best way to import illustrator files into motion

As native .ai or .pdf. You can scale them to any size without loss of quality by turning off the Fixed Resolution checkbox for the media.

Hey Mark, this does work however is there a way (like After Effects) to import an .ai file as a composition with all its layers as editable layers in Motion 5?

Afraid not, you'll have to export each layer separately.

Ok thanks Mark. That's just too bad. Apple has to add this feature, especially if they ever expect to convert AE users, though I doubt that's their goal.

I believe I saw a script on creative cow that will batch export layers from a .ai file for use in Motion. Can't find the link at the moment, but may be worth a search.

The product was called LayerLink from Ampede and has been dead for years, unfortunately.

Here is the link to batch export illustrator layers to png

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&loc=en_us& extid=1045896#

Sam

I want to realize aproject similar this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4nOxvCqpPY&feature=endscreen,

can anyone suggest me some good tutorial about a similar project done with motion?

Exporting as PDFs and importing into Motion is great. However, if your illustration is a grouping of paths intended for animation (e.g. a face with lips and eyes that you'd like to animate independently) then the PDF method can become fairly tedious.

Unfortunately Motion doesn't support Adobe Illustrator's compound path type. Coming from Adobe AfterEffects I was fairly disappointed in this since much of what I did in AfterEffects required animation of my compound path vector art. However, compound paths can be simulated using masks in Motion fairly easily and although this method has limitations it works very well.

Using Adobe's API I've written a free plugin for Illustrator called "Motionize" which allows an Illustrator user to select a shape in their Illustrator file and export it to a single Motion shape file. It supports simple shapes, lines, groups and compound paths as well. There is a sample file included to get you started and I would appreciate any feedback via my site as to how it can be improved.

It currently supports only one selected item at a time and does not support gradients though I am working on these issues. I hope it helps! I use this too so it's something under constant development.

Hi Frumpy, your Motionize plugin is fantastic!!! Being able to import an illustrator file and turn all the shapes into native shapes that can be edited and animated is what I miss most from using After Effects and seeing how common that question is in these forums I think your plugin is going to be very popular. Thank you so much you rock!

-Baldur

is it a script? how do I use it. there any description?

Found this thread while searching best way to import from illustrator into motion (working in latest editions of both). My work around was just exporting the Illustrator project to Photoshop and importing that into motion. Motion will take Photoshop layers, important them all separately, and in the position and scale they were saved in. When it prompts you after importing just make sure to select separate layers instead of merged.