Transparent shape gradients

[Evan26335194rb34]

So, the company I work for has a catalog of brand icons they use for design and animation. They all exist as AI files. I wanted to convert them all to shapes and optimize them for animation, then same them to a library as animation presets for the team to use when needed.

The problem is that the outlines have a section that is transparent and then grades into a full opacity color (I've attached an example below. It's not a brand icon, just a mockup for making the point). AE doesn't like that. For the white icons, I simply make a gradient with black and set it to screen transfer, but that trick doesn't work with the color icons as the whole thing goes semi transparent (since it has some black value).

Is there a way - within a shape - to make a gradient stroke and set one color to be transparent? Much like the gradient tools in PS and AI. Otherwise my master plan is kaput.

Any box I'm forgetting to check, expression I'm not thinking of? If not, Adobe should make that possible!

[Jose Panadero]

Yes you can do it. Inside the stroke options you have a button to edit the gradient. You can set the opacity as you do in Photoshop. Check attached image.

[Evan26335194rb34]

Thanks for the quick response. Unfortunately, that's an option I've already tried 😞

Unless there's a new version I'm unaware of, that feature only allows you to change the color but has no transparency controls.

[Jose Panadero · Accepted solution]

Maybe I'm missing something but you can create a "transparent" gradient with the same colors and use the opacity controls for every point of the gradient.

[Evan26335194rb34]

Wow, I've been using AE for nearly 20 years and somehow missed that. Hidden in plain sight. Although, up until recently I relied mostly on AI files, so there's specifics of shape layers I'm still picking up.

Thanks friend!

[Mylenium]

You can't and so, yes, your master plan is kaput (or in more correct German "kaputt") :-). It's unfortunately an unsupported feature and if you can't accept working with the flattened AI files, there's no way to re-create this solely as a shape layer. It really would require introducing these transparencies at a layer level using track mattes or effects, which of course rasterizes your artwork and loses the magic of infinite resolution.

Mylenium

[Evan26335194rb34]

Thanks. If nothing else, my soul can lay to rest 🙂