Pen tool issue in CC 2015.3

[Walter Soyka]

[Dave LaRonde] “Yup — AE CC 2015.3 is pretty much a mistake for a lot of people. The exceptions: you can ace the placement exam for IT Guy or you have a decade or so of experience in installing Adobe applications. If you don’t, revert.”

Argument through repeated assertion… I don’t think it’s helpful to automatically assume that any trouble anyone has with Ae is caused by Ae CC 2015.3. There are specific things that are different in CC 2015 than were in CC 2014 and previous, and there are a few specific known issues, but in generally, 2015.3 is pretty solid and I vastly prefer using CC 2015 for everyday work than CC 2014.

[Simon Thomas] “Well now, for some reason, whenever I select the pen tool it defaults to the add vertex tool rather than the normal pen tool, despite me specifically selecting the pen tool in the tools panel. Now whenever I try to draw my triangle it keeps adding points to the existing circle mask!”

When you hover the regular pen tool over an existing unlocked mask in Ae CC 2014, it too becomes a temporary Add Point tool and adds a vertex to the mask under the cursor. Perhaps I misunderstand what you’re trying to do? Maybe a screenshot or screen capture could help me visualize your issue better?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Taylor Higgins]

First of all,

Dave LaRonde has been around a long time and I have been reading his posts for years now. If you have had any experience in updating Adobe applications then you would know there is a laundry list of things that could go wrong. It NEVER goes smoothly. Adobe is even aware of this issue and has created a way for you to install 2015.3 separately instead of upgrading 2015.2. Now you can run the programs separately instead of having to uninstall and revert when these issues occur.

References:

https://forums.adobe.com/message/8895366#8895366

[Walter Soyka]

Dave and I are both experienced, but we have a difference of opinion on recent releases.

I respect Dave for his generous contributions to the community, too, but I stand by my opinion that it’s worth discussing each problem posted here in enough depth to find out if it’s a real issue with 2015 or if we can provide advice that is not version-specific.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Simon Thomas]

Thanks all for the feedback. Reading your posts I gather that 2015.3 was probably a misstep as I’ve encountered more errors since I posted.

As an example, every time I RAM preview comps that were fine before it gives me a weird ‘drawing error’ message and the selection tool has also been acting strange.

I loved 2015.2 and was absolutely fine with it so I have reverted to that. Problem is just that the client sent over a 2015.3 Premiere project with dynamic linked comps that will only work with AE 2015.3 so I’m going to have to fight through it. Hopefully adobe squash these bugs soon.

Thanks again!

[Simon Thomas]

The issue is that I’m not hovering over the mask, I’m trying to draw a fresh new mask in a separate screen area. However, no matter where on the screen i place the cursor it’s always stuck as the add vertex tool.