Illustrator/AE question: cleaning up my project...overlapping artwork

N

Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
I have a map of the world that I designed in Illustrator to animate in After Effects, but prior to animating I need to make sure that my borders don't overlap. Is there a sure way to do this? Because I don't think I'm using the right tool in Illustrator. Please click on the graphic "Overlapping Borders" here:

http://gallery.me.com/nn00#100024

So what is the best way to get rid of these overlapping borders? Should I be using "draw behind" or "Shape Builder"? Or is there a better more precise way to do it?
 
What's going on in that picture? It looks to me like you have two overlapping shapes- one with grey bezier and one with green. Why?

If one is a 'stroke' (the fat grey outline) and the other is a 'shape'(the big white expanse) you really don't need to do them separately.

Your 'shape' comes with a built in stroke that will follow the edges perfectly. Open up windows -> Appearances. Select you shape with the black arrow. Then click into the stroke section of appearances, and set it to grey.

Illustrator is not at all intuitive, even if you are good with photoshop. I recommend you follow some basic tutorials before going much further.
 
Hi Renee thank you for replying. I need to make sure my borders don't overlap. I understand that every shape has a built in border but in this case I need to make sure that the shapes don't overlap each other. Actually I followed many illustrator tutorials on lynda.com before posting this. I'm just looking for a precise method. Thanks again
 
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Hi Renee thank you for replying. I need to make sure my borders don't overlap. I understand that every shape has a built in border but in this case I need to make sure that the shapes don't overlap each other. Actually I followed many illustrator tutorials on lynda.com before posting this. I'm just looking for a precise method. Thanks again
 
I see, I guess I didn't understand the first time. My mistake! :]

Can you explain to me the borders? They're the borders between countries?
 
Correct Renee, sorry I should have explained better. The two images to the right of that borders image show my world map wrapped onto a CC SPHERE.

But my problem is that some of the nation states on my map have overlapping borders. This is because I took a modern day map of the world and modified the European borders for a WWII documentary. The problem is only in the Europe area. The image you saw was actually a 1600% closeup of the borders of Romania and Bulgaria overlapping each other. I'm trying to clean up these borders so none of them overlap.
 
I'm definitely not an illustrator wizard, but here is the solution I just baked up in five minutes:

Check out windows-> pathfinder. This allows you to take two or more shapes and combine them in various ways- add, subtract, divide.

The command you probably want is Shape modes:"minus front".

The downside to this command is that it makes your top shape disappear after being subtracted. So half of your shapes would go poof. But the shape that remains would have the right border. I guess you could duplicate those shapes, hide them, and then subtract the duplicate from the other shapes.

The real answer to your problem is to script something, but I'm not familiar enough with AI scripting to help you. Maybe you could make an action!
 
Using the pathfinder tool and duplicating your shapes to create new ones with correct borders is the way to go. I wouldn't rely on finding an automated solution, just do it the manual hard way one at a time.
 
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