Upload photo of mandala and auto trace

[LMOP234352975y2l]

Hi, I'm completely new to this. I dont know up from down. But I have commitment. I have spent 100 plus hours on a mosaic of a mandala. Now I would like to upload it to after effects, trace all the objects. Hopefully I can categorise each object into groups, and split them into upper and lower hemispheres. 

Where I can then animate these shapes responding to some music I have made. 

I don't know where to even begin. If someone could point me in the right direction. That would really appreciated. 

[Vishu_Aggarwal]

After Effects does not have an option of an auto trace of images whereas the same can be done in Adobe Illustrator and illustrator files can be imported in After Effects as shape layers for the animation. 

[Mylenium]

Yeah, as already pointed out by Vishu, you need to start in Illustrator. AE does have an auto trace, but it's not very good and based on what you said, chances are that you exhaust soem limits on teh numbers of masks the trace would produce, so structuring your work sensibly and in a managabel way by organising your AI layers is key to even being able to pull this off.

Mylenium

[LMOP234352975y2l]

 Thank you for the information. It's greatly appreciated.

[LMOP234352975y2l]

Thank you for your time. It's really invaluable to me to know this before I commit to a software.

Now that I'm aware that illustrator is the way to go in terms of tracing, assorting shapes individually or in groups. 

You mentioned I would reach a limit using after effects. Would the same be true for then animating and manipulating all of the objects in illustrator?

A quick Google search said it would be best to trace and group in illustrator and then move it to Adobe animate. 

Would this work? And would the session and all of the assorted and grouped shapes be transfer over? 

[Mylenium]

The exact behavior would depend on what your mandala looks like. AE can handle 10000 layers in theory, but the limits on masks and shape layer grpups are much stricter as are e.g. the number of points a maks path can have. that's why it's important to pre-organize stuff efficiently beforehand.

Mylenium

[LMOP234352975y2l]

So clarify what you're saying. Is whilst it may be possible in AE. It will be more of a tight rope than in illustrator?