How to Save an Object to Use Again in Illustrator
A stride-past-footstep guide for importing Illustrator files into After Effects.
You're about to learn a niggling skill that volition take your Illustrations to a large place; I'm going to teach you how to become your Adobe Illustrator drawings set for animation in After Effects!
Step 1: Create Your Graphics in Adobe Illustrator
To begin, you should have your Illustrations built in Adobe Illustrator; chances-are, y'all've probably built an object with kinematic limbs or wheels y'all'd like to roll with. Since #VanLife is all the rage these days, I'chiliad building a footling MiniVan Camper for this example.
Don't take an Illustrator file laying effectually? You tin can follow along with this instance tutorial.
Stride 2: Group Your Objects in Illustrator
This is a pretty unproblematic step; take any office of the illustration yous'd similar to individually pick-out to breathing. Use Control+G to grouping these items.
You'll want to select them individually with the direct select action (A) and select the unabridged entity with Alt + Shift + Click. This helps to group specific vectors of the illustration y'all're working with into their ain pieces and speed-up the workflow to grabbing and moving items every bit we go on to the next part.
Step iii: Create Layers
After yous've gear up upwards specific groups, you're going to desire to designate your items into layers so you lot can manipulate them in After Furnishings to animate them.
Earlier jumping in, it's best to strategize what individual items you want to control when yous breathing. It's all-time to recall of how your item has hinges, anchor points, rotations and moves around in your animation.
First, you're going to desire to create a new layer past typing Command + L.
Footstep 4: Name Your Layers for Organization
Afterward you lot've created your new layer, you'll want to name it so you know what specific item you want to animate later. To rename your layer in Illustrator, double-click the new layer you've created through the Layers Panel and type in the new name of that item.
Step v: Bring Your Items into Layers
From here, you will have to option an Illustrated item to bring into the new layer. Once you've selected your detail, use command+x to cutting your object and Command+F to paste the item into its one-time location.
Step 6: Save Your Illustrator File
Once you've brought all your items into designated layers, and you lot experience your illustration is gear up to plough into an animation, you're on your way to making a new blitheness in After Effects. All you lot have to practise is salve your AI file into a designated folder. Run across how quick & easy that was?
Step 7: Import Your Illustrator File into Afterwards Effects
Now that you've created some astonishing illustrations and prepared them for blitheness, it's time to hop into After Furnishings!
Tips for Importing your Illustrator File into After Furnishings
To bring an Illustrator file into After Effects you just need to use Command+ I, or alternatively, File>Import. When you import your project file, y'all will see a few options appear; You'll want to choose to Import as:
- Footage
- Limerick
- Composition - Retain Layer Sizes
In virtually cases, you'll pick the Composition with Retained layer sizes. What'southward the difference between Retaining the layer styles and a standard composition? If you bring-in your file as a composition alone, every layer will be the size of your Artboard in Illustrator; this will crave much more than work to anchor joints and reposition items where they need to go.
If you lot import as footage, y'all'll be able to import your unabridged AI file every bit one item, or you'll have the choice to select one layer within the Illustrator file.
There's another mode to import your AI file not frequently-used, and that is to bring-in an AI file into After Effects and catechumen information technology to a layered comp in the Project panel. This is a great mode to do things if yous're going from an animatic directly into animation.
To do this, when the menu appears for import, bring-in your Illustrator file as "Footage" and select "Merged Layers" nether the Layer options menu that appears secondly. So, in the Project panel, create a new comp out of the AI file by dragging it into the Composition icon. In one case you're in that new comp, you lot can right-click on the individual file (seen as footage) and select "Catechumen to Layered Comp". Immediately after, the comp will plough into a multi-layered comp you'll be able to create an animation out of.
IMPORTING TEXT
Delight note, importing Text from Illustrator isn't easy; this has always been a request for Adobe sent past many animators and Illustrators for years; maybe one-twenty-four hour period we'll go the update we've all been wishing for that magically imports text without an outcome. Until then, there are a couple of workarounds.
