“Create Shape from Vector Layer” causes AI file to disappear

[Luke Pheasant]

what do you mean generic AI document. I can’t figure this out, im having the same problems with cs6

[Josh Whitsky]

Please Help, im having the same problem, im trying to make an 3D intro using AE, when i turn the AI file into vector layers, the Logo disappear and a grey fill in the composition….Please help me!

Windows 8, AE cs6, Ai cc

[Mike Mackenzie]

I may be misunderstanding your problem, but I think I can help.
When AE converts AI files to shapes, they become shapes like AI’s native shapes (rectangles, ellipses, etc). This means you may assign fill and stroke color, otherwise I believe it defaults to grey. You may (but I doubt it) need to build your logo one shape at a time, using a reference layer to reposition/scale.
Alternately, if you are using the raytraced 3d renderer, check to make sure your layers are not all occupying the same z-space, otherwise they may get some funky gray noise type artifacting.
Hopefully I am giving you the correct advice, it’s been awhile since I’ve dealt with this issue.

Motion Graphics Designer / Art Director
Boston, MA

System:
Mountain Lion on SSD
2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800
18 GB RAM

[Michael Szalapski]

Check the position and anchor point of both the layer AND the various shape properties of the shape layer it creates.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Krishnan Vasudevan]

Hi folks –

I had a similar problem creating an After Effects composition from an Illustrator logo. I imported the illustrator (.ai file) in to the After Effects as as a composition (retaining layer sizes) and at first everything worked fine and I was able to animate the logo. I’m using Adobe Creative Suite CS6 on an iMac.

However, I came back to the After Effects project today and one of the layers appeared to had vanished. I checked the Illustrator file and it appeared to have vanished as well. So, I clicked the layer in Illustrator that was not showing up and inside it I double clicked the icon of the logo next to . When you do this a dialogue box popped up and it has two click boxes “Show” and “Lock”. I clicked show and the layer was showing again.

After restarting After Effects, the layer also showed up in that program and all was resolved. Hope this helps.

[Rachel B Richard]

Was there a solution in the end? I’m having the same issue

[Mike Mackenzie]

Wow, that was almost exactly 8 years ago, I don’t even remember asking the question. One thing I have learned is that Illustrator changed a lot after version 8, and if you are having trouble with a file try saving it as an Illustrator 8 file. Good luck!

Motion Graphics Designer / Art Director
Boston, MA

[Rachel B Richard]

Hahaha, I figured it out. For any individuals with the same issue… It was an issue with the transfer of gradients from the original illustrators file. Either remove the gradient in the illustrator file before importing and creating the shape in after effects or.. just don’t create a shape from AI elements containing gradients aha.

A good side note would be to look up what AI elements transfer in AE and which don’t. Could be of use for future reference

[Eric Santiago]

[Rachel B Richard] “A good side note would be to look up what AI elements transfer in AE and which don’t. Could be of use for future reference
“

A lot of things don’t transfer at all such as effects.
AI is pure vector-only since day one.