so for some reason everytime I import an .ai file from illustrator it loads first file fine then second time I do it, it somehow adds them together really oddly. Its caching it somehow-- there is a work around for it that kinda suck but works:
import .ai file, save exit blender.
open blender, import second file.
ect.
Convert them to EPS files first and import those. ai files (modern ones) are just pdf files with a different extension, so you can just use ghostscript’s pdf2ps script to convert them.
Sounds like you may have left your original import in EDIT mode, then you imported again and they simply became one object. After you import your first AI file, hit the TAB key and make sure you are not in edit mode. Then try another import.
Personally, I have never got an AI file to work in blender, I don’t think it supports CS2, CS3 or CS4 format. At least the formats I work with daily.
I open my AI file in Illustrator and then File SaveAs to SVG. Then I import via SVg into blender. This is a workable pipeline, but some editing is required after import to restore the AI import to it’s original design.
The import script is only for the old-school ai format. The one’s created by CS2,3, and 4 are just pdf files. (If you change the extension from ai to pdf, any standard pdf viewer should open them)
Since pdf is a standard documented format, it’s pretty easy to convert them to other standard formats like eps or svg.
Also, Adobe Illustrator’s support for SVG is kinda sketchy. I’ve had much better results processing it with ghostscript. (i.e. I usually get exactly what I had in Illustrator without having to correct anything)
I think that import script needs to be modified to support importing vector data directly from pdf.