Designer/After Effects workflow

[retrograde]

Hi all, is anyone using After Effects with Designer... and if so how's the workflow or are you having any issues getting files into AE? A friend of mine is excited about trying Designer but needs to be able to work with his assets in AE. Currently he's copying and pasting from Illustrator into AE. I would try it myself but I don't have AE.

 

If anyone out there has any experience with this that they'd like to share, please let me know?

 

Cheers guys and/or gals.  ;)

[Quarian]

I'm actually using HitFilm and Motion, but I've been creating vector graphics in AD (or--when on the PC, DrawPlus or FreeHand) for easier editability and exporting them to PNGs in order to maintain the alpha channels. Then import the PNGs into the Motion Graphics editor of choice.

 

If I need more definition--in after effects you can do "continuous rasterization"--then the graphics are either created or exported at a much larger size. Say, 200% or 300% or larger.

 

You might be able to export graphics from AD as PDF as the data in AI files after version 8.0 is closely aligned with the PDF file format and import the resulting PDF into AE, but given that I'm currently trying to stay away from everything Adobe as much as possible (and I'd only be able to test on AE7 and CS3), I might not be the best test subject for that theory.

 

Hope this helps.

[retrograde]

Thanks Quarian, that's great info. I'm a bit lost when it comes to AE or motion graphics unfortunately... I understand asking people in this forum about AE might not get me many replies so cheers for yours.  :)

[ronniemcbride]

I'm actually using HitFilm and Motion, but I've been creating vector graphics in AD (or--when on the PC, DrawPlus or FreeHand) for easier editability and exporting them to PNGs in order to maintain the alpha channels. Then import the PNGs into the Motion Graphics editor of choice.

 

 

 

 

How do you like Hitfilm? Are you using Hitfilm 3? I am considering getting it but I can't find much in the areas of a decent non-promotional review. I use motion and was looking for an layer based compositing tool like Hitfilms as an alternative to after effects. The editing tools seem decent enough for my needs too. I am so over Adobe.......

[ronnyb]

Adobe is the next BlackBerry... guess who's the next humble iPhone? 

[Quarian]

@ronniemcbride I am using Hitfilm 3 currently. It was a bit buggy, but FXHome came out wih their second update and it straightened a whole lot of things out.

 

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that since their original release--with which there were problems running HitFilm 3 on Macs (you can go to HitFilm's forum for more on this)--I'd taken to running HitFilm 3 on my PC and running HitFilm 2 Ultimate on my Macs. Having said that, I haven't tried running Update #2 on the Mac, but--judging from the forum feedback--it appears to be encouraging.

 

Having said ALL that, HitFilm in and of itself is a joy to work with. I don't find the interface as intimidating as After Effects and I would say that the only sacrifice is that HitFilm doesn't have expressions (mathematical programmability). The particle system is great; so is the ability to load 3D models...as long as you understand the limitations.

[ronniemcbride]

Thank You Quarian for all of that insight! I definitely give the demo a try on my mac. Maybe one day expressions of some sort might appear in it but for now it looks like it has most of everything I would want so this might be my best bet. 

 

Thanks again!

[bercik]

I want to know about it also, I work on animated characters in AE and I want to ask how to import my charakters from Designer to AE? Because when I use SVG format After Effects couldn't read layers and so I can't manipulate they legs, hands, heads, face impressions. Only AI files are working correctly.

 

Edit: I've found out that its because when I save file from Designer to SVG format all layers in my character are changed to groups merged into one single layer and thats why After Effects couldn't reed them correctly, Is there some way to save SVG file with multiple layers not changed to groups with one layer?

[MEB]

Hi bercik,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

No, currently it's not possible but we are continuously improving our file import/export code.

I suggest you post this in the Features Request section since it may become lost here.

[Quarian]

bercik, you may have to export each layer of your artwork out of AD as it's own svg. That's an old school workaround from back in the day when you couldn't import layered files into AfterEffects. It's a bit of a pain, but it is effective. Hope this helps.

[smallreflection]

Resurrecting an old post—has anyone used After Effects and Apple Motion enough to compare how sufficient Motion is for UI animation?

[ronniemcbride]

Resurrecting an old post—has anyone used After Effects and Apple Motion enough to compare how sufficient Motion is for UI animation?

 

You could use motion to animate screens. but maybe you should consider a tool that was meant for that purpose and gives you the ability to also have some interactivity  which would get you closer to the feel of the real thing. Maybe something like http://principleformac.com/

I sure there a pc equivalent out there too I just dont know offthe top of my head. 

[My Strawberry Monkey]

Motion certainly is a very powerful app and underrated in my opinion, most things that are created in AE can be created in Motion and certainly is my tool of choice. What exactly are you looking to create?

 

 

Allan

[Cineman]

Motion certainly is a very powerful app and underrated in my opinion, most things that are created in AE can be created in Motion and certainly is my tool of choice. What exactly are you looking to create?

 

 

Allan

 

While ultimately the artist is the biggest factor and I begrudge no one their favorite tools, Motion is in no way, shape or form comparable to After Effects in terms of the scope of effects and animations it can create, the ecosystem of plugins available, or overall power. That said AE is going through some growing pains right now as the various display engines and other technologies are re-written over a multi-cycle period (getting close to the end though — all that's missing is multi-threading now).

 

The reason I came to this forum is that I find Illustator to be mostly an inscrutable mess of an application. It's very powerful but slow in places and differicult to learn. Also their system of layers and lack of history management sucks. That being said, the ability to import native, layered AI files and artboards into AE and then be able to quickly animate individual elements in a composition, is really important to motion designers. AFAICT there is no current workflow within Affinity Designer that would allow this, and as their people have noted the AI export thing isn't going to happen because Adobe closely controls that file format.

 

Exporting to SVG or other "multiple files per composition" workarounds would be a giant PITA / time suck for most designers. EPS is also not a valid workaround as it lacks transparency support, color blend support and other stuff that is supported by the modern AI format. It's been long ago abandoned by many artists for a reason. The other solution (After Effects accepting .af files) is no more likely than AI export because frankly Adobe doesn't want to provide a solution for a competing product. 

 

Sucks because Affinity Designer is a much more intuitive looking program than AI and nearly as powerful in many areas. For what I do it would be perfect but unfortunately no solution in sight. If your primary workflow involves After Effects, I would not recommend Affinity Designer unless Adobe miraculously agrees to support the native format.

[Cineman]

I should add that Hitfilm is not a replacement for After Effects either based on what I've read. It appears to be (more or less) a hybrid between a Final Cut Pro X type editor and Motion, with a few extras like Mocha tracking. A jack of all trades but master of none. With those apps, much of the ability to customize effects and other aspects has been swapped for a cleaner UI and ease of use.

 

If you're newer to video and trying to crank out nice looking productions periodically, FCP X + Motion or HitFilm are probably more than enough. If you're trying to build effects from scratch into a video stream, to maximize realism and render quality, probably not the way to go. Premiere Pro and After Effects would be a better choice for 2D / 2.5D work.

 

That said if you're chiefly an illustrator / graphic designer and use AD, and only occasionally do video work, AND one of those other two solutions supports native .af files, then I wouldn't think twice about skipping After Effects.