Mach.Art Bridge transfers your shapes, paths, text and color from Illustrator directly into After Effects as native, animatable shape layers. One button. Zero friction. No recreating, no copy-paste, no color drift.
Illustrator and After Effects talking to each other. Design your vectors. Press Send. Your artwork appears in AE — positioned exactly where you placed it, correct colors, fonts and layer structure.
Create your artwork as you normally would — logos, icons, UI screens, typography, illustrations. Mach.Art Bridge works with any Illustrator document.
One button. Bridge reads your Illustrator document and streams all shape data to After Effects. Your artwork arrives as native shape layers, ready to animate.
Paths become AE shape layers. Rectangles become parametric AE rectangles. Compound paths transfer as multi-path shapes. Everything editable from frame one.
Open the panel in After Effects once — the watcher starts automatically. Every time you press Send in Illustrator, AE imports instantly. No manual steps in AE, ever.
After transferring your artwork, the built-in motion tools let you set pivot points, align layers, apply expression behaviors, create infinite scrolls, rotations and loops — directly inside the same Mach.Art Bridge panel.
Set the anchor point of any layer to one of 9 positions — corners, edges or center — without the layer jumping. Works on shapes, text and any layer type.
Center, left, right, top or bottom — align layers to the comp bounds. Calculated from the actual layer bounding box, not just the anchor point.
One-click expression behaviors — Shake, Pulse, Swing, Pendulum, Spin Z, Spin Y (green axis), Spin 3D, Orbit. Amp and Freq controlled by sliders.
Seamless infinite scroll — left, right, up or down. Uses AE's Offset effect for pixel-perfect looping. Speed adjustable, works on any layer.
Continuous rotation on Z, X or Y axis. CW or CCW. Speed slider, start offset. X and Y axes automatically enable 3D on the layer.
Apply loopOut() to selected timeline properties — Cycle, Ping Pong, Offset, Continue. Select the properties in the AE timeline first, then apply.
Press Send to AE in Illustrator. That's it. After Effects receives your artwork instantly and opens the comp. The live watcher in AE starts automatically — you never have to touch the AE panel after the first time.
Open the panel in After Effects once. The watcher starts automatically and listens for new exports. Every time you press Send in Illustrator, AE imports instantly — no manual steps required in AE, ever.
Whatever size your Illustrator artboard is — 1920×1080, 1080×1920, 4096×2160 or anything in between — After Effects creates a comp that matches exactly. Every object lands at the exact XY position it had in Illustrator.
Export the entire document or only the objects you have selected in Illustrator. Iterate on individual elements without resending everything. Two modes: Replace (fresh comp) or Update (add layers).
Stop recreating in AE
what you already built in Illustrator.
That time is gone.
Create your artwork as you normally would — logos, icons, UI screens, typography, illustrations. Mach.Art Bridge works with any Illustrator document, any complexity.
One button. Mach.Art Bridge reads your Illustrator document and streams all shape data directly to After Effects. Your artwork arrives as native shape layers, ready to animate.
Paths become AE shape layers with correct bezier curves. Rectangles become parametric AE rectangles. Compound paths transfer as multi-path shapes. Editable from frame one.
Solid fills and stroke colors arrive with exact RGB values. No color drift, no manual hex copying.
Text from Illustrator arrives in After Effects as a live text layer — not a rasterized shape. Font, size, color and alignment transfer intact. Type directly in AE and animate.
Open the panel in After Effects once — the watcher starts automatically. Every time you press Send in Illustrator, AE imports instantly. No manual steps in AE, ever.
Buy once. Use it until the heat death of the universe, or while all your creative apps support it. Whichever explodes first.
It's not a recurring charge you have to cancel. Pay once, use it forever. Mach.Art Bridge keeps working even if you never update it.
Bug fixes and improvements ship free. If a major new feature comes along that's worth a new version, that'll be a separate purchase — your call.
Download the ZIP. Keep it. Install it on your machines. No license server, no internet check, no account required to use it.
One-time purchase on Gumroad. Download the ZIP instantly after checkout. No account needed beyond Gumroad.
GumroadDouble-click the ZXP file. The Anastasiy Extension Manager installs it automatically. No terminal, no regedit. Full instructions included.
One-timeQuit Illustrator and After Effects completely and restart them. The extension is now installed and ready.
30 secondsWindow → Extensions → Mach.Art Bridge in both apps. Press Send in Illustrator. Your shapes arrive in AE instantly.
DoneMach.Art Bridge handles the full range of Illustrator content — not just simple shapes. Here's exactly what arrives in After Effects and how.
Any path drawn in Illustrator transfers as a native AE shape layer. Bezier handles, smooth curves and sharp corners all translate correctly with full anchor point data.
Rectangles and squares transfer as parametric AE rectangles — not paths — so you can animate width, height and corner radius directly in AE.
Outlined text and complex compound shapes transfer as multi-path shape layers. Every sub-path arrives correctly in a single AE shape layer.
Text frames arrive as live AE text layers — not rasterized shapes. Font family, size, color and paragraph alignment all match your Illustrator original.
Solid fills and stroke colors transfer with exact RGB values. Stroke width transfers too. Note: gradients are approximated as a single averaged solid color.
Every object lands at the exact XY position it had in Illustrator. Your artboard size becomes the AE comp size — automatically, on every send.
The panel lives in Illustrator. It shows you what will be transferred, lets you choose All or Selection, Replace or Update — then gets out of the way. After Effects handles itself.
Works with Illustrator & After Effects 2020 → 2026. Windows & macOS.
There is no native way to bring Illustrator shapes into After Effects as editable shape layers. The standard workaround — importing AI files and converting — loses positioning, colors and text editability. Mach.Art Bridge solves this completely.
Motion designers, animators, UI designers and brand studios who work across Illustrator and After Effects daily. If you've ever recreated an Illustrator design in After Effects by hand, this is for you.
Adobe Illustrator 2020–2026 · After Effects 2020–2026 · Windows 10/11 · macOS · Logos, icons, UI screens, typography, illustrations, infographics, brand assets, motion storyboards.
Illustrator to After Effects · AI to AE plugin · import Illustrator shapes as shape layers · send paths from AI to AE · Illustrator After Effects bridge · CEP extension motion design · transfer vector to motion.
Importing an AI file as a composition and converting to shapes loses your colors, text editability and exact positions. Recreating shapes by hand takes hours. Mach.Art Bridge does it in seconds, correctly.
Jacober Design · mach.art · A studio that builds tools for motion designers because we needed them ourselves. Mach.Art Bridge started as an internal workflow tool and became a product.
Bridge + Motion Tools. One-time purchase. Works with Illustrator & After Effects 2020–2026.