Imported Illustrator puppet layers not reflected in Character Animator

[mre8]

I can't find the pattern: It seems the CH randomly decides what to recognize as a layer (with an object in it... do we call that a 'group' in CH?) when importing an Illustrator puppet.

For example, here is the layer "EyeMask" (with sublayers in AI):

Here is how "EyeMask" shows up in CH:

Wondering why "surprise" and "squint" do not show up as layers that I can expand in CH?

I have tried:

Recreating new layers in AI

NOT using new "sublayer" (thought it may be a problem with sublayer although I don't think there is a difference between creating a sublayer or just a layer)

Re-Importing puppet

[mre8 · Accepted solution]

Well, quickly found my answer. I'll explain in case any else is wondering...

If your layer in AI has an object that is NOT named... e.g. <path> <group> <layer>, the layer in CH will not have the twirl down triangle.

If you want to be able to access sublayers or objects in an AI layer once imported to CH, the object in the layer must be named in AI.

An unnamed parent layer will follow this pattern. If the object inside the layer is named, it will accessable, If it is not, the parent layer will keep the "unnamed name" and there will be no twirl down to access the objects inside. This is true even with multiple unnamed objects in a layer...

[alank99101739]

Not at a computer, so maybe I should keep my mouth shut until later, .... oh heck! I should know better! 😉

I think there are layers, groups, and smart objects (??). Create Layer in AI creates a new top level layer I believe. Create sublayer creates... a sublayer under an existing layer. I have never failed to see these appear in CH, as long as CH saw the file change. That is, sometimes I have to make sure the changes really did save, give it a second, and then give CH focus again. Sometimes CTRL-S does not save the changes (due to being interpreted by something else), sometimes I switch to CH too quickly. But I use (sub)layers all the time successfully.

Groups and smart objects I don’t use (out of ignorance!). I am wondering if the sublayer is a different sort of ”thing” in AI (a group or smart object), not a layer. That might explain why AI can expand it, but CH does not see it.

And no, I don’t know how in AI to tell what type a layer is... other than if its a group, “Ungroup” becomes available as a menu option etc.

But the way you describe is using “create sublayer” and its not visible... That is strange to me - that works fine for me all the time.

If you get no-where, feel free to send me an AI file and I will import and show the structure my copy of CH comes up with.

Oh, and PHotoshop is different (but I don’t use it often). E.g. you have to create lots of groups I think in CH. Sometimes you need to create a group with just one thing in it for the extra level to appear inside CH with PSD files so you can tag it etc.