Elements disappear in imported AI file with CC Bend and Continous Raster

Question

Hello, I've recently made an animation where I had imported an .ai file with every element separated into layers, and then brought it into after effects to work with. I tried two methods:

First, I import the .ai as merged (first thing I notice is that my 1680x892px document has turned to 700x400px) Okay, I increase scale to 225% to fit the 1680x892 comp size. Create layered comp, and create shapes from vectors so they're native to after effects. When I applied CC Bend and properties, and tried to export everything was in very low quality. When I click continuous raster on the composition the elements with cc bend disappear, but the elements with just transform or trim path stay. I understand how the continous raster button changes the render order of things, but it seems to just be skipping the render of it.

Second, I try to work just with the .ai files without converting them. I re arrange all the elements and this time, applying continuous raster doesn't make them disappear. However when I go to render, everything that has cc bend is gone. I open it up the next day and everything isnt even rendering on the project file, and the .ai layers icons in the Project tab are black. My biggest issue was of the low quality, perhaps due to how I imported it, and that Continous Raster star button doesnt like CC Bend or other effects

Mylenium · Answer

Nothing wrong. You just need to work on your understanding of what CR does and how it works. You also don't seem to be aware of how Illustrator handles DPI and its internal rendering/ flattening/ treatment of raster effects, so there's several things going on here. You will have to read the respective online help sections for both programs, beginning with the fact that your document didn't start out with a standard video size like full HD. Working with odd dimensions is not impossible, but will only complicate matters, so I suggest the next time you actually use the video document presets in AI when setting up new documents/ artboards. That will also take care of your resolution issue: Video only works with absolute pixels based on an assumed 72 DPI. Hence using a print preset and designing artwork based on inch or cm in AI will inevitably result in wrong sizes because AE simply does not care and has no way to "upres" your artwork at 300 DPI. As for the CC Bend issue - in particular distortion effects need a fixed layer bounding box to do their transform calculations. CR does not provide that, so you can't use it. Unlike you seem to think the deformation is strictly pixel-based, anyway, not applied to the underlying vector elements as it would in AI. Hence the only sensible and technically viable thing to do is to use your elements as large as possible to minimize degradation after the distortions have been applied and leave CR off. You have to learn to work with these limitations and structure your workflow accordingly.

Mylenium

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