How on earth do you import Illustrator files. I assume it should be easy but for the life of me, I just can't figure it out.
I have a crowd of beautiful characters waiting to be imported. They're each saved in their own .ai (CS3) file -- all on single layers, a mixture of closed and open paths -- but they won't import. I've tried saving them as CS2 and CS files -- that doesn't work either.
Am I being dum? Have I missed something obvious?
Importing Illustrator files
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Describe "deforming".
AI "curves" are totally and completely different from AS "curves". You will never get an "exact" conversion. Clean up and editing is required. I discovered a long time ago it's easier to recreate characters in AS using the imported AI or image as a reference or for tracing.
-vern
AI "curves" are totally and completely different from AS "curves". You will never get an "exact" conversion. Clean up and editing is required. I discovered a long time ago it's easier to recreate characters in AS using the imported AI or image as a reference or for tracing.
-vern
Doesn't look "completely" different. 
Well, keep in mind that AI has the ability to change the curve bias on either side of a point. AS does not have that. This means that the head of the bear that appears to be a "circle" but with the neck extending of of it won't work the same in AS.
If you use more points to define that circle in AI the import might work better. The best way though is to adjust those points or just redraw the shapes in AS to get what you want. It may take time to learn how the curves work differently in AS. Anything you know about vector drawing in AI will not apply to AS.
At first this may seem like a bummer but there is a good reason for it. AS has wonderful vector animation with out a need for a ton of points (like in Flash). The reason for this is based on the "simplistic" curves. They animate better.
Another thing to consider is that AI is a DRAWING program not an animation program. You need to consider how the shapes are created to animate properly. Having one or two points with adjusted curve bias to define a shape is never going to animate properly. This is why it is better to "redraw" in AS so you can test how the joints and other shapes will deform over time.
Trust me on this. I've been exactly where you are right now. With enough patience and practice you can learn the nuances of drawing in AS and create that bear so there is practically no difference.
I also took a bunch of characters drawn originally in AI and converted them to AS. After doing this through the import feature and spending too much time cleaning up I found it was incredibly faster to just trace over them in AS.
-vern
Well, keep in mind that AI has the ability to change the curve bias on either side of a point. AS does not have that. This means that the head of the bear that appears to be a "circle" but with the neck extending of of it won't work the same in AS.
If you use more points to define that circle in AI the import might work better. The best way though is to adjust those points or just redraw the shapes in AS to get what you want. It may take time to learn how the curves work differently in AS. Anything you know about vector drawing in AI will not apply to AS.
At first this may seem like a bummer but there is a good reason for it. AS has wonderful vector animation with out a need for a ton of points (like in Flash). The reason for this is based on the "simplistic" curves. They animate better.
Another thing to consider is that AI is a DRAWING program not an animation program. You need to consider how the shapes are created to animate properly. Having one or two points with adjusted curve bias to define a shape is never going to animate properly. This is why it is better to "redraw" in AS so you can test how the joints and other shapes will deform over time.
Trust me on this. I've been exactly where you are right now. With enough patience and practice you can learn the nuances of drawing in AS and create that bear so there is practically no difference.
I also took a bunch of characters drawn originally in AI and converted them to AS. After doing this through the import feature and spending too much time cleaning up I found it was incredibly faster to just trace over them in AS.
-vern
I must say I'm disappointed to find this out after I purchased the software.
The AI files import feature was a big selling point for me. Had I known that there was a proviso with its functionality, I probably would not have purchased AE -- not at this moment in time anyway. I wonder why they decided to grey out this function in the demo? The import feature is not exactly what it says on the tin.[/i]
The AI files import feature was a big selling point for me. Had I known that there was a proviso with its functionality, I probably would not have purchased AE -- not at this moment in time anyway. I wonder why they decided to grey out this function in the demo? The import feature is not exactly what it says on the tin.[/i]
-
synthsin75
- Posts: 10370
- Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:20 pm
- Location: Oklahoma
- Contact:
Are there any other animation programs that import AI files? I'm willing to bet they all cost 2 to 10 times the cost of AS. (I'm guessing 'AE' is a typo since I have no idea what After Effects has to do with this)
I don't use any AI authoring software, but perhaps creating each part (head, arm, body, etc.) as a separate shape, with plenty of control points, would help?
