In this tutorial, we will continue to work on our layered Illustrator and Photoshop files that we will use in our video bumper. Our goal is to simplify the layers in an Illustrator^R file before we export it as a Photoshop^R file for use in Motion 5^R.

At this point, we have all the layers that make up the pumpkin pie object combined into one group under the pumpkin pie layer. Let's name this layer pie

As the vectors contained in the old pan layer have been moved into the pumpkin pie group layer, we can delete the empty pan layer group. Now we will work on the whipped cream groups. Remember that we will be animating each dot of whipped cream on to the pie one at a time. At this point all 129 vectors paths for all the cream dots are listed under the cream dots layer.

Each of the whipped cream dots are made up of three layers. We have 43 small dots and one large dot in the center. Because we will be adding each dot to the animation one at a time, we will need to group the three layers for each dot individually.

Note: Of course, we could make our animation more simple by grouping all the whipped cream layers into one group and animating all the whipped cream dots together.

1. Select the first three layers which make up one whipped cream dot
2. Click Object - Group
3. Rename this group to dot

Repeat this for each cream dot and for the large dot in the center. You will find the large dot in the cream layer.

Now that we have all the layers we need to animate, we can export the results as a layered .psd file.

1. Click File - Export and choose the Photoshop .psd format.
2. For the Photoshop Export Options, choose Write Layers and Maximum Edibility.

When we open the Photoshop file, we will have our groups maintained. We only need to make one change. As you can see, we have the whipped cream dot and cream layers in groups just as we need them for our animation. However, we still need to combine the layers in the pie group.

Right-click on the pie group layer and choose Merge Group. We should now have one group layer under the pumpkin pie layer.

We now have our Photoshop file as simplified as possible, we can save it again and import in to Motion.

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Sample Project