Using illustrator paths as motion paths
- In Illustrator:
- Create an Illustrator file at the same settings as your AE Composition.
- Go to Illustrator > Preferences > File Handling and Clipboard and make sure you have “Preserve Paths” turned on.
- Create a path using a preset shape or the pen tool (no compound paths)
- Turn off both fill and stroke
- Select the path and copy it (Edit > Copy/Cmnd + c)
- In After Effects:
- Open your layer’s position, select the property and paste (Edit > Paste/Cmnd + v)
- You should see a set of keyframes appear, with each point on the Illustrator vector path represented by a keyframe.
- The keyframes will appear as “Roving” which you can turn off if desired.
- Footage gives you an option to import the psd file as a flat image or choose a specific layer
- Composition–Document Size will import your photoshop layers as separate AE elements and automatically combine them into a comp, preserving original layer positions. All layers will be the size of your photoshop file and have the same anchor point/position values.
- Composition–Preserve Layer Size will import photoshop layers in the same way as the above option, but will size each layer according to its actual pixel dimensions. With this option, each layer will have a different anchor point/position value. For complex animations, I recommend this import option.
Importing Illustrator layers:
- After Effects does not recognize Illustrator sublayers as individual layers. In order to import separate layers from Illustrator, make sure you create a new layer for every independent element.
- After Effects has a slightly different importing menu for Illustrator files than for Photoshop files, though the options remain the same:
- Choose footage or composition from the top of the menu
- Choose document size or layer size from the bottom of the menu
- You can also choose to import an individual layer
Pre-composing (precomping) & nesting:
- Nesting—putting a composition inside another composition
- Precomping—selecting a layer or multiple layers inside an existing composition that you want to contain in another composition (for organizational or complex animation use)
- To Precomp, go to Layer > Precompose (Command+Shift+c)
- When precomping a single layer, you will have two options
- "Leave all Attributes in current comp": if the layer has any keyframes/effects, they will remain attached to the newly created composition and not be encompassed inside this composition as part of the precomped layer
- "Move all attributes into the new composition": all keyframes and effects will move into the newly created comp and remain attached to the precomped layer
Collapse transformations:
Use
the "continuously rasterize" symbol (*) to insure that After Effects
continues to display vector layers inside nested comps as continuously
rasterized when scaled beyond 100% (if you don't turn this option on, AE
will treat a precomped vector layer as a bitmap and pixelate the edges)
Keeping comps organized:
Always name your comps and put them in appropriate folders inside your project window! ALWAYS