Adobe Illustrator Effects

Use your Adobe Illustrator files to create stunning motion graphics for your next project in After Effects.

• Cool Adobe Illustrator Effects
• Adobe Illustrator Effects Plugins

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Adobesoftware applications work quite well together; you just need to know the ins and out of each program. In this tutorial, we’re going to take a look at how to work with Illustratorfiles in Adobe After Effects. Specifically, we’ll look at how to bring AI layers into AE and prepare them for animation. I’m going to show you how to prepyour file in Illustrator, and I’ll also teach you all of the ways to importyour file in After Effects. Finally, I will go over a few methods of manipulatingthe AI file further once it’s in After Effects.

Let’s get started!

Download 18 adobe illustrator free vectors. Choose from over a million free vectors, clipart graphics, vector art images, design templates, and illustrations created by artists worldwide! Texture Creation with the Help of Raster Effects. Adobe Illustrator provides several dozens of raster effects, which can be used for texture creation. I created two rectangles to demonstrate this method. The lower rectangle with blue fill is used as a background; the upper rectangle with gray fill can be used as a texture. Adobe Illustrator provides designers with an excellent opportunity for creating amazing effects with text. This post features 30 of the best tutorials on the subject. While there are more tutorials available for working with text in Photoshop, I think you’ll see from this selection that there is. Today we talk about how to take files from illustrator to after effects. We cover some of the neuances, pitfalls and exciting new features after effects offers to the illustrator user and abuser.

The Project

I’m working on a motion graphics project that consists of animatinga map of the United States. My client has provided me with a layered EPSvector graphic file of the United States that they want me to use in the animation. They’ve asked me to take this map and create a variety of animations, including an animation for each individual state. Let’s take a look at the file and see how I can work with this file in Adobe After Effects.

Prep the Illustrator File

First, I will save my EPS file as an .ai or Adobe Illustrator file since After Effects provides more support for this file format. To ensure that Illustrator files appear correctly in After Effects, I’ll select Create PDF Compatible File in the Illustrator Optionsdialog box. Another issue I have with this file is the fact that everything is located in one layer. Since AE only displays AI layers, I need to put all of the individual states in their own layer. To do this, I’ll select all of the states in layer 1 and select Release to Layers. Now my AI file is prepped for import.

Import into After Effects

I have several options when bringing an AI file into After Effects. When I importan Illustrator file, I get the import dialogue box, which provides me with two options: Footage and Composition. If I import my file as Footage, I can choose to mergeall of the layers into one, or I can import a specific layer on its own. I can further specify if I want the layers to retain their size or scale up to be the size of the document. If I choose Composition, a new composition will appear in my AE project that will include all of the imported layers from the file.

Create Shapes from Layers

Once I have my Illustrator files in After Effects, I can make further adjustments. To provide myself with more versatility when animating, I can turn all of my Illustrator layers intoshapes. To do this, I’ll select my layers in the comp I imported and go to Layer > Create Shapes From Layers. Using shape layers opens up a number possibilities, including quickly changing the fill and stroke options, adding a gradient, changing the path, adding a wiggle effect, and a handful of other features.

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Looking for more tips and tricks? Check out these resources.

Illustrator includes a variety of effects, which you can apply to an object, group, or layer to change its characteristics.

Cool Adobe Illustrator Effects

Once you apply an effect to an object, the effect appears in the Appearance panel. From the Appearance panel, you can edit the effect, move it, duplicate it, delete it, or save it as part of a graphic style. When you use an effect, you must expand the object before you can access the new points.

The effects in the top half of the Effects menu are vector effects. You can apply these effects only to vector objects or to the fill or stroke of a bitmap object in the Appearance panel. The following effects and effects categories from the top section are exceptions to this rule and can be applied to both vector and bitmap objects: 3D effects, SVG Filters, Warp effects, Transform effects, Drop Shadow, Feather, Inner Glow, and Outer Glow.

The effects in the bottom half of the Effects menu are raster effects. You can apply them to either vector or bitmap objects.

For a video on using the Appearance panel and the Graphics Styles panel, see www.adobe.com/go/lrvid4022_ai .

Selectthe object or group (or target a layer in the Layers panel).

Ifyou want to apply an effect to a specific attribute of an object,such as its fill or stroke, select the object and then select theattribute in the Appearance panel.

• Choose a commandfrom the Effect menu.

• Click Add New Effect inthe Appearance panel, and choose an effect.

If a dialog box appears, set options, and then click OK.

Note:

To apply the effect and settings that were usedlast, choose Effect > Apply [Effect Name]. To applythe last used effect and set its options, choose Effect > [EffectName].

