Gray Box appearing after creating shapes from vector layer

[MaverickGalarneau]

I'm watching a video tutorial, and it says to do a step I need the shapes from my vector layer (.AI so it can be transparent). Every time I create the shapes, a gray box appears in place. When I remove the fill, there's nothing there. Please  help, I'm new to this and would really aprecciate it. 

[Roland Kahlenberg · Accepted solution]

The gray box usually represents an AI feature that isn't supported in AE. The most common cause has to do with the more recent AI gradient features. Sometimes, the AI Artboard comes along for the ride and it also appears as a gray box but this will appear on its own Shape>Content>Group. 

[Mylenium]

Without any info about your artwork we can't really tell you much, but given how it looks and that it's only one layer it's likely either a pixel-based image that of course won't produce any actual vector data or you have not expanded your tracing and compound paths in Illustrator. It would probably be a good idea to read the online help for both programs on what features AE supports and the procedures required to generate usable data in AI.

Mylenium