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Inspiring
September 17, 2020
Question

Pen tool not drawing lines in aftereffects

  • September 17, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 12351 views

I am struggling with the pen tool.  I have the stroke set, it is at 100%.  It will not draw a line.  I have tired everything can someone please help me because I am on a killer deadline to animate a map and I can't get the lines to even appear... what am I doing wrong? It works in Photoshop fine! Thanks in advance!

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    3 replies

    Szalam
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 17, 2020

    What values do you have set for the Taper?
    Is your layer's blending mode inadvertently set to something other than Normal?

    Out of curiousity, why do you have the Shy option toggled for all your layers?

    Community Expert
    September 17, 2020

    Start the troubleshooting process by creating a new comp, select the pen tool, make sure the stroke is set to a solid color and the stroke value is greater than 2 pixels, make sure Fill is off, then click and draw a simple path in the new comp. If that works then there is something wrong with the shape layer you created in the original comp. Delete it and start over. 

     

    If the stroke does not show up press Shift + Alt/Option + Ctrl/Cmnd + k to open project settings and check the video rendering and effects settings. Try changing them. It is unlikely that the Video Preview, Display, and GPU settings in Preferences (Alt/Option + Ctrl/Cmnd + 😉 will make any difference but check them too. 

     

    If all that fails, hold down Shift + Alt/Option + Ctrl/Cmnd the next time you start AE and delete the preferences to reset them or go to the General tab in Preferences and browse to the preferences file and rename it and restart AE. If that fails, check for updates to your build and/or reinstall.

    John Waller
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 17, 2020

    Your post has been moved from the Using the Community forum which is for assistance with using these Adobe User to User forums.