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Create shape from vector layer problem

New Here ,
May 26, 2016 May 26, 2016

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Good night,

So, I'm with a problem that I couldn't solve so far.

I've done my work on Illustrator and released all layers into sequence, for Afx.

The problem is: When I import the .ai file to afx and choose "retain layer size", works fine:

Tamanho normal.jpg

But, when I "create shape from vector layer" (the .ai files, in this case), they all lose its source size, like the image below:

Tamanho errado.jpg

The weirdest thing is that few files only retain the same size when I create shape from layer.

Hope you guys can help me. Thank you

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LEGEND ,
May 26, 2016 May 26, 2016

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Twirl the groups open and ungroup. This is perfectly normal, since as per your initial screenshot you have a gradient or something like that in your image and AE can't recreate it, thus producing an empty comp/ artboard sized group. The flaw is with your AI work in teh first place. You need to study up on what actually carries over to AE when converting to shape layers.

Mylenium

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Community Expert ,
May 27, 2016 May 27, 2016

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Unless you specifically need to use shape animators on your illustrator files there is absolutely no reason to covert the vectors to shapes. Gradient fils, multiple gradient fils, gradients along a stroke, and about a zillion other useful illustrator techniques will not translate directly to shape layers in AE. If all you need is the ability to continuously zoom without pixels fouling up the image then just turn on the Continuous Rasterization switch.

If you do need to use shape animators for your project then you have to simplify you Illustrator art or take the time to recreate gradients and other effects on the shape layer.

Screen Shot 2016-05-27 at 12.10.49 AM.png

For example this fine illustrator artwork:

Screen Shot 2016-05-27 at 12.15.49 AM.png

Turns into this mess because of all the groups and gradients:

Screen Shot 2016-05-27 at 12.16.04 AM.png

At the present time there's nothing you can do about it except redesign in AI without gradients or live without the shape animator tools.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 01, 2019 Dec 01, 2019

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I did merge path and it worked!! But I have 16 layers so it's a bit time consuming to adjust them manually.... 

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Guest
Jun 21, 2016 Jun 21, 2016

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I've been having the same issues as you, and I think I found the solution. Ignore what these guys have said, their advice, which basically amounts to 'the way you work is incorrect', is worthless and doesn't solve anything. I use this function constantly and have times when this problem occurs, and other times when it doesn't. It's nothing to do with gradients etc because I have this problem with flat shape layers too. Going into each layer and ungrouping inside AE is just not viable when you're dealing with hundreds of layers.

The solution I've found is to use Release to Layers (Sequence) on every layer in your illustrator file which is causing issues. It's really as simple as that. Let me know if this works for you.

Will

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Contributor ,
Sep 13, 2016 Sep 13, 2016

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Thanks for your answer, if release to sequence is what causing it what was the solution to separating layer?

Is it to separate manually? (release to build doesn't do what we need to do)

Edit:

I've just tried to separate layer manually, and the problem still exist?

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LEGEND ,
Sep 14, 2016 Sep 14, 2016

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you should prepare your Ai file to Ae and if you still have problems we can investigate. the good advice you got before was solid and important and you should take all of it into account even if could or could not be related to you specific problem.

about preparing your Ai file to Ae you should read here: Preparing and importing still images in After Effects

I've just tried to separate layer manually, and the problem still exist?

let's examine this further. try to isolate the problem: what layer of all your layers is coming as the comp dimensions? show a screen shot or share this Ai file with just that layer.

Rick has many good observations and this is one you should listen too very carefully:

Unless you specifically need to use shape animators on your illustrator files there is absolutely no reason to covert the vectors to shapes.

still let's examine this. we wait for your feedback

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Contributor ,
Sep 14, 2016 Sep 14, 2016

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Hi Roei, thanks for the reply.

I finally found what the problem was!

The problem will appear your object in AI files have opacity below 100%.

You can see here clearly: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63499976/shape_convert_folder.zip

Solution: don't make any object in AI transparent before you import to AE.