Overall I think it's a bit shortsighted to buy anything based on one feature. From what I've read, you can export AI images as frames in a SWF. So why else buy AS? You could have done it with the software you had.
Unless, of course, you do need the time saving features of AS to avoid doing all of the individual frame drawings yourself. If this is the case, then 'cleaning up' the AI import (or better, drawing it with the AS tools) is not going to make the workload a wash. You'll still save a ton of time.
Sure. It's not perfect. But what software is? Especially when interacting with other software.
Just my thoughts on the matter. If you are terribly distraught, I suggest contacting Smithmicro about it.
I don't use any AI authoring software, but perhaps creating each part (head, arm, body, etc.) as a separate shape, with plenty of control points, would help?
Overall I think it's a bit shortsighted to buy anything based on one feature. From what I've read, you can export AI images as frames in a SWF. So why else buy AS? You could have done it with the software you had.
Unless, of course, you do need the time saving features of AS to avoid doing all of the individual frame drawings yourself. If this is the case, then 'cleaning up' the AI import (or better, drawing it with the AS tools) is not going to make the workload a wash. You'll still save a ton of time.
Sure. It's not perfect. But what software is? Especially when interacting with other software.
Just my thoughts on the matter. If you are terribly distraught, I suggest contacting Smithmicro about it.
Let me weigh in here -- and, please, try and take this the right way.
I'm what I would call an expert Illustrator user. It actually used to be my favorite program. I spent about 5 hours a day using it for many years, often times just for fun (drawing). And I always upgraded -- indeed, I spent money for the upgrade as soon as I got AS with the expectation I'd be using it even more (at the time hadn't used AI for about a year due to my retirement).
Okay, with all that as a given... I would STRONGLY urge you to give up AI and use AS for drawing. Yep, it's that good, and (more importantly) it's designed for animation. AI is great at illustration, and the shading tools and cloning are without peer, but they ain't all that worthwhile using to animate. Animation requires a different mindset, and a different toolset, and the AS drawing tools are actually even easier to use than AI and will produce MUCH better results for animation work.
I did not believe this at first -- Vern was one who convinced me to stick with the tools for a week or so and after I did I never looked back. So, even if you have tons of AI artwork you would like to "import" I'd tell you it's much better to just redraw it -- in the first place, you could never animate all the really cool gradient type stuff anyway (no vector animation program could -- it could treat it as a bitmap, but if you want to do that just output as a PSD and import it that way). And, more importantly, if you want to animate the vector points AS is the only way to go.
I am telling you this not to apologize for AS or to convince you you didn't make a wrong buying decision but only as someone who has "been there, done that" and if someone had straightened me out I wouldn't have wasted as much time as I did (I actually spent a month or two using AI in conjunction with AS before I bit the bullet and tried the tools). Give it a week or two and if you don't feel the same way I'll eat my hard drive.
(Oh, and I didn't even install AI on my machine when I had to reformat my hard drive. If I want to do something for print I may go ahead again, but it's been off for many months now and I've never missed it. Given that it was always the first thing that went on in the past... That should tell you something).
I'm what I would call an expert Illustrator user. It actually used to be my favorite program. I spent about 5 hours a day using it for many years, often times just for fun (drawing). And I always upgraded -- indeed, I spent money for the upgrade as soon as I got AS with the expectation I'd be using it even more (at the time hadn't used AI for about a year due to my retirement).
Okay, with all that as a given... I would STRONGLY urge you to give up AI and use AS for drawing. Yep, it's that good, and (more importantly) it's designed for animation. AI is great at illustration, and the shading tools and cloning are without peer, but they ain't all that worthwhile using to animate. Animation requires a different mindset, and a different toolset, and the AS drawing tools are actually even easier to use than AI and will produce MUCH better results for animation work.
