HowTo: Turn on snapping for Anchor Point of Rectangle's Transform?

I do not mean the Transform of the Shape Layer, I mean to have snapping of the Transform of the path object (in this case a Rectangle) anchor point snap to... well, anything. Right now I can't get it to snap to anything.

Rick, why spend ages explaining what can be done with something irrelevant to the question, when the question is very simple.
QUESTION:
How can snapping be turned on for the anchor of contents within a Shape Layer?
The answer is...
There is no way to snap the anchor of an object in a shape layer to ANYTHING.
So don't bother trying to find out how to turn it on, play with modifier keys or otherwise go insane trying to find documentation that actually pertains to this information in ANY WAY.
The amount of time I wasted trying to find if this was possible is an embarrassment to the documentation writers and marketers of Adobe's products.
//This is the transform and its anchor that exists above the actual Layer's transform and Anchor. NOT the Shape Layer's anchor, which does snap, but is next to useless for object oriented snapping requirements for the anchor and position of the actual objects drawn on the Shape Layer. It's as though the Shape Layer is really a Solid Layer with some additional, halfarsed drawing features. Good luck differentiating between these two things with search results using the world's best search engine. It's a complete mindFart of epic proportions that finds such terrible ways to name these things that there's no easier way to refer to the differences in these transforms.
You cannot snap the anchor of content in a Shape Layer to a grid, guide, edge, object, point or anything else.
It cannot be done. That's the only answer to this question.
This despite there being a specific tool for moving this anchor point.
This despite Adobe bragging about snapping being a big new (recent) feature.
Rick, why do you defend Adobe? They are an enormous company with thousands of employees and billions of $ in profits and assets. They don't need you to obfuscate shortcomings in their software.
How hard is it to say that Adobe's software can't do something?
You know why Adobe annoy people, because we waste so much time finding what it can't do, because the marketers AND the community are in denial about deficiencies and the constant need for thinking in terms of "work arounds".
Just be honest about shortcomings and deficiencies and it will not only save everyone a bunch of time, but actually endear them to you.

Similar Messages

FAQ: Why isn't the anchor point centered in shape layers?

[UPDATE: In After Effects CC (12.1) and later, you can center the anchor point within the visible content of a layer. ]
Short answer
Because in shape layers you can have two distinct kinds of anchor points - the anchor point in the main transform properties, as in any other layer type, and also an anchor point in the specific transform properties for each shape. When you create shapes by dragging with the shape tools, it's the anchor point for the shape group that will be centered. If you want to animate the whole layer from the main transform properties, you may need to shift the anchor point so it matches the visual center of your content.
Long answer
Shape layers are a unique type of content in After Effects.
In fact, they introduce a bit of the object/group hierarchy model in Adobe Illustrator, rather than follow the typical layer model in After Effects.
In other words, while you can definitely use them to quickly create a vector shape and then animate that shape as any other layer in After Effects, you also get the ability to create, edit and animate multiple shapes (each with its' own set of visual appearances) nested in a single shape layer.
This allows all kinds of cool animation opportunities, but it also means that a shape layer is not your typical After Effects layer.
So, when you create a shape by dragging with the shape tool, there actually is an anchor point that is perfectly centered - that's the anchor point in the transform property group for that shape group. If you double click a shape, you'll see a bounding box. This a visual representation of the transform properties for the shape group, and the anchor point specific to this group will default to the middle of that bounding box.
However, the main anchor point for the whole shape layer may not be centered relative to the shape content. This is normal behavior - Note that if After Effects tried to center the layer anchor point relative to the first shape group you create, it would be immediately wrong when you add more shape groups to the layer. Or when you animate shape groups around.
Now, as many other things in After Effects, shape layers are designed to let you go as deep as you want. Ideally, you may want to try animating the transform properties for each shape group, since there's when things get really powerful. However, if you want to consider shape layers as a one shape per layer entity and animate in that way, you can of course do that. Bear in mind that you may need to center the anchor point yourself relative to the visual center of the content. If you don't do this, the shape layer's content will be offset from motion paths, or behave in a different way from what you may expect when animating scale or rotation.
To do this, make sure you're not selecting a nested shape group but the shape layer itself, then you can do the following:
Use the Pan Behind tool as with any other layer (this may not give what you want if you do it after creating a motion path, since it will modify position values).
Drag the hot text for the Anchor Point property in the Timeline panel, as if it was a slider. You can then re-thread the content relative to the motion path. You can also achieve this by Option- (Mac OS) or Alt- (Windows) dragging with the Pan Behind tool.
For more information on shape layers, see Drawing, painting and paths in After Effects Help.

