From the course: After Effects Apprentice: 14 Shape Layers

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Creating open paths

Creating open paths - After Effects Tutorial

From the course: After Effects Apprentice: 14 Shape Layers

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Creating open paths

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Now that I've created the lens of my crosshair, I need to create my crosshair lines. There is a couple of ways I can do that. One, I could create just very skinny rectangles and put them in position for those lines. Or I could use the Pen tool to create what's referred to as open paths or open shapes--just use them to create a line without having to close it and fill it. So I'm going to select the Pen tool. Since I want these pen paths to be part of the same shape, I want to make sure that this is set to Tool Creates Shape, as opposed to Tool Creates Mask. So I'll click that and by default, I'm going to be using the current fill and stroke. However, just adding a new shape with the Pen tool will create a new shape group, which gives me a brand new stroke and a brand new fill, so I can change these colors later if I want to. Okay, when I'm drawing with the Pen tool, I'm pretty much drawing free-form. If I want to draw something very precise, like a precisely vertical line, I'm going to…

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