Can assets be converted to shapes after creating the animation? Trying to update an old AE file

[Sanni5CFB]

Hello.

I have an older animation that has been made with AE and some of the assets need to be updated (minor color changes). So basically the problem is that the animation has been made directly with the asset files without converting them into shapes first. This was handy at first because all I needed to do to update the animation was replace the footage. BUT. It doesn't render to .json. All I get is missing images.

Is there any way I could solve this without having to do the whole animation from scratch?

Thank you in advance.

[Joseph Labrecque]

Can you clarify - are you asking about Animate or After Effects? 

[Sanni5CFB]

Oh, sorry, I posted in the wrong place. I meant After Effects. Can I delete the post somehow? Again, sorry, first time here.

[Joseph Labrecque]

No problem! I'll move it to the Ae forum. 

[P.M.B]

So you saying you successfully made the color changes but now you are seeing missing images?

The most obvious question is what were the changes you made?  I know,  the color, but literally what were steps involved.

Did you update the asset files in a nother program? rename them?  move them? reimport them?

Are they missing in the project panel or just the render?

Please provide screenshots of you entire interface with all relevant layers and assets visible.

You have to provide details.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects/faq-what-information-should-i-provide-when-asking-a-que...

[OussK]

actually your question not clear enough, so did you have a missing link? if so definitely you will not be able to export the file if you have a missing link.

also, you say you have missing images on the .json file, so can you explain what kind of .json file you export? and how you exported it?

[Sanni5CFB · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the comments asking for clarification. I started going through the steps what to include in the question in the FAQ and accidentally found a solution.

Short recap of the problem

- I had a task to update an old animation that was originally made by someone else

- in the original AE file the animation was made using .png and .ai files where as I have previously only always used .ai files that I have converted to shapes in AE

- I use Bodymovin extension to render the animation to .json and lottiefiles.com to preview and share the .json

- in AE the animation worked fine but on the lottiefiles.com preview the images were not visible

- I thought converting the images to shapes would solve the problem, that is why I was asking if they could somehow be converted even after the animation was ready (seems that that is impossible)

Solution

- change settings in Bodymovin to also render other assets than just shapes