THANK YOU SO MUCH :-)
I didn't knew this shortcut as I didn't have to use it anyway.
but it's weird because all the other tools like even the circular gradient tool have their point visible.
Anyway, I guess you can press H with any tools.
Again, thank you, I should have ask it before. ;-)

SMALL Anchor Points

Oh My God, I loooooooove Illustrator, BUT:
ANCHOR POINTS DRIVE ME CRAZY!!!
When I am drawing paths with pen tool, and need to adjust anchor points or handles, they are so small! I work at 1280 rez, and seems that those tiny points were designed to drive us mad!
In CS3 I noted a improvement on this, but even the largest size available for anchor points presentation is still small for me.
When we design interfaces, we have to follow the Fitt´s law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law). According to this, "targets that are smaller and/or further away require more time to acquire".
The productivity, related to dealing with points, would be strongly affected if those tiny anchor points could be made bigger or more responsible.
It hurts to say but, Corel Draw´s anchor points dynamic is much better. But that´s all. All other stuff is better in Illustrator. Why Adobe doesn´t make this software COMPLETELY better than CorelDraw? Better anchor points is still missing, specially concerning to their sizes in interface.
Just my 2 cents.
Ricardo Martins
Illustrator Instructor
Brazil
South America

Thanks Larry. I ended up talking to cusomer support, and they had me delete the "en_US" file in the Illustrator CS6 Preferences file. After that, it started working correctly. Glad to know my frustration with this tricky program was actually warranted this time around

Anchor point used in drawImage() of Graphics class

Hi all,
This is sourab.I need to know about the concepts of anchor point used in drawImage() of Graphics class.We all know in drawImage() method has four co-ordinates.First one is for Image name,second one is for x coordinate ,third one is for y coordinate and the final one is for anchor point.Actually anchor point will place the image in the corresponding position.Now my doubt is what is the purpose of x,y coordinates.
Also i want some links to learn about this anchor point concepts.Can anyone provide solution to me ASAP.
Regards/Thanks,
Sourab

We all know in drawImage() method has four co-ordinates. [coördinates?]http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/Graphics.html
Or 5 or 6 or 7 or 10 or 11. And if you include Graphics2D:
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/Graphics2D.html
There is second one taking 4 arguments, and one taking 3.

Anchor points: Photoshop to After Effects

Hello!
I have imported some shape layers from photoshop into after effects. I would like to make them swing in three dimensional space, so I am trying to change the anchor point to the top of shape so that it will swing from that point. I cannot see the anchor point as you would with text, and it seems to be rotating around some random place further down. Perhaps this photoshop layer is rotating around the centre of the photoshop composition?
What would be the fastest way to rectify this situation. There are 24 shapes but I will remake these shapes in AE if that is going to be the fastest way to make it happen.
Thank you!

Hi Trill:
Use the Pan Behind (Anchor Point) Tool (‘y” is the keyboard shortcut) to click and drag the Anchor Point to where you need it to be for your animation.
This behaves very much like moving the Anchor Point while using Free Transform in Photoshop. Also, it will retain the registration (or placement) of your layers relative to how they were stacked and aligned in Photoshop by changing both the layer Anchor Point coordinates and Position coordinates at the same time.
Assuming that you’re importing your layered Photoshop document as a Composition, the Anchor Point for each layer defaults to one of two locations:
The center of the respective layer if imported as “Composition – Retain Layer Size”
The center of the Photoshop document Canvas Size if imported as “Composition”
From what you’ve described, it sounds like you’re choosing as “Composition”. Although, you’ll need to use the Pan Behind (Anchor Point) Tool layer by layer regardless to achieve what you’ve going for.
There’s a behavior in AE that you could take advantage of to speed this up if you have pre-positioned your Photoshop layers such that the offset for the Anchor Point value change and the Position value change are the same for each layer. If that’s the case, you could select all the layers in After Effects and when you change the values for one layer After Effects will change the like values for all the currently selected layers as well. Since it looks like each of your layers currently has the PS Canvas Size, this might work right now.
- Warren

How do I split the dimensions of the anchor point?

