Path pasted from illustrator into After Effects not showing stroke or fill no matter what I do?

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
January 21, 2026
2 replies
96 views

Hey everyone. I am having a real hard time just pasting a simple path from illustrator to after effects in order to use the trim paths tool on it. no matter what method i use to paste it in I cant get it to be an editable path that lets me adjust stroke and color, and lets me aply effects like trim paths to it.

I wish when I import the AI file it would stop converting my stroked objects to shapes. Is there a way to stop it from doing this? I dont understand why adobe has done everything it can to mask this task as difficult as humanly possible but here we are.

What AM I doing incorrectly? Please Help!

Others

thepixelsmith

Community Expert

When you copy and paste a shape from Illustrator into a layer in After Effects it pastes as a mask.

The way @nishu_kush suggested will work.

Alternatively, you could import the illustrator file into an AE project and then use the Convert to AE shapes command by right clicking on that layer in your comp.

Jerron Smith | www.thepixelsmith.com

A

Anonymous

Sorry couldnt edit becasue Adobe in theri infite wsidom makes it so you cannot edit your own post here is the screenshot that didnt properly upload. God I hate this company so much you guys are actually evil people. Screenshot 2026-01-21 102021.png

kglad

Community Expert

great approach, especially when asking for help.

A

Anonymous

Not sure what I did wrong but okay thanks for your input! Or are you mad because I insulted the Adobe overloards lol?

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