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Importing Illustrator files into After Effects and maintaining layers
I have an illustrator file that is an image made up of hundreds of dots (I have ungrouped all the dots so they now exist as paths on one layer rather than as a group). I need to individually animated each dot however when I bring the image into after effects it still sees just the single layer. Is there any way that I can tell each path to become a separate layer in illustrator? Not the easiest to explain to have attached the .ai image I am referring to !
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6 Replies
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Each dot needs to be on its own layer in ai and then when you import that file into ae make sure to import it as a composition.
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Hi Ceri. Each dot has to be in one layer. I’ve done this for you (see attached file). Cheers! 🙂
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The keyword in AI is “Release to Layers”.
There are few tutorials on Google for that.
Drives me crazy when “Graphics Designers” send me files 😛
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The advice above is correct. If you do this a lot I highly recommend the plug-in Overloard that makes this real easy: https://www.battleaxe.co/overlord
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Another big vote from me for using Overload as your bridge from Ai to Ae — it’s fantastic!
But stepping back to the original visual, I’d suggest looking into a system like Trapcode Form for dealing with grids of particles. Form allows you to animate the system as a whole rather than having to directly manipulate each individual dot as its own entity.
https://www.redgiant.com/products/trapcode-form/
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Gosh dang it where did this come from (Overlord) 😉
Now I gots to get me this!!
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