Hello Everyone,
I have a logo which I am trying to animate; basically I want to start tight on a small portion of it, scanning across its surface and then pull back to reveal it in its entirety, all while maintaining smooth, natural motion. I am currently just keyframing the anchor point and the scale. However, there are no bezier handles in the spatial graph editor for the keyframes of the anchor point. This, I discovered, is because properties with mulitple linked dimensions do not allow you to modify the beziers (per this forum [ http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/202/883236 ]).
So I went to seperate the dimensions, but the button was grayed out. Is there anything I can do, or am doing wrong?
Thank you,
Cameron

Separate dimensions are not available for anchor point. The other option would be to add two (or 3 for a 3D layer) expression sliders and tie each to an axis with a simple expression like this:
x = effect("Slider x")("Slider");
y = effect("Slider y")("Slider");
[x, y]
I simply renamed the sliders Slider x and Slider y and applied them to the layer. Then animate the slider values.
I usually find the easiest way to do what you are trying to do is to make the layer 3D, add a camera, and animate the camera position. The movements are easier to make look 'natural'.

Pen tool - turn off SNAP-TO points

Hello -- I'm running Illustrator CS3 on a Mac Powerbook. Somehow I've got some sort of "snap-to" feature turned on for the PEN TOOL, and I can't figure out where to tun it OFF.
It's the constraint aspect that is unwanted (the symptoms are: the cursor constantly displays "tool tip" info about all sorts of existing nearby anchor points, various constraint angles, etc -- which is OK as info, but it also keeps snapping to these points in the image when I create a new anchor point, rather than letting me just click wherever I want).
I want to reset to the DEFAULT behavior for creating arbitrary anchor points. This forced "snap-to" business is driving me nuts -- and I can't find where to turn this feature OFF. Someone point me in the right direction please.
Thanks -- Robin

Thanks -- good info from both Kurt and Wade -- I appreciate the help. I suspected that there was some menu item for this (probably "hidden in plain sight"), but I just couldn't find it.
Adobe HELP didn't seem to have this topic for the keyword "pen tool", which also surprised me.
I bet the SMART GUIDES are very helpful under certain circumstances -- but they were creating huge problems for what I was doing.
Thanks again -- Robin

Have anchor points snap to grid changed?

My anchor points used to snap to the grid when using the pen tool on a 1px before in Adobe Illustrator CC 2014. Has this changed for this version?
If not, does anyone know how I would be able to enable this feature again? I have all my snap to grid settings etc. on.

THIS IS REALLY FRUSTRATING (and I'm not the type to use all caps all over the place). Here are the repro steps (in case that were helpful):
Illustrator CS6
Turn on snap to grid.
Create a circle.
Drag out each of the handles closer to the corners of the circle's space.
Notice that the handles snap to the intersection points on the grid.
Illustrator CC (18.0.0)
Turn on snap to grid.
Create a circle (move it around to double-ensure that snap to grid is functioning properly for the shape).
Drag out each of the handles.
Notice that there is no way to ensure that the handles move in the exact same amount all the way around the circle. They do not snap.
Try the scale tool. Select a point and hit ‘s’, then drag out a handle. Notice that it still doesn’t snap to point.
This sort of thing is suicide for Illustrator. It’s the one program that should let you make whatever vector shape you want without having to resort to crazy workarounds. How can we make awesome things like this without the kind of control we used to have in Illustrator?
BTW, there's another thread on this topic too:
Restore snap-to-grid behaviour for path handles

Is it possible to independently manipulate a snapped handle of a corner anchor point?

I stopped reading what's new since many versions and simply learn the new stuff when I need to or by discovery so, today I had to create various vector shapes and I got very annoyed that I can't pull a snapped handle of a corner point back and manipulate it without disturbing the handle on the other side. This has been always annoying problem for me and I'm just checking in case I have missed something.
For example in a shape like this the highlighted corner anchor has one of its handles snapped to the point or in other words it is only with one handle. Is it possible to pull out an manipulate missing handle without disturbing the handle on the other side and any of the other handles?
edit: just to let you know that I know the trick with deleting the segment and recreating it but that makes sense only when the neighboring point is corner too.

I think a user nowadays would intuitively expect to just click and drag with a modifier/s key pressed to achieve that.
In FreeHand, you can (yes, present tense; still works fine on current Windows) simply altDrag the middle of the straight segment that you want to bend. That one little very pratical feature gave rise to a whole drawing method which came to be called the "bendomatic" method (I think Olav Martin Kvern coined the phrase). Just click, click, click with the Pen, placing anchors at obvious locations, and bending the straight segments as you go. This was a very quick & intuitive way to teach beginners how to draw efficient paths with a minimum of anchors. But it is not just a beginner's trick. It lets you impart a stylistic consistency that is tedious to mimic in AI. Also very useful when working zoomed into segments the opposite anchor of which is off-screen.
Xara Designer Pro (formerly named Xara Xtreme) mimics FH's "bendomatic" method. In fact, it's usually really the best way to draw paths efficiently in that program, because its Pen tool behavior is still otherwise sub-standard.
Illustrator lets you alter the bend of a segment that already has its associated handles extended, which begs the question, "Who needs that, since the handles are already accessible?"
But if you perform the exact same maneuver on a straight segment with retracted handles, you just move the straight segment and its two associated anchors. An example of the logical inconsistency that so permeates AI.
FreeHand also provides other means by which to perform the alteration you depict. You can click a button to auto-extend the retracted handle without disturbing the adjacent segment. Or, you can just AltDrag the retracted handle out from the anchor with the selection pointer.
These are just a couple of instances in which FH's basic path selection & manipulation interface is demonstrably more efficient and more elegant than AI's. It's just a better interface.
JET

