Problem with mask selection

[Flaviator]

Hi everyone,

I'm having troubles with mask selection in After effects. I made a video to illustrate.

I first select the right corner point without any problem, I'm moving back in my timeline, one frame, still good. Moving again and now you see that when I attempt to select any point, it always move all the mask. Sometimes the problem comes with the pen tool, I can't create a new mask on my layer, it always create a new point on the existing one.

It doesn't happen often but when it does, it's a real nightmare. I can close after effects, clean the cache, etc. Nothing works, so thanks for your help !

[Rick Gerard]

When you moved the CTI (time indicator) and clicked the second time the cursor did not change to the white short arrow so clicking on the layer selects the layer and moves it. You have to pay close attention to the cursor. If you have the small black arrow you should be able to select a path segment or a vertex. You can only drag a selection around one or more points with the small white arrow is visible.

I prefer to use the pen tool (g) and the Alt/Option and Ctrl/Cmnd modifier keys to edit masks most of the time. You cannot move the layer with the pen tool. The same rule applies, you have to carefully observe the cursor.

[Flaviator]

Hello Rick_Gerard and thank you for you quick answer.

I already saw your advice in a previous post, but it didn't work even if I used the pen tool and Alt/Ctrl keys.

The thing is that I don't understand why the select tool works at frame (let's say) 46, works as well at frame 45... And suddenly decide to make this "layer selection" at frame 44 ! There's no obvious reason for that, in my opinion.

[derHacker]

i have the same problem
this must be a BUG.
i use after effects fpr 15 years and shouldnt happen.
😞 buggy update
at my point its not the timeline
please adobe fix this.

[Shoot The22733981wx1n]

When you moved the CTI (time indicator) and clicked the second time the cursor did not change to the white short arrow so clicking on the layer selects the layer and moves it. You have to pay close attention to the cursor. If you have the small black arrow you should be able to select a path segment or a vertex. You can only drag a selection around one or more points with the small white arrow is visible.

I prefer to use the pen tool (g) and the Alt/Option and Ctrl/Cmnd modifier keys to edit masks most of the time. You cannot move the layer with the pen tool. The same rule applies, you have to carefully observe the cursor.

[nishu_kush]

Hi Flaviator & derHacker,

I'd love to test it. Would you mind sharing a project file that repeats this issue? Also, what's the exact version of After Effects you're using?

We're here to help.

Thanks,

Nishu

[Shoot The22733981wx1n]

That will really be a one of the kindest and greatest help for him and all the community members... Thanks Nishu.

[Flaviator]

Hello nishu_kush,

I'm truly sorry as I'm responding very lately. I totally forgot to answer you right after your post, plus I needed to find the .aep that have this problem. Sorry again, but thank you for you interest.

My after effects version is the 22.2.0 (build 120), but I already had this issue on previous versions and other projects.

You can find the attached files to this post. I simplify it to keep the less keyframes possible.

You can see the problem appears between frames 0:00:04:08 and 0:00:04:09.

I unchecked the 3D layer, removed the wiggle effect on position, deleted all layers (and so the parented one)... The only thing that fixes the problem is to delete the first scaling keyframe (that is 0,0 / 0,0%) or of course, all keyframes.

I also found that changing the first keyframe for a slightly bigger value (1,0 / 1,0%) is a bit better. On frame 0:00:04:08, I only need to move my cursor far from the mask and the cursor selection change automatically (that doesn't happened with the first keyframe 0,0 / 0,0% unless I put the zoom view to 1,5% and move my cursor really far from the scene).

That may be part of the solution but sometimes I cannot remove some keyframes as the problem appears when a big part of the animation is done. I hope you'll find something interesting with the file.

Thanks in advance.

[Rick Gerard]

I played around with your project file and found a few anomalies. The modifier keys for the Pen tool did not seem to work, and the location of the pointer in relation to the path was off. If you moved around enough and paid attention to the cursor, you could select individual points and convert the vertex by holding down the Alt/Option key. I did not find any way to drag a selection around multiple points using the pen tool. 

If you revealed all modified properties of the layer ('uu') and used the selection tool (v), then selected the Mask Path, you could also select individual points or even drag a selection around multiple points and edit them. The cursor seemed to be a little out of position, but I could still edit the path using my standard workflow. Editing was a little slower than usual, but I had no problems editing the mask if I used a combination of the selection tool and the pen tool. 

[derHacker]

i have the same problem since an update.
it sux a lot.
workflow slows me down a lot.
please adobe fix this problem!!!!
at the beginning of the timeline everything is fine.
but when i try to select multiple points later it doesnt work anymore.