Path Locker

We have released another newsletter-exclusive freebie to everyone: called Path Locker.

The After Effects UI seemingly wasn’t designed with complex vector graphics in mind. If you have a shape layer with a lot of close or overlapping paths inside it, selecting the points on the path you want can be tricky. And AE has a limited zoom, so sometimes you simply can’t get in close enough to select certain points.

Path Locker was built to help with these kinds of issues.

You do need to select the path (or paths) that you want to edit, either in the comp panel or the timeline. Then, you run the script, and all the other paths in that layer are locked - so that you cannot accidentally edit them. Until you run it again and that unlocks them.

Path Locker works best with a KBar button or a keyboard shortcut. All the instructions on setting that up are here, in the User Guide.