Setting anchor point for changing page size

Hi,
I want to trimm the size of the pages of a document.
Since the pages should be trimmed not on all side equal I need to set an anchor point before changing the page size.
How can this anchor point be set for the whole page?
Thanks for your help

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/awt/Graphics.html#translate(int,%20int)

Why in Ai CC 2014, when I use a pathfinder tool on two objects, their anchor points snap slightly off from where they were? I'm looking under all the snap to options under VIEW & cannot find the culprit. Please help!

Why in Ai CC 2014, when I use a pathfinder tool on two objects, their anchor points snap slightly off from where they were? I'm looking under all the snap to options under VIEW & cannot find the culprit. Please help!

You're welcome.
There are a couple of issues connected to it:
http://www.vektorgarten.de/problems-align-to-pixel-grid.html
I don't think that list is complete

How do I dial in the anchor point for 3D rotation?

Flash knows where the anchor point is in 3D space in order for the symbol to rotate around it, but I can't seem to figure out how to see the coordinates of the anchor point or type in new ones. Please tell me how to do this. I am already very annoyed that Lynda, a pay service, doesn't think this is vital information. Apparently they think we would never want to do anything more visually stimulating than one simple spinning logo! But I digress...
Just to be clear, I know how to move the anchor point visually on the stage, but I want accuracy. I want to be able to give two symbols the exact same coordinates to rotate around.
Thanks for your help.

Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for.
I also found a work around to what I was trying to do. You can select multiple symbols and rotate them around one axis, but that's not as accurate. BTW if you have any links to using 3D in CS4 that are beyond basic, I would love to see them.
Thanks again,
-Red-Mike

Can I Move the Anchor Point for Adjustment Brush in ACR CS5

It's never been a problem before, but the anchor point for the Adjustment Brush in ACR is sitting exactly where I need to see what is happening. I can delete and start again, but if there is way to move or hide the anchor point while stil being able to adjust the setting, it would be handy to know for next time it happens.

R_Kelly wrote:
You can press the V key to toggle the pins on/off.
Exacty what I was after. Thanks.

Join 3 anchor points for "intersection" effect?

Hi,
I'm seriously stuck trying to join 3 open paths with stroke only, into something of an intersection that is dividing 3 pie slots. However I can't join more than 2 of them, as the screenshot below the third one gets left behind, Join command doesn't work Because I have the opacity down to 70% you can see the ugly overlap in the intersection and I need to join all the 3 points for them to look as they should. Does anyone know if/how this can be done in Illustrator?
Thanks!

Laiza,
You can only have 2 segments from each Anchor Point, so you cannot join 3.
You may select the three paths and use Object>Path>Outline Stroke, then join the three new closed paths with Pathfinder>Unite.

Anchor point for cursor seems off

It's like the anchor point for the cursor is way off. I can click paint brush, and the paint will show up halfway across the page. If I keep clicking, the painted spot will finally show up under the cursor and I draw. If I move the cursor, and start again, same problem. If I enter text, the text willl appear so far below the picture, I have to zoom out so far, the the picture is a very small square. I grab the text box and move it back up to the picture, zoom back in and finish. If there is more text, I just duplcate the layer, so I don't have to go through the drill again. Example:
IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img801/4439/photoshopbrushprob.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img825/7656/texterror1.jpg[/IMG]
Same problem with drawing a line. I click on the start point, and the line draws itself, off page to the left
[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img820/1223/photoshoplineprob.jpg[/IMG]
My video drivers are up to date, I'm working in Win 7 and CS5

As for the text: You have a baseline shift of -1000 set and all your otehr values are whacky as well. Reset the type panel. The rest is impossible to make sense of. You need to provide exact system info. could be an issue with your mouse/ tablet driver, could be something else.
Mylenium

HowTo: Turn on snapping for Anchor Point of Rectangle's Transform?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for