Transparency Lost in After Effects When Importing v30 AI Files
Transparency Information Lost When Importing Illustrator v30 AI Files into After Effects 2026
Environment:
- Hardware: MacBook Pro 16-inch (November 2023), Apple M3 Pro, 36GB RAM
- OS: macOS Sequoia 15.7.4
- Illustrator version with issue: v30.2.1 (2026)
- Illustrator version without issue: v28.7.10 (2024)
- After Effects version: 2026
When an .ai file saved in Illustrator 2026 (v30) is imported as footage into After Effects 2026, transparency information — including blend modes, opacity settings, and effects such as drop shadows — is lost or ignored. Affected layers render as fully opaque.
Re-saving the identical artwork in Illustrator 2024 (v28.7.10) and importing that file into the same After Effects project resolves the issue completely.
This suggests that a change in the .ai file format or internal data structure introduced in v30 is no longer being parsed correctly by After Effects' AI importer.
Saving from v28.7.10 is a confirmed workaround, but this should not be necessary.
Is there a known fix? Is this a confirmed bug?
Thank you for the continued development of Adobe Illustrator. I am a professional graphic designer working in prepress and print production, and I greatly appreciate the dedication your team puts into this product. I would like to report what appears to be a compatibility regression introduced in Illustrator v30.
— Reported by I'm John
Creating ZAG.
shared this idea
Hi,
Thank you for reporting this issue. Could you please try reproducing the workflow on the latest version of Illustrator (v30.3) and let us know if the issue still persists?
Thanks,
Illustrator Team
-
monokano
commented
This is likely a background save bug.
See also:
What Does “Create PDF Compatible File” Mean in Adobe Illustrator?
https://note.com/monokano/n/n9df9cfc584f4