Anchorpoint issue, making diffrent triangles

[jensm80892126]

Hello dear illustrator community,

I´m a 3D Design Student from Germany and i´m currently working on a logo project. I´m familiar with illustrator but i wouldn´t say that i´m really professional in working with it. The task is to create triangles in different colors. They should establish a 3D effect in the end (shadow/light). I draw the triangles with pen tool. After the first triangle is drawn the problem occurs. I try to do an other triangle but i cant use the 2 anchor points of the first triangle for the new one. It´ll always intersect or build a new anchor on the path of the old triangle. So how can i change that.

Thank you very much.

With best regards from Germany.

Jens M.

[Jacob Bugge]

Jens,

For a subsequent triangle (or whatever), you can (Smart Guides being your friends), also right after finishing the one to snap it to:

1) Press P to start a new path,

2) ClickHold with the Pen Tool a bit away from the corresponding Anchor Point, then press the Spacebar and Drag to snap to it,

3) After 2) you can just Click the other two (or whichever number) Anchor Points normally to complete, including directly snapping to the other corresponding Anchor Point.

[Peter Villevoye · Accepted solution]

Easy enough: be sure to use the menu command Select > Deselect (or its shortcut key) to finalise your earlier drawing. The little indicator next to the Pen cursor should now change to an asterisk, even when you're near an existing anchor point.

Also check if the option under View > Snap to Point is checked, so the Pen magnetically snaps to the coordinates of the existing anchors. And perhaps tweak the Preferences for the Selection and Anchor Displays.

[Michael Bullo]

Hi Jens,

If you are having to draw and connect a series of triangles you could try this method…

1. Draw or select a triangle
2. Press Command/Control + C to copy
3. Press Command/Control + F to paste a copy directly in front of the one you copied
4. Press the A key to switch to the Direct Select Tool
5. Click (and release) on a single anchor point which will select that anchor point but also deselect the other anchor points
6. Now drag that same anchor point anywhere you like

You should now have two triangles sharing a perfectly aligned edge

[Ton Frederiks]

I would use the Line Segment Tool (\) to draw the sides of the triangles.

Turn on View > Smart Guides

Hide the Bounding Box (Shift Cmd B (Mac) or Shift Ctrl B (Win))  to avoid moving the start/end points of the lines.

Draw the sides of the triangles, don't worry about the color.

When the triangles are drawn, Select All.

Choose Object > Live Paint > Make

Use the Live Paint Bucket (K) to fill the triangles.

Learn more about Live Paint in the Help File:

How to create and work with Live Paint groups in Illustrator

[Ray Yorkshire]

In Preferences -General select Disable Auto Add /Delete

See if that allows the behaviour you need ?