After Effects handling is vey laggy with imported ai-file

[Viktor5CF1]

Hello everyone,

I am working on a quite simple project containing an imported Adobe Illustrator file.

However whenever I drag the composition from that file around on my canvas, it is very laggy, i.e. not smooth at all.

I don't think the Illustrator file contains anything complex though. My PC should be okay enough for this (i7 7700k, 32GB RAM, GTX 970)

What causes even more confusion for me is the fact that I did "something" and now it runs smoothly. I really don't know what I did, I am concerned that I removed something important or set a wrong setting.

I would be very grateful If someone could help me understand!

I was not able to upload the file (The attachment's bird_runs_somehow_smoothly.aep content type (application/octet-stream) does not match its file extension and has been removed.") therefore I uploaded them to my Dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/44lpluhlyk11gyt/Bird_laggy.aep

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rwnnt0bdgqin1bq/Bird_runs_somehow_smoothly.aep

Thank you very much!

Best,

Viktor

[Viktor5CF1]

Update: Found the difference and why it's not running smoothly: When activating the "plane handles" (I don't know the exact english phrase since I am on a German PC, in German it's "Griffe" in the View settings below "Ebeneneinstellungen") it begins to get sluggish, if I deactive them it runs smoothly!

[Rick Gerard]

It looks to me like you created an Illustrator file with just one layer, then imported the file and converted the AI file to shape layers so you could animate the wing. Converting an AI file to a shape layer is going to make things more complicated. The efficient workflow would be to put every element you want to animate on a separate layer in Illustrator. The Wing has it's own layer, maybe the tail, maybe the two white highlights in the eye. Then you import as a Composition retaining layer size and animate the original vector layers. Everything will run smoother.

In both comps, I see ana empty shape layer as layer 1. You don't need this layer. There is no difference in performance on my system with either comp.

[Viktor5CF1]

Hello Rick,

thank you very much for your response, good to know!

May I ask what computer system you are using?