Need Illustrator to Animator Tutorial - The Vector Basics.

For over a year now I have had some challenges getting from Illustrator to Pro Animator. Is there anybody in this forum that can point to... or create... an "Illustrator to Animator for Dummies Guide"? Pro Animator is amazing...but I have always been a novice at Illustrator...and the integration is just so critical.

I usually try to trace logos in Illustrator using smart auto trace. I am not totally versed in Illustrator and much as I am in video programs... so I get trapped by making compound paths, moving vector points, how to smartly modify points using the pen tool, repairing parts of a logo that are distorted in Animator, how to clean up or separate complex logo shapes, when and how to use outlines, how to break logos into several parts, how to have holes work out properly, when to fill and not fill, how layers translate, tricks on importing to Animator, and having AI logos stack and move predictably in Animator 3D space.

I must say that the dissatisfaction in using animator is not animator...its just that everyone else seems to know illustrator well... and they assume that most of us video folks are vector geeks too. The "send me your files" approach to helping here...doesnt train the whole community in what skills they can have and know themselves to be better.

Would someone here , or at the factory, be willing to help out and produce a fairly comprehensive "Illustrator to Animator for Dummies" set of guidelines/techniques in "plain video geek english" ...so we can get on with amazing our directors with Zaxwerks products?

To make animator use itself most successful...it would need to start out basic...and get us trained in all the important pitfalls, tricks, compound, outline, hard angle, correcting segments, export,import kind of ideas. "The Basics" of being good in illustrator...so I can be good in Animator!!

Can anyone help at this stage of the game.

I have already received the excellent Animator to After Effects DVD...and that only begins to approach the basics I am asking for here. Help!

Thanks,

Suzzie