Thank you for the response. I am familiar with this article, and have tried to work with the instructions it presents.
The issue is that, when I used the method described here with the EPS file type, including copying the format precepts and export information, as well as the script to 'explode' shape layers, the path lines that I drew out in Affinity Designer still came out as shapes.
Here is a link demonstrating just an example of what I'm trying to do in After Effects. Link
The same school of motion group presented a different article here wherein the first tip implies that there is a method by which the user can preserve paths when sending files to AE. It is unclear, as mentioned before, where i am going wrong in this process.
I will edit this post to add examples of what I'm dealing with.
Edit:
The EPS file in Affinity Designer, with the path highlighted to show that it is in fact a line.
The same file highlighted in AE, showing how it no longer has the path information, and is now fully a shape.
Again, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here.