Free transform tool groups selected layers to one layer
When selecting several Layers and using the Free Transform Tool, Illustrator moves all these layers to 1 single layer.
I guess this is a bug or am I doing something wrong?
Koen Rolle
shared this idea
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A workaround is to use a script by Sergey Osokin:
https://github.com/creold/illustrator-scripts/blob/master/jsx/RememberSelectionLayers.jsx
Should be run before using Free Transform or Puppet Warp tools for objects on different layers and then again after completing (and ungrouping the resulting group first).
Won’t work with sublayers. -
Margaret Trauth
commented
I'm still really annoyed by this whenever I have to deal with it. Why on earth do *some* modes of the free transform tool think it's acceptable to completely trash my layer structure.
Who thought this was ever a good idea. How happy would you be if your text editor thought it was a great idea to cram the contents of ten source files into one when you did a certain action? You'd hate it.
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A related request:
Puppet Warp should respect existing layer structures
http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/49092545 -
Margaret Trauth
commented
1. Make a couple of layers.
2. Draw some shapes in these layers.
3. Select all of these shapes.
4. Enable Perspective or Free Distort mode in the Free Transform tool, and drag a corner handle.
5. Wonder why the heck Illustrator just completely ruined your layer structure.I just found this out ten minutes ago and I hate it. I hate how Puppet Warp shoves everything into a single group too but I think I hate this even more because doing a simple scale/rotation with the Free Transform tool respects my layer structure.
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Thank you for looking at it.
Hopefully this will be fixed in a future release. Fingers crossed. :) -
The GIF
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I see. Now I can confirm it. Whenever you distort a selection with any mode of the Free Distort tool (except for just scale), objects get flattened in the current layer. Here is a simpler demonstration in the GIF attached.
I’ve checked this behavior in older versions: happens in CC2022, does not happen in CS5. So it got broken somewhere in the middle.
Thank you for bringing this up!
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Hi Egor,
Yes, it quite strange. I'm prepping some artwork for Character Animator and this keeps happening with the Perspective Distort & Free Distort function.
I'm working on a MacBook Pro M2 Max with macOS Ventura 13.2.1 & Illustrator 27.4.
Colleagues of mine with different speced MacBook Pros (Intel & M1) run into the same issue.Enclosed you will find the requested files.
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This is something weird!
Can you please create a simple test file, record the problem on video, and share both the file and the video here?
Also provide the specs.
