Vector workflow salvation
Battle Axe Overlord lets you transfer Illustrator elements directly into After Effects without importing files. Text and gradients supported for the first time ever.
Battle Axe Overlord
An invisible connection system; a mystical portal between Illustrator and After Effects.
Transfer shapes as you need them without importing, converting, or redrawing. The vector workflow you imagined between apps created by the same company.
Work with shapes, not files.
Engage with the Overlord
It is now possible to move layers back and forth between After Effects with the flexibility you always dreamed of.
Believe the unimaginable. Awaken the wonder of your soul. Leave work on time for once.
Battle Axe Overlord Features
Shapes from Ai
Organize layers or don’t, vector shapes are now animatable with a single click.
Shapes from Ae Use Illustrator vector tools to edit Ae shape layers with more power than endless twirling.
Shapes from Ae
Use Illustrator vector tools to edit Ae shape layers with more power than endless twirling.
Ai Gradients Unavailable in the standard Ai import, Linear and Radial gradients are possible for the first time.
Ai Gradients
Unavailable in the standard Ai import, Linear and Radial gradients are possible for the first time.
Editable text
Never have to retype a single word again. Unavailable in the standard Ai import.
Ray Dynamic Color Transfer swatches as guide layers to color-pick or as Ray Dynamic Color palettes.
Ray Dynamic Color
Transfer swatches as guide layers to color-pick or as Ray Dynamic Color palettes.
Split layers
Split shapes into separate layers during transfer and preserve the object/group naming you spent so much time on.
Ellipse/Rectangle
Automatically detect parametric rectangles and ellipses for added flexibility.
Anchor points Center anchors to the object center by adjusting the internal transform or adding a layer to the comp center during transfer.
Anchor points
Center anchors to the object center by adjusting the internal transform or adding a layer to the comp center during transfer.
Import Guides
Transfer baselines and proportion grids with a click. Clearly, unavailable to the standard Ai import.
Learning
Use Overlord without ever reading a manual. But if understanding how stuff works are your thing, then dive deep into the hidden mysteries.
Description
System Requirements
After Effects and Illustrator CC2014+
Change Log
1.26
Released: 2023-02-15
Added
Disable app switch
button to prevent opening multiple versions of Ae
Fixed
- Update license authentication system for better stability
1.25
Released: 2022-12-26
Changed
- Migrate off Gumroad license authentication (hotfix required for any keys purchased from gumroad.com)
1.24
Released: 2022-05-23
Fixed
- Extending the 1.23 macOS fix to Windows
1.23
Released: 2022-05-20
Fixed
- (macOS 12) Sending shapes from Ae to Ai
- Switch button
- Opening multiple versions of Ae
1.22
Released: 2019-07-23
Changed
- More intelligent handling of nested groups with center anchor point enabled
- Support for clipping masks with center anchor point enabled
1.21
Released: 2019-07-16
Fixed
- Removed debug code that introduced errors on line 1920 and 1178 on text layers with center anchor point enabled
- Bug that tried to download updates like the updatable version
1.2
Released: 2019-07-14
Added
- Both panels open is no longer required. Just open the one you like using. Thanks to Remco Jansen for the help on this.
- Native Ae guides support for CC2019+
- Support for All Caps text options by transforming text
- Support for Ai symbols with Break Symbols button
- Text layer blending modes
- Deauthorize button for removing license key from a shared machine
- Holding SHIFT when pressing the New Artboard/Comp, does the inverse –new Ai comp button (orange) becomes a new comp button (purple). Thanks to Lars Jandel for the idea.
Fixed
- Zeroing anchor points from v1.11 failed to fully move paths
- Center layer did not work on text layers
- Text not aligning when comp and artboard were different sizes
- Error when holding shift while a lower level property group is selected
- Text layer opacity
- Text layer rotation
- Holding shift when transferring text with a shape selected
- Prevent error when dropping file into panel
Changed
- Reintroduced an old behavior with a preference when updating shapes to respect comp position or local layer position
- Moved parametric shape positions to the group transform rather than the shape itself
Removed
- Updatable version has been removed for added stability
1.12
Released: 2018-03-20
Fixed
- Accidentally left some debugging code in v1.11 release
- Error on line 1745
- Error on line 1331
- Error on line 1822
1.11
Released: 2018-03-20
Changed
- Zeroing out the anchor point on paths and parametrics when Center Anchor Point is enabled
- Removed redundant fill opacity and replaced it with group opacity to reduce stroke transparency as well
Fixed
- Error on line 1247 – clipping masks on compound shapes
- Error on line 1247 – clipping masks on groups. Single clipping groups on a layer become layer masks to simplify layers.
- Text along a path isn’t supported but now the won’t make transfers fail
- Better detection of group blending modes
- Better detection nested group opacity
1.10
Released: 2018-02-27
Added
- Support for Ai gradient fills and strokes (yayayayaya)
- Update fill and stroke colors from Ai
- Support for clipping masks
- Factored in Ae layer Position/Anchor Point transforms when transferring to Ai
Changed
- Hidden Ai objects within a group will not be transferred to Ae
Fixed
- Text alignment
- Text leading (supported in Ae CC2017.2)
- Empty text layers broke the whole transfer
- Text not transferring from Ai CC2014
- Further corrected the addition of type name line breaks
- Smarter layer adding when Ae layers selected
- Moved parametric shape positioning into the parametric group itself to simplify keyframing and make converting to bezier much cleaner
Thanks: This update would not have been possible without the generous testing time of Kyle Martinez, Jeff Salvado, Drew Jackson, Nicolas Doretti, and Wojciech Piekarczyk.
1.03
Released: 2017-11-16
Added
- Support for Ai Spot Color tints
- Preference to use New Artboard button to create a new Ae comp from an artboard’s dimensions
Changed
- Created two install versions: Updatable and Stable. Updatable will allow the panel to be updated by opening Settings and downloading directly without needing to download, install or restart Ae/Ai. For users experiencing issues with the panel not displaying buttons immediately, the Stable version provides a less dynamic system of loading the required files. With Stable, Overlord updates will need to be downloaded manually from gumroad.com/library.
- Optimized Settings panel
Fixed
- Accidentally added line breaks to text layer naming which broke expressions that used a layer name
- Unnamed shapes were naming their shape groups “null”
1.02
Released: 2017-10-24
Added
- Preference in settings to disable app switching when pushing shapes to Ae. Some Windows users report Ae resizing when switching which is terribly annoying.
Fixed
- Layer blending modes (Color Burn, Color Dodge, Soft Light, Hard Light, Saturation, Color) failed to transfer
- Compound paths failed when explode modifier enabled
- Empty layer name when Ai=Ae when sending a single, unnamed layer. Now it defaults to an incremented layer name.
- Panel failed to resize on some systems (requires zxp install)
- Core CEP now overwrites existing bundle files
- Removed error when transferring Ai pattern fill/stroke
1.01
Released: 2017-10-18
Fixed
A glitch with the licensing unlock
1.0
Released: 2017-10-18 Public release
FAQs
Tutorials
How to Turn Illustrator Designs into Motion Masterpieces
In this tutorial, freelance artist Emonee LaRussa is going to show you how to take vector artwork created in Illustrator and add a little motion! For easy one click import of shape layers, she uses Battle Axe Overlord. You can follow along using the free project files and assets.
More...