After Effects Cropping .ai Files Upon Import

[Mark Walczak]

Hi everyone,

First let me say that my problem is similar to this one:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/880335

However, to take things from the top, here is an idea of my issue: I am importing an Illustrator image sequence into After Effects. As opposed to importing the image sequence dimensions according to the size of the artboard in Illustrator (which is set to 1500×800), AE is trying to crop out any “empty” areas in the Illustrator files and cropping the areas to the nearest shaded pixel. This is causing some cropping problems in which my Illustrator artwork is being chopped off at the borders.

Is there any way to force AE to import the .ai files according to the artboard, which should not chop anything?

Any and all help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

What makes you explode?
http://www.explosivegraffix.com

[Mark Walczak]

Hey y’all,

I found a work-around to this problem by automating a Photoshop process that saved all of my .ai files as .psd files. This allowed me to import using the media box, and thus circumvent my problem.

I’m still open to a “real” solution to my issue, though….

Thoughts?

What makes you explode?
http://www.explosivegraffix.com

[chris forrester]

you might try adding a border on the outside of your graphics so that it is now the furthest pixels away. If this is on all your .ai files it would crop to the border you have placed in and not the different sized artwork. I do not add so many .ai files in my work (just titles/logos) so I am not sure if there is a more elegant solution, least you can still rasterize these .ai files this way…but you will have a small border on the boundray of your work area might show up if you scale them smaller. Maybe if it is set to a guide layer AE will bring it in and crop to this but not display it.

Regards
Chris Forrester
demoreel https://chrisforrester.tv