Raster effects are effects that generate pixels, rather than vector data. Raster effects include SVG Filters, all of the effects at the bottom section of the Effect menu, and the Drop Shadow, Inner Glow, Outer Glow, and Feather commands in the Effect > Stylize submenu.

The Resolution Independent Effects (RIE) capability in Illustrator makes it possible to do the following:

• When the resolution in Document Raster Effects Settings (DRES) changes, the parameters in the effect are interpreted to a different value so that there is minimal or no change in the appearance of the effect. The new modified parameter values are reflected in the Effect dialog box.

• For effects with more than one parameter, Illustrator reinterprets only those parameters that are related to the document raster effects resolution setting.

  For example, there are different parameters in the Halftone Pattern dialog box. However, only the Size value changes when the DRES changes.

Youset rasterization options for a document by choosing Effect >Document Raster Effects Settings. (See Rasterizationoptions.)

Note:

If an effect looks good on‑screen, but losesdetail or appears jagged when printed, increase the document rastereffects resolution.

Youcan set the following options for all raster effects in a documentor when you rasterize a vector object.

Determines the color model that is used during rasterization.You can generate an RGB or CMYK color image (depending on the colormode of your document), a grayscale image, or a 1‑bit image (whichmay be black and white or black and transparent, depending on thebackground option selected).

Determines the number of pixels per inch (ppi) in the rasterized image.When rasterizing a vector object, select Use Document Raster Effects Resolutionto use global resolution settings.

Determines how transparent areas of the vector graphic are convertedto pixels. Select White to fill transparent areas with white pixels, or selectTransparent to make the background transparent. If you select Transparent,you create an alpha channel (for all images except 1‑bit images).The alpha channel is retained if the artwork is exported into Photoshop.(This option anti-aliases better than the Create Clipping Mask option.)

Applies anti-aliasing to reduce the appearance of jaggededges in the rasterized image. When setting rasterization optionsfor a document, deselect this option to maintain the crispness offine lines and small text.

When rasterizing a vector object,select None to apply no anti-aliasing and maintain the hard edgesof line art when it is rasterized. Select Art Optimized to applyanti-aliasing that is best suited to artwork without type. SelectType Optimized to apply anti-aliasing that is best suited to type.

Creates a mask that makes the background of the rasterizedimage appear transparent. You do not need to create a clipping mask ifyou selected Transparent for Background.

Adds a padding or border around the rasterized image, usingthe specified number of pixels. The resulting image’s dimensionsappear as the original dimensions plus the Add Around Object setting’svalue. You can use this setting, for example, to create a snapshoteffect: Specify a value for Add Around Object setting, choose WhiteBackground, and do not select Create Clipping Mask. The white boundaryadded to the original object becomes a visible border on the image.You can then apply a Drop Shadow or Outer Glow effect to make theoriginal artwork look like a photo.

Adobe Illustrator Effects Plugins

Effects let you applya special look to bitmap images as well as vector objects. For example,you can apply an impressionistic look, apply lighting changes, distort images,and produce many other interesting visual effects.

Consider the followinginformation when applying effects specifically to bitmap objects:

• Effects do not work on linked bitmap objects. If youapply an effect to a linked bitmap, it is applied to an embeddedcopy of the bitmap instead of to the original. To apply the effectto the original, you must embed the original bitmap in the document.

• Adobe Illustrator supports plug-in effects from Adobe productssuch as Adobe Photoshop and from non‑Adobe software developers.Once installed, most plug-in effects appear in the Effect menu andwork the same way as do built-in effects.

• Some effects can be memory-intensive, especially when appliedto a high-resolution bitmap image.

Some effects are very memory-intensive.The following techniques can help improve performance when applyingthese effects:

• Select the Preview option in effect dialog boxes to savetime and prevent unintended results.

• Change the settings. Some commands, such as Glass, are extremelymemory-intensive. Try different settings to increase their speed.

• If youplan to print to a grayscale printer, convert a copy of the bitmapimage to grayscale before applying effects. Note, however, thatin some cases, applying an effect to a color bitmap image and thenconverting it to grayscale may not have the same result as applyingthe same effect directly to a grayscale version of the image.

You modify or delete an effect by using the Appearancepanel.

Selectthe object or group (or target the layer in the Layers panel) thatuses the effect.

• To modify the effect,click its blue underlined name in the Appearance panel. In the effect’sdialog box, make the desired alterations, and then click OK.

• To delete the effect, select the effect listing in the Appearancepanel, and click the Delete button.

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