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joechump
Inspiring
November 3, 2018
Question

.fla import

  • November 3, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 1247 views

I was excited to hear of the new .fla (Animate CC) import feature as our workflow is creating layered vector assets in Animate and then animating them in AE.

At the moment we have to go through a convoluted process of exporting to an old CS6 version of flash/illustrator with fxg files etc to retain the layers.

However, upon importing a .fla file we've found that although it retains the layers, it doesn't retain the layer size (even though that is the only option in the drop-down menu) meaning that each layer's bounding box is the size of the stage. (Why have a drop-down menu with only one option in it and that option doesn't work as expected?) For a small object on a layer, this would be impossibly cumbersome to manipulate and animate. Imagine a character made up of 40 layers with each layer containing a tiny object such as an eyeball having a huge blank space around it up to the edge of the stage. To move the eyeball you have to move something the size of the whole document...

Also, although the layers retain their vector scaling qualities, there is no option to Create Shapes from Vector File as there would be when working with an illustrator file.

It seems to me that this import engine is based on the .svg method of working with vectors which is really poor by comparison to the illustrator .ai features of import unfortunately.

So I guess my question is – Am I missing anything or is it likely that these features will be refined to allow a more fluid workflow with Animate and AE? Specifically shrinking the bouding box of each layer to the object within (but retaining its relative position) and being able to Create Shapes from Vector File for .fla imported layers.

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1 reply

Participant
November 10, 2018

I think they want to treat FLAs like movie files/footage. So I doubt it will ever work like that.

It sounds like drawing in Illustrator (possibly with the Overlord plugin for AE) would be more suitable for your workflow? If you’re fixed on using Flash, of course, then that won’t help.

joechump
joechumpAuthor
Inspiring
April 1, 2019

I think you are right Gordon, it's just frustrating because, although I use illustrator, I find Animate's drawing tools much more fluid and less clunky. Adobe want to force the workflow so that Illustrator is the primary creation tool. I get that but it used to be a two way street before they removed the excellent FXG format from Flash and replaced it with a broken, inaccurate and limited SVG export. Flash is still a great tool for vector creation. The AE thing gave me hope but I guess I'll keep on dreaming!