Of course, we are not always going to want to make just straight lines for our vector object. We need to be able to make curves as well. So, let us go back to our pen tool and let us add a little bit to it. This time, I am going to click to make a point. So I would go over here a little bit to the middle of the screen and click, but I will hold the mouse button down. And while I got the mouse button down, I am going to drag out. Now as you can see, what we create here is our click created control point just like before. But now, I have created this handle, and this handle is going to allow us to create curved lines by influencing the direction of our vector. Now, we cannot see very much yet. But if I go and draw a second point up here at the top, I am going to drag out sideways and there you can see our curved form.
Now, I am still holding down the mouse just so we can investigate this handle. You will notice that as I pull the handle longer, it is giving me a different shaped curve and also as I change the direction or the angle of the handle to give me a different shaped curve. So, those two things are going to influence what kind of curve we draw. Now just like before, I can keep making additional points and make one over here and we are going to create the head of our new robot. I will create one down here at the bottom and I will pull down again. And you can see there, I can pull that curve out and we get like a dome shape for the head.
Now, if you do not want to close your file off, you can close off the pen curve by simply creating a point and double clicking with that point. So, I am going to double click right here and that will finish off the line drawing. Once again, we can go back to our sub selection tool and we can click on these control points. But now, we not only get the control point access which is what we had before but we can also access that handle and change how our curve is being made.
Now, I do want to investigate these handles a little bit so I am going to grab hold to that one on the top. And as I said, as soon as you click the point, you can see that the handles appear and I have access to them so you can modify your curve. I wanted to take a look at two things. The first thing is that the default handle is actually a two-sided one. You notice that it is kind of like a seesaw here. As I pull this side of the handle, this side also moves. And, that is a control that allows me to make sure that whatever happens at this curve point that my curve is smooth that we do not have any kinks or corners. So, if I pull down on this curve really dramatically, that changes the direction of the curve that enters this point and also the direction the curve leaves. So even though this is a little spiky, it is still technically a smooth line to that point.
Now, the second thing that we saw is as you pull the handle out, you will get a different shape in the curve. Very specifically, a long handle is going to give you a very spiky curve and a very short handle is going to give you kind of a flat curve.
So, you can choose exactly how your curves should be shaped as it goes through these control points that you have created.
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