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Participant
December 6, 2024

Collapse transformations + puppet pin tool

  • December 6, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 301 views

Hello, I have an issue with using the Puppet Pin Tool in After Effects.
I created a character in Illustrator and imported it into After Effects. When I click on Collapse Transformations and try to use the Puppet Pin Tool, a mesh is applied, but it creates an outline in the background that matches the shape of my character. This outline stays there, and I’m unable to remove it.

Additionally, I can’t add Puppet Pins to the character itself. Is there a solution to this issue?

1 reply

Community Expert
December 7, 2024

You cannot animate transform properties or use any effect that changes pixels or the alpha channel on a layer with Puppet Pin applied. Collapse transformations can also foul things up if the artwork you are animating is in a nested comp (pre-comp). I would have to see the modified properties of all problem layers in your comp to figure out exactly what is happening.

 

If expanding the mesh does not solve the problem and your artwork is the right size so you do not have to scale up the layer, you can turn off Collapse transformations. That will not affect the quality of the image.