I did not believe this at first -- Vern was one who convinced me to stick with the tools for a week or so and after I did I never looked back. So, even if you have tons of AI artwork you would like to "import" I'd tell you it's much better to just redraw it -- in the first place, you could never animate all the really cool gradient type stuff anyway (no vector animation program could -- it could treat it as a bitmap, but if you want to do that just output as a PSD and import it that way). And, more importantly, if you want to animate the vector points AS is the only way to go.
I am telling you this not to apologize for AS or to convince you you didn't make a wrong buying decision but only as someone who has "been there, done that" and if someone had straightened me out I wouldn't have wasted as much time as I did (I actually spent a month or two using AI in conjunction with AS before I bit the bullet and tried the tools). Give it a week or two and if you don't feel the same way I'll eat my hard drive.
(Oh, and I didn't even install AI on my machine when I had to reformat my hard drive. If I want to do something for print I may go ahead again, but it's been off for many months now and I've never missed it. Given that it was always the first thing that went on in the past... That should tell you something).
This is were I get disappointed and a little confused...
AS is fantastic. It has features up the wazoo. It has great character animation tools, bones, scripting endless possibilities. ONE feature doesn't work EXACTLY as you expect and the whole program is no good?
You tried the demo which did not have the main feature, the only feature that was a total deal breaker and you bought it anyway? There must have been another reason you chose it.
I have heard this over and over and over from people who have only used Anime Studio for a VERY short time. I've also heard the complaint about "hiding something" or "covering up" how bad the import feature is many times.... how exactly could that AI import feature be explained better? What would it say next to that feature? If used properly it works perfectly fine in my opinion.
When I got Moho originally I too bought it MAINLY FOR THE AI IMPORT. Yup. That was the main selling point when I tried the demo out. I used the demo for a week and had already produced animation tests and was totally hooked. When I started using the AI import more and more it wasn't perfect but it worked in general. I learned to change the drawings in AI a bit to work better when imported.
Eventually I realized it was not worth the effort to use it at all. I discovered that even IF the import had been PERFECT it wouldn't have worked any way. I had not drawn ANY of the characters with animation in mind. I had drawn them as STILLS. They looked great as ILLUSTRATIONS. Not as animated characters.
You need a set number of points around elbows and knees to get a proper bend. I had drawn characters with a single point on each side of an arm and leg. How would that joint even bend at all?
Using the demo you would have seen that the animation in AS is based precisely on the points of a vector shape. Placement and number. You have to consider where points are placed so the object will bend properly. You would also discover like I did that you don't need a bazillion points to make a shape.
If you imported into Flash it would have been a PERFECT import... but in order to animate you have to EDIT and change what you have. Rest assured the amount of effort to animate the same characters as well in Flash is ten times what is required in AS.
So... yet another thread about "importing AI format". I waited to see the reaction. Now the question is, are you going to let this one single feature hold you back? Or are you going to see what else AS has that makes it so good?
It's one feature. One. There are so many other good things about it INCLUDING the drawing aspect that is so much better. I actually use AS for printed illustration work now because I am so comfortable with the tools. I too was an "AI Expert"... hardly touch it much now. The AI import will not get any better even in an upgrade. It would be too "different". It would require a totally new type of vector layer to maintain backwards compatibility.
Give it a shot. Don't let this one feature keep you from all the others... and maybe learning you don't really need that feature anyway. Or you can throw in the towel in frustration. The choice is yours.
p.s. Thanks Mkelly. Glad some of my tirades don't go to waste.
-vern
AS is fantastic. It has features up the wazoo. It has great character animation tools, bones, scripting endless possibilities. ONE feature doesn't work EXACTLY as you expect and the whole program is no good?
You tried the demo which did not have the main feature, the only feature that was a total deal breaker and you bought it anyway? There must have been another reason you chose it.
I have heard this over and over and over from people who have only used Anime Studio for a VERY short time. I've also heard the complaint about "hiding something" or "covering up" how bad the import feature is many times.... how exactly could that AI import feature be explained better? What would it say next to that feature? If used properly it works perfectly fine in my opinion.