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LEGEND ,
Sep 14, 2016 Sep 14, 2016

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Nice work! this is not entirely correct. check this for yourself: place your objects in a video template and you won't have these problems.

here are the same objects in a video and film template of HD1080

imported to Ae and objects are cropped. yes you lose the opacity, but you can reintroduce it via fill opacity in the shape hierarchy

Conclusion: read this first before you do anything from Ai to Ae - Preparing and importing still images in After Effects

Work and design your files however you feel comfortable, but when you are done - create a HD Video Template and place them inside to ensure you won't have any problems. this is only half the reason to use the Templates, the other half is avoiding cropping on the pasteboard. as demonstrated in here: Re: AI (illustrator) layers not showing up in AE (after effects) CC 2014

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Contributor ,
Sep 14, 2016 Sep 14, 2016

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Thanks for the link, I just found out why some my AI files is cropped other isn't. (It's because for some of it I'm using HD Video template) One thing I'm not using it anymore is because it's more heavy (unresponsive) when working in AI.

I also found another thing, you can't use any blending modes beside Normal.

All object must be this (select all and check):

Screenshot 2016-09-14 15.55.40.png

And I just tried the put the layer with transparency in HDTV 1080 template but it still doesn't work.

Screenshot 2016-09-14 15.54.43.png

It makes the bounding box so large:

Screenshot 2016-09-14 15.54.49.png

With all transparency 100% and blending mode normal it fixed:

Screenshot 2016-09-14 15.59.45.png

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LEGEND ,
Sep 14, 2016 Sep 14, 2016

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One thing I'm not using it anymore is because it's more heavy (unresponsive) when working in AI.

if this is the case, you could move your elements only when your done. don't forget to check "Paste Remembers Layers" in the Layers panel options before you do

And I just tried the put the layer with transparency in HDTV 1080 template but it still doesn't work.

good work. please upload the file, I would like to examine this

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Contributor ,
Sep 14, 2016 Sep 14, 2016

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if this is the case, you could move your elements only when your done. don't forget to check "Paste Remembers Layers" in the Layers panel options before you do

Yup that could do. But I also remember the trick to make it light and responsive by turning off Video Ruler.

Screenshot 2016-09-14 17.36.54.png

The file is avaiable here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63499976/hdtv-template-folder.zip

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LEGEND ,
Sep 14, 2016 Sep 14, 2016

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And I just tried the put the layer with transparency in HDTV 1080 template but it still doesn't work.

Good job. you have managed to break after effects I am going to need a while to examine this. thank you for this investigation.

Yup that could do. But I also remember the trick to make it light and responsive by turning off Video Ruler.

Good Tip. I will try to remember that. I don't work too much with Ai files.

What we are ended up with here is that all the advice you were given should have been taken into consideration. the first and more important one is by Rick Gerard saying this:

Unless you specifically need to use shape animators on your illustrator files there is absolutely no reason to covert the vectors to shapes.

for instance this figure here of the dude. do you really need ALL these vector layers as shapes?

and this is another advice by Rick very early on in this thread

Gradient fils, multiple gradient fils, gradients along a stroke, and about a zillion other useful illustrator techniques will not translate directly to shape layers in AE.

this is exactly what's causing these problems. take a look here at the help files:  Create and customize shapes and masks in After Effects and this is the transcript from the Convert Vector Art Footage to Shape:

Choose Layer > Create Shapes from Vector Layer. A matching shape layer will appear above the footage layer, and the footage layer will be muted.

The following issues are known:

  • Not all features of Illustrator files are currently preserved. Examples include: opacity, images, and gradients.
  • Converted shapes ignore PAR overrides specified in the Interpret Footage dialog box.
  • Gradients and unsupported types may show as 50% gray shapes.
  • Files with thousands of paths may import very slowly without feedback.
  • The menu command works on a single selected layer at a time.
  • If you import an Illustrator file as a composition (i.e., several layers), you cannot convert all of those layers in one pass. However, you can import the file as footage, and then use the command to convert the single footage layer to shapes.

so guess they should have added: in some cases, when opacity or blend mode are involved, certain object may translate as the artboard bounding box and not the object

so to sum everything up, to avoid any problems in the translation from Ai to Ae:

1. first, be sure that you actually need to convert to shapes

2. work withing the HD templates

3. the Ai object translation to Ae shape may translate incorrectly when dealing with gradients, opacity, blend modes and other complex operations, so sometimes you would have to either recreate them within shapes, or dismiss them from your Ai file.

