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Can I turn my .ai line drawing into open mask paths in after effects?
Howdy!
So I’ve got this simple outline drawing of a person that I want to animate to look like it’s drawing on the screen. I know about the stroke effect, but I’d rather not have to use the pen tool to draw my masks over top of the illustration if I can help it, as there will be many of these.
I’ve tried copying the paths from Illustrator to my AE comp, but that gives me a mask OUTLINING my lines, (like it is in the file itself) and creates some issues where they overlap. I’m looking to turn the paths themselves into a path that isn’t closed, and just apply the stroke effect that way. I feel like it should be crazy easy, but I’m missing it, and google searches just come up with auto-trace which puts the mask around it again.
Thanks in advance, even if it’s just “Soldier through the pen tool”
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3 Replies
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You could convert your vector graphics from Illustrator into shape layer graphics in After Effects and use the Trim Paths path operation to draw the paths on.
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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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Thank you for the response! I tried your suggestion, but when I animate the start/end of the trim paths, it begins to fill in the outline drawing with color as it animates off. I will play around with this though, to see if I can’t work it out. Thank you.
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So I figured out that the reason my paths were turning into outlines was because there were slight variations of width, and the outline of the mask was accommodating for that. If I duplicate the project and turn everything into a uniform width with a basic line, then all the paths copy over just as they should.
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