When I got Moho originally I too bought it MAINLY FOR THE AI IMPORT. Yup. That was the main selling point when I tried the demo out. I used the demo for a week and had already produced animation tests and was totally hooked. When I started using the AI import more and more it wasn't perfect but it worked in general. I learned to change the drawings in AI a bit to work better when imported.
Eventually I realized it was not worth the effort to use it at all. I discovered that even IF the import had been PERFECT it wouldn't have worked any way. I had not drawn ANY of the characters with animation in mind. I had drawn them as STILLS. They looked great as ILLUSTRATIONS. Not as animated characters.
You need a set number of points around elbows and knees to get a proper bend. I had drawn characters with a single point on each side of an arm and leg. How would that joint even bend at all?
Using the demo you would have seen that the animation in AS is based precisely on the points of a vector shape. Placement and number. You have to consider where points are placed so the object will bend properly. You would also discover like I did that you don't need a bazillion points to make a shape.
If you imported into Flash it would have been a PERFECT import... but in order to animate you have to EDIT and change what you have. Rest assured the amount of effort to animate the same characters as well in Flash is ten times what is required in AS.
So... yet another thread about "importing AI format". I waited to see the reaction. Now the question is, are you going to let this one single feature hold you back? Or are you going to see what else AS has that makes it so good?
It's one feature. One. There are so many other good things about it INCLUDING the drawing aspect that is so much better. I actually use AS for printed illustration work now because I am so comfortable with the tools. I too was an "AI Expert"... hardly touch it much now. The AI import will not get any better even in an upgrade. It would be too "different". It would require a totally new type of vector layer to maintain backwards compatibility.
Give it a shot. Don't let this one feature keep you from all the others... and maybe learning you don't really need that feature anyway. Or you can throw in the towel in frustration. The choice is yours.
p.s. Thanks Mkelly. Glad some of my tirades don't go to waste.
-vern
Last edited by heyvern on Sun Nov 16, 2008 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
synthsin75
- Posts: 10370
- Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:20 pm
- Location: Oklahoma
- Contact:
Well I tried to restrain myself from ranting. Thanks Vern and Mike for saying what I would have otherwise. The first paid gig I did with AS involved a lot of import of Illustrator files into AS, and I hated it. Not because of AS. But because the characters had been designed in Illustrator and Flash, with no thought about how to animate in AS. And after importing them I ended up with objects made up not from a line and a fill, but from two separate shapes, one was the outline, the other was the fill, and when I tried to move them, the whole thing broke.
(And I'm still not fully paid for that job.)
(And I'm still not fully paid for that job.)
Yep, I think that's what both Vern and I were trying to say (but you said it better :>).
In some sense it's like the difference between using bitmap and vector files -- pretty obviously bitmapped images aren't designed for animation and lose a lot of ability to be manipulated except as cutouts. AI vector files aren't designed for animation and trying to use them in this manner just isn't worth it.
I do feel the original poster's pain -- as I said, been there, have the t-shirt. It was a real drag to have to redraw all my AI stuff in AS, but by the time I was done I was an expert in AS drawing (well, as much as I'll ever be at any drawing, which is not my talent <bg>). And after that it was MUCH easier to create stuff in AS then it had ever been in AI.
He needs to bite the bullet -- after that he'll be a convert helping folks here.
In some sense it's like the difference between using bitmap and vector files -- pretty obviously bitmapped images aren't designed for animation and lose a lot of ability to be manipulated except as cutouts. AI vector files aren't designed for animation and trying to use them in this manner just isn't worth it.
I do feel the original poster's pain -- as I said, been there, have the t-shirt. It was a real drag to have to redraw all my AI stuff in AS, but by the time I was done I was an expert in AS drawing (well, as much as I'll ever be at any drawing, which is not my talent <bg>). And after that it was MUCH easier to create stuff in AS then it had ever been in AI.
He needs to bite the bullet -- after that he'll be a convert helping folks here.