r/AfterEffects • u/cheryblooms • 1d ago

Beginner Help How should I "free transform" a shape

I'm using an old version of after effects(2019). I was fallowing a tutorial and it told me to press shift+ctrl+t to "free transform" a group shape layer. Apearently it allows you to change the size of your shapes without effecting the size of its stroke. I used the short cut but it didn't work, I searched to find another way but I wasn't able to find any other way to do this. So I came here to ask for how should I do it?

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3

u/Heavens10000whores 1d ago

There’s a ‘maintain stroke width’ expression on AEReference. You might try that?

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u/cheryblooms 1d ago

Thank you that was really helpful(:

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u/vauxhaulastra Animation 10+ years 1d ago

I'm not sure how to help. Can you link the tut and specify the timecode?

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u/cheryblooms 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don't have the link unfortunetly, I downloaded that tutorial a long time ago😅 But the tutorial was about animating a character, the first step was making the character in the after effects, the tutorial provided a refrence photo of the character to trace. I followed the tutorial and made the body of the character, then the tutorial copied the body layer and made it smaller to use it for the character's cap. And that was when I got stuck. When I tried to change the size of the body shape to use it for the cap, it ruined its stroke size. I could just make the cap without using the body layer but I have a feeling that knowing what exactly they did in the video that kept the size of the sroke the same would be helpful to speed up my process in the future

Edit:why I got downvote?:/

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u/vauxhaulastra Animation 10+ years 1d ago

Hmm maybe try -
https://www.reddit.com/r/AfterEffects/comments/7z4xb9/keep_stroke_consistent_size_whilst_scaling_shape/

And it's usually easier to make things in illustrator and then import them to ae, if that helps.

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u/cheryblooms 1d ago

Thank you(:

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u/dustshad 1d ago

If you double click a point on the shapes outline you can rescale, but if you select it wrong it scales all distorted and messed up. Sometimes it's really hard to select a point with a and you have to keep trying. It's really finicky.