I'm kinda looking for a way to preserve the integrity of the original file in it's vector/raster form and just arc/warp/curve it.

I've found from my experiments today that if I use the envelope mesh, keep the mesh simple, edit the contents to pull the shape I'm aiming for out of the mesh envelope, I can (painstakingly) select the individual points of the mesh and move their handles and position to sorta do what I'm attempting. It's certainly nothing I'd rely on in a real world situation and it takes an ability to understand bezier curves.

There has to be a more elegant solution to this. A way to say "Select all the mesh points inside this object and shape them TO this object"..and let the rest of the stuff outside just follow along in a decent curve.