To import text directly from Illustrator to AE, you'll first need to proceed your Illustrator projection file open while working between the ii programs. Select your text and copy (Command + C), switch over to After Effects, utilise the text tool (Command + T) and click in your comp, then Paste (Command + V) the text. All the color and sizing, leading an kerning should stay the same as long as your comp in AE is the aforementioned size as the Artboard in Illustrator.
When merging text from AI to AE, you will most-likely lose any effects you practical in Illustrator, but if y'all want to re-apply that mode in Later Furnishings, y'all'll be able to go over to the Appearance panel in Illustrator to find your effect and the parameters of it to add to your text now that it'due south in Afterwards Effects.
If you lot created text on a path, you'll just want to hop back into Illustrator and use a direct select tool (A). While holding Command + Shift, click on the curve the text was written-on. After yous've copied that, you'll want to paste information technology onto the text in After Furnishings, so use Command + ` (the niggling dash adjacent to "1" on your Keyboard) to see everything applied to the layer. You'll be able to select the mask under Text>Path Options>Path. Following that, you can suit where on the curve your text will state using the adjustments below or manually with your cursor.
A second option is to install a Third-Political party plugin to After Effects that can import text when information technology's in an individual layer in Illustrator. This seems to work well, but some business with sending files back-and-forth between animators is that the plugin may not work on all systems as properly as it would on your reckoner, resulting in someone'south project file not existence able to open or read the text.
CREATING VECTOR SHAPES OUT OF LAYERS
Optionally, you can create animations inside the layers; this works especially neat for minimalist animation styles where strokes are used as the master asset - but there is a take hold of to this process; using the Bureaucracy organisation in Afterward Effects can tedious-down your workflow in some instances. Creating shapes from layers may also bear on your analogy if it includes any vectors or varying stroke widths. If the layer has a lot of detail, this may non be platonic.
To piece of work with shapes from Illustrator layers, you want to right-click your layer in the Comp and select create shapes from layers. This will build yous a new layer that contains the native items you built them out of in Illustrator. This isn't always the almost platonic process merely it does come up in handy for certain styles. Most of the time when I work with shapes from layers I utilize the Trim Paths on strokes to breathing a drawing-on effect, which is the most common approach for this way.
Sometimes, this is a great fashion to add customizability to your illustrations. In the attached instance, and the gravel the van drives on is made into vector shapes. This was to add an effect called "Wiggle Paths" to make the ground appear more rugged.
CONTINUOUSLY RASTERIZE YOUR VECTOR ILLUSTRATIONS
Here's a part that can end upwards being disquisitional to your animation; When Subsequently Furnishings imports an AI file, it sees the layer as a raster object; similar to what you'd run into in Photoshop. When you lot scale-up the AI file this way, you will meet the edges get more pixelated. Thankfully, because you lot chose to work with vector you'll have the pick to constantly rasterize the artwork leaving you with make clean, crisp edges. All yous demand to exercise is click on the "Continuously Rasterize" checkbox beside your layer.
Don't see it? You may take your Layer switches pane turned off. To enable it, simply click on the left-almost button at the bottom of the work comp window your illustration is in. We actually have an entire tutorial most Continuously Rasterizing in After Furnishings.
At that place's an even better way...
A few months ago Adam Plouff released a new plugin chosen Overlord that essentially allows you to automatically transfer files betwixt Adobe Illustrator and Later on Effects. Information technology's friggin' magic and if y'all do a lot of work in Illustrator work yous need this in your life.
Now What?...
Well, now that you lot've brought your graphics into After Effects, it'southward time for you to create amazing new animations out of some rad illustrations. Checkout Subsequently Effects Kickstart for a fun and easy way to acquire After Effects.
Source: https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/import-adobe-illustrator-files-into-after-effects
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