Separate each letter of a text to its own layer

Question

I feel like there is a simple solution but I can't find it basically what the title says. I select the text and select release to layers (sequence) and nothing happens or just creates a new layer inside it and moves the whole text in there. I can't ungroup them its greyed out as well.

Reason: want to separate it so I can then import it to After Affects and animate the logo/text. If that's possible, lastly is there a way I can separate the text with a Arc Lower Warp applied keep the same effect.

Answer 1

A line of text is seen as one object in Illustrator.

If you want each character as a separate object, you need to create separate text objects for each character.

Type > Create Outlines will convert the text object to vector shapes, then each shape can be manipulated.

Object > Expand will convert text in an envelope to vector shapes, which can then be manipulated individually.

Answer 2

Now to do this with a lower Arc effect all we need to do is create outline and expand appearance instead of just expand then ungroup and release sequence to layers. For anyone wondering how to do it with the effect.