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Contributor ,
Sep 14, 2016 Sep 14, 2016

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Yup I think that sum it up nicely

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LEGEND ,
Sep 14, 2016 Sep 14, 2016

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for the geeks among you that are interested in the specifics like me:

opacity or blend mode changes to any object in your illustrator file will cause the "create shapes from vector layer" feature to any of the layers to behave in the following manner: your shape layer will have an additional group in the shape hierarchy that will contain paths that constitute your Ai artboard and another merge paths operation. and it's very annoying

it could look like something like this if you work in an HD Preset.

BTW HD preset gives you 2 artboards.. it's actually a good thing:Re: AI (illustrator) layers not showing up in AE (after effects) CC 2014 )

here is the shape hierarchy comparison of Layer 1 that is normal and Layer 2 that has 50% opacity:

as you can see the artboard is here as a group with 3 paths and there is an additional merge path operation to the content of the shape.

What to do?

  1. if it's after the fact: you can just manually delete the group and the merge path from your shapes, or remove the blend mode / opacity from the layers in Ai (or set them to 100%/set them to normal) which is what Ae is going to do anyway, save the file again, and create shapes from vector layer again.
  2. before the fact - proper workflow:  it is already known that opacity and blend mode (and not only them) don't translate to a corresponding shape anyway, so this makes this an easy workflow decision: if you do plan to convert to shapes, prior to importing to Ae - set your blend modes to normal and opacity to 100% if it's not.
  3. there's also this script: Explode Shape Layers 3 - aescripts + aeplugins - aescripts.com that is very handy for dealing with the whole conversion of Ai to shapes and it has the "Remove Artboard" feature. this from the script description: If any of your Illustrator layers have non-100% opacity or go outside of the frame, you've probably noticed that converting brings in an empty artboard artifact that gets in the way. No more! Remove it with Remove Artboard.

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New Here ,
Mar 23, 2022 Mar 23, 2022

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Nice job, finally someone explained this issue, thanks!

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New Here ,
Sep 23, 2016 Sep 23, 2016

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THANK YOU! This really helped I only had one tiny layer with 40% transparency and when I removed it it worked

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Contributor ,
Jan 15, 2021 Jan 15, 2021

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This "Release to Layers" trick is the best thing ever. Thank you thank you thank you.

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New Here ,
Aug 10, 2018 Aug 10, 2018

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This happens because you have an extra artboard in your Ai file, however, even when you delete the extra artboard Ae still will make that extra shape for the original artboard. I don't know why tho.

I'll appreceate if someone can tell the reason of why that happens with the artboard.

Regards,

PD: sorry for the bad english.

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Explorer ,
Dec 06, 2018 Dec 06, 2018

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Знімок екрана 2018-12-06 о 19.45.54.png

I had the same issue only with gradient overlays - when I removed them - shapes where created perfectly.

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New Here ,
Mar 11, 2020 Mar 11, 2020

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This worked perfectly for me. I had Image layers in my Artboard, after I removed them I was able to get the correct shape vector size on AE. Tnx.

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Valorous Hero ,
Jan 15, 2021 Jan 15, 2021

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Most often, it's Adobe AI's artboard(s) that creates issues in AE. For the most seamless workflow between AE and AI, look into purchasing Overlord. It may seem pricy but it's worth every cent AND MORE. I combine Overlord with Explode Shape Layers and they cut down an hour's work into less than 10 minutes with most of it being an automated process.

https://www.battleaxe.co/overlord
https://aescripts.com/explode-shape-layers/

Motion Graphics Brand Guidelines & Motion Graphics Responsive Design Toolkits

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 04, 2023 Apr 04, 2023

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LATEST

Salve illustrator file as "Illustrator CS" version.
Problem solved here.

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