Is there a way of importing an animation into Illustrator as a movie clip that is inert in Illustrator (and used as say, a movie clip symbol there) but when the AI file is imported into After Effects, it is animated? Can a clip be created in Adobe Animate for example, and placed in Illustrator as a movie clip symbol that will run in After Effects? Or have I misunderstood the idea of movie clip symbols in Illustrator? We have had the idea of animating these symbols individually (so the sun shines with twinkling rays, raindrops fall etc) but it's not possible to do that in Illustrator - or post-animate it in After Effects as the effect you apply would only work on one symbol or the other (raindrops behave differently to sunrays etc)

These symbols are animated so they appear and disappear according to time of day etc, but otherwise they are static, given their origins in Illustrator. I have a detailed weather graphic set up in Illustrator, and symbol elements on it (clouds, sun, rain, temperature etc) are updated in the AI file on a daily basis then rendered as an ainmated file in After Effects.

Hi, have looked for relevant topics using search terms but don't know if this question has been posted before so here goes:

Motion graphics illustrator