Importing Adobe animate to After effects: Keyframes not showing up on AE timeline

[christianc82963968]

Hi there!

Im a newbie to After effects. Now the issue i am having is that i have imported a FLA which has simple animation ( motion tweens) in it.

Im able to import the file successfully to After Effects.

So i can view it there etc. The only thing is that why does it not show up in the timeline player. So its empty.

[moderator deleted empty hyperlink]

See attached screenshot https://www.dropbox.com/s/k8w219s0pyjiic7/Screenshot%202019-04-10%20at%2010.17.16.png?dl=0

I have watched some tutorials for example like this one Integration of Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects with Animate

where when a fla is imported to AE it indeed appears on the timeline. So you can see keyframes.

Could anyone explain why maybe this is happening. I appreciate your help. THANK YOU!

Christian

[Martin_Ritter]

The keyframes from the example are made within AE. They are from AE effects. From the video, it doesn't look like you have access to the tween animation in AE. It is imported as footage, like a pre-rendered movie clip.

*Martin

[christianc82963968]

Hey Martin. Thanks for comments. This is incorrect. This video is being done within Animate

Integration of Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects with Animate So its the

Animate and After Effects workflow

For whatever reason I am unable to achieve the same kind of thing. I even tried a basic keyframe animation in Animate because i thought maybe motion tweens are the culprit but that didnt work either. So its important that the file remain as vector.

[Martin_Ritter]

In the video, he create the dancer animation in Animate, import this into AE, opens the comp created during AE import and adds effects to the layers.

At what step are you hanging?

[christianc82963968]

Thx very much for your reply 😃

So what happens is that when i try to open and import the FLA file

it works no problem but on the timeline itself in AE i cannot see anything at all. No bars, no keyframes.

So seems something is not happening as it should. So if you look at my screenshot

Dropbox - Screenshot 2019-04-10 at 10.17.16.png you can see that on the left there is all the swf info etc. But where is the entire animation? I can see full animation in the little preview window but not on the timeline. What we are trying to do is export a vector animation using Body moving component in AE outputting some Jason files. That is our ultimate goal.

[Martin_Ritter]

As I said, the imported animation behaves like a movie - there are no keyframes accessible in AE.

You can add keyframes to effects and layer properties as you wish to finalize your work, but the animation done in Animate stays in Animate (as far as they shown it in the tutorial - but it makes sense, because it's the same with every other footage-item like PS files or AI files).

If you are asking HOW to add keyframes, please find yourself a basic tutorial. As a beginning, you should unlock the layers and click the the little arrow pointing to the right next to the lock.

If you are missing parts of your animation, or the animations looks different from what you created in Animate, investigate what layer is causing the issue. Maybe you created something AE cannot fully understand.

From your workflow, all you can export with Bodymoving is just your SWF wrapped in JSON (if any). You'll have to make the animation entirely in AE if you want a real JSON export.

*Martin

[Martin_Ritter]

You'll have to make the animation entirely in AE if you want a real JSON export.

Or export from Animate. I thought there is a HTML export option which should you get a step closer to your ultimate goal.

[christianc82963968]

We had watch this tutorial

How to export an animation with Bodymovin - YouTube

where one should be able to import an FLA and then export it using this body moving plugin.

We seem to be very close but when we export the files are sort of blank.

But i guess that with this video the entire animation has been done within AE eh.

So maybe thats the difference here.

[Martin_Ritter]

Yes - in the bodymovin tutorial the animation was done in AE, therefore the plugin can use the AE keyframes.

I never worked with Animate so far, but in the teaser-videos they can export it to HTML or other web formats. Check out this and in the worst case, re-create the animation in AE.

*Martin

[christianc82963968]

Many thanks Martin for your comments.

I guess an issue we are having is that when you export out of animate directly the file size is just too high.

The idea behind the AE and exporting Json files etc is to get really low kb files. Unfortunately I don't know AE at all. Might have to start learning.

[Warren Heaton · Accepted solution]

Your screen shot looks correct.

1. There's your Layer Stack based on SWF source that was converted from your Layers in your FLA.

2. There's the Layer Time Span of each layer.

Unfortunately, the plug-in that converts FLA to a Comp doesn't trim the Layer Time Span to match when Cells in the FLA actually have content in the frame, leaving you to scrub the Timeline to determine when you're not over what were empty Frames in the FLA.

When working in AE with Comps from FLAs, I find it helpful to keep Animate open and to option click the blue Time Display in the AE Timeline so that it favors frame count over timecode.  I can then quickly reference the Current Frame in the FLA Scene and then go to that frame in AE easily.  (Side note:  AE defaults to starting at 0 while Animate defaults to starting at 1.  You can change the AE Comp Settings so that it starts at 1 for a better match.)  I usually take the time to manually trim the AE Layer Time Span to best match the FLA Layers.

[christianc82963968]

Many many thanks for taking the time on this! Appreciate it!