[Dave Johnson]

I don’t know of plugins or scripts that do this, but I think the AI “release to layers (build)” command Adolfo mentioned is pretty close. As with any method, the results are still somewhat dependent on how the artwork is put together from the beginning so they often require some manual tweaking in order to get AI files good for AE work.

[Dave Johnson]

I now deal with this issue very frequently and this info may be helpful in understanding the options:

It is a good practice to convert AI text to vectors to avoid font issues. The downside is that, when receiving artwork from designers only trained in using AI for print work, they typically don’t understand (and refuse to accept) the methods necessary to make AI artwork useful for other purposes (like motion graphics). So, all of the artwork will often be inside of one layer and/or randomly scattered among a bunch of layers all with names like “layer 1, layer 2”, which makes animating the letters of a word very difficult. The only solutions I’m aware of are to have all motion graphics designed by mograph designers, require/convince print designers who contribute artwork to do the following two things or do these things yourself with all the print artwork you receive:
[1] put every piece of artwork you might need to animate on it’s own layer in AI (including individual letters of text)
[2] spend an extra few seconds to give every AI layer a descriptive name since each of those seconds avoids wasted minutes or more in AE

I’m still on CS3 so, unless this has changed in CS4, AE text animations only work with text layers. They can be used with Photoshop text layers by applying AE’s “convert to editable text” function, but I’m almost certain that doesn’t work with AI layers (99% certain … just didn’t double check before writing this). However, I consider having to convert PS text inside AE a sign that I should have created the text in AE in the first place since converting often creates a whole new set of issues with trying to retain all the stylization done in PS when it would’ve been easier to just do the same things in AE from the start.

So, that was the long answer. The short answer is, if there’s an easier way to animate AI text in AE, I’d love to hear it too!

[Dave Johnson]

When you contact Adobe via support or the forums (I’d suggest both), include as much detail as possible … for example, I’d guess that the first question anyone will ask is whether this happened from day one after you installed CS4 or started at some point thereafter since the latter would imply that an installation of some other software or some other change to your system created some type of conflict.

These kinds of things are among the main reasons I don’t update my most critical software until/unless I see significant benefits to do doing so. My opinion is that, with anything technology-based, its usually best to stay cutting edge, but leave the bleeding edge trailblazing to people who are more focused on the tools than the craft so I can continue to make a living while the bugs that are inherent to any release of complex software are worked out.

[Dave Johnson]

I’d be willing to bet what your experiencing is related to what the person who started this thread in the main PS forum is experiencing:

CS4 Issue I’ve Never Seen Before… by Dean Stapleton on Jul 19, 2009 at 12:51:21 am

I work on both Macs & Windows machines daily, but have stuck with CS3 on all of them for now so I’ve never seen these issues before on either platform over the course of many years, which leads me to believe its either a CS4 bug or a conflict between CS4 and some other software, which seems more likely since there’d be countless posts about it if it didn’t only occur in particular situations. I’d post in the Adobe forums and also contact Adobe support directly.

Sorry I couldn’t be more help than that and good luck!

[Dave Johnson]

The confusion is in that you failed to mention that you’re referring to rotation inside of a third-party plugin that may not use the same standards as AE’s native rotations (AE rotations only go from 0 to 360). I use Invigorator and know it can generate a rotation loop, but I’d have to create one in order to explain in detail what the values should be and, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to do that. If you don’t get a sufficient answer here, you might try the Zaxwerks forum.

Although there are instances when it won’t matter, generally speaking, if the first and last frames of a loop are exactly the same, the animation will repeat two identical frames at the loop point so the animation will appear to stutter for one frame instead of loop fluidly … sorry, I doubt I can explain any better than that.

[Dave Johnson]

As is the case with all software that works with MOV files, AE uses the QT engine to work with MOVs so the results are typically the same. The problem you’re having sounds like a codec issue. What codec is your MOV in? Media Player Classic can utilize a variety of non-standard codecs so you may have a file in a codec that QT doesn’t fully understand … there aren’t too many of those, but there are some.

[Dave Johnson]

Actually, upon second look at your question I realize the numbers you gave can’t represent rotation values since, if they did, they would only go as high as 360 then start over. In order to answer your question, I’d need clarification of what the numbers you gave represent (i.e. position keyframes, etc.) … and even a little more info about what you’re trying to do would probably help.

By the way, the things I said still hold true … just don’t seem to apply to what you’re doing since it seems like you’re not actually talking about rotation. And, when I said “they shouldn’t be the same because that’ll create a one frame stutter at the loop point instead of a fluid loop” I was trying to point out that it wasn’t entirely accurate when you said “to create a seamless loop the last frame must be the same as the first”.

[Dave Johnson]

I have a harder time managing my various AE preferences on my Mac systems so I’ll leave that to someone else to answer, but if you’re on a Windows system, go here C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS3\Support Files\Presets (or to the Vista equivalent) and create the folder structure you want your custom presets in then move your preset to that folder and save any new ones you make in there.

By the way, your preset probably saved in the folder you told it to save to since AE defaults to the most recently used preset subfolder and will save there unless you change it the window you get when saving a new preset.

[Dave Johnson]

I don’t recall what the highest number of AE layers I’ve had to work with was, but I’ve done many AE projects with more than 400 layers in one timeline and it has probably even gone as high as 5 or 6 hundred.

And, yes, I’ve heard of pre-comping and pre-rendering … those are the after pre-comps and pre-renders numbers.

If AE does have a layer limit, speaking from personal experience, I’d bet it’s much higher than the limit of layers any AE user can manage while retaining his or her sanity.

[Dave Johnson]

I don’t have AE open, but if i recall correctly, in addition to having center justify selected in the paragraph settings, where it centers the text is also dependent on where you click the text tool in the comp window. So, if you want very precise centering, perhaps turn on the safe area overlays and make sure you click the text tool on the crosshairs in the middle of the safe area … I think the text tool changes color or shape when it is precisely over the crosshairs and/or you could also use the pixel counts in the Info panel to tell you when you have the text tool precisely in the center of your comp.