Exporting Layered Vectors to Illustrator - It is possible (just)...
Ok, so it's taken me a while but I found a way. Was gutted to find that Animate CC only supports SVG export under legacy. SVGs do not support layers. Which makes them lame. Our workflow relies on assets created in Animate then exported as layers to illustrator and then brought into After Effects for animation.
So to find that I could no longer export layered FXG files to illustrator was a little upsetting... Ok I nearly cried.
Solution is not ideal but it works and may help anyone who wants to take a complex layered Animate file into Illustrator and beyond and retain all the layers. This requires you to still have Flash CS6 and Illustrator CS6 installed:
Step 1: Create and layer up your .fla file in Animate CC.
Step 2: Save the .fla file (You do NOT need to export anything, just save the .fla)
Step 3: Open the .fla in Flash CS6. (Yes you can do this. Ignore warning. It won't support fancy new Animate features but basic vectors will be fine - experiment.)
Step 4: Export the file as an FXG
Step 5: Open the FXG in Illustrator CS6 (Illustrator CC has forgotten how to open FXG)
Step 6: Save as .ai
Ok, not that simple BUT better than having to re-layer everything in illustrator. Especially when it's a complex file.
Tips: Do not try to do this with files that contain text. Or outline (break apart) the text first.
I wish we just had an illustrator export from Animate. Would make life so much simpler.
(P.s. I was told by Adobe to use the publish option SWF Archive for getting stuff out to After Effects. However this is useless to us due to the way it exports each layer at full stage size and as a separate file. So imagine a character's head with tonnes of space around it - not good for animation. You can clip this off on import but you will then lose registration between layers making alignment of them impossible.)
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