The Distributor is a free custom effect that randomly places selected layers throughout 3D space. With its vast number of settings you can control not only the range of the distribution, but also rotation, opacity and much more. Overall the Distributor will help save time while overcoming limitations of various plugins.
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )IANH - BR November 25th
Awesome, nice logo effects.
really nice!
( )Elmer November 25th
Just, wow!
( )ronaldo November 25th
love it!!
( )Billy November 25th
Rob….great custom effect! I have been using Lloyd Alvarez’s 3d layer distributor script. It works great, but I love the random seed addition in your CE. I like how you described why your preset works better than using the other methods people might try when setting out to accomplish this task!
( )Topher Welsh November 25th
God Billy you are so ungrateful! I hate you…
jk Billy… hahaha who do I sound like?
But no, really… awesome Custom Effect dude, Billy is right, awesome job with the tut along with creating this… IMMENSELY helpful!
( )Lyndon November 25th
lol, ahh thats great guys. brought a tear to my eye it was so funny. lol
Lloyd November 26th
Just to add something to the conversation, the main difference between doing this with a script vs expressions (this preset does it via expressions) is that the expressions are evaluated for every layer at every frame so this can slow things down as the comp grows. The benefit, however, is that it is dynamic so it is easier to modify. The script on the other hand is only evaluated once for all the layers and all the frames so it will be much faster to work with in the comp but modifying things involves running the script again.
( )Daniel November 25th
this is really, really helpful. thank you very much!
( )Murat Ozgul November 25th
PresetEffects.xml directory for Mac;
Go to After Effect folders in the Application and pick up the AE program icons and right click choose “Show Package Contents” and there you will see “Contents” folder double click it and you must see “Resources” folder. PresetEffects.xml in this folder. Enjoy it.
( )MCYS November 25th
VERY NICE !
I LOVE IT !
Thanks from France
( )felix November 25th
good and handy tut bruh….much respect!
( )jordy November 25th
Pretty cool. Andrew Kramer showed how to do some of this with the wiggle effect. I quickly looked at what I could pull off this way and got close. I was able to get random distribution for rotation and placement for my layers. Animateable of course. I could even get the nice camera movement like yours. But I like the convenience of your plugin and the specific control over x, y, and z coordinates individually. Having this roll in from behind the camera is a nice touch too. So, thanks. Overall, job well done.
( )Orlando November 25th
wow this is amazing
( )thank you for sharing
Have a quick question
The preset works on mac?
Rob November 26th
I haven’t tried it on a mac, but it should work fine. has anyone else tried it on mac?
( )Ivanex November 25th
Buen FX muy buen look
( )gracias por el aporte
un saludo….
Thanks….
Robert November 26th
Nice tut, thanks for Distributor.
But the interesting part is: how do you separate or split the tutsplus Logo in 400 selected layers….!??
( )Lloyd November 26th
You can use this script: http://aescripts.com/rd-slicer/
( )martin November 26th
Great! Thanks.
( )Willem November 26th
Really nice !
But how does this work on a mac? Or does this even work on a mac?
( )Thanks!
Rob November 26th
if the problem is with getting to the preseteffects file in a mac here is what you do:
1. right click on the after effects icon
2. click on “show package contents”
3. go to the resources folder
hopefully that helps the mac users.
ps: thanks for everyone’s positive feedback!
( )Flashy November 26th
Talking about Mac, does BlipTv suck only on Safari or does it suck in every browser and OS?
( )danu November 26th
Good job Rob !! Really great !
( )zuwairiaiman November 26th
i like it very much thanks for sharing
( )Todd Kopriva November 28th
Thanks, Rob. Not only is the Distributor very handy—you also did a much better job than most at walking people past the hurdle of installing custom effects. (I know it’s a low hurdle, but it trips a lot of people up.)
I added a comment at the bottom of this page to point to the Distributor tutorial:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7e3ea.html
I encourage you to add comments to the relevant pages of After Effects Help yourself when you create things like this.
Keep up the great work.
( )MovingPixTV December 1st
Very useful – many thanks!
( )Nate December 1st
tried it mac and it works beautifully! Thanks so much. Wish I would have had this about 2 months ago on a job I was doing for a college but oh well. Thanks again and great work!!
( )Rob December 2nd
glad to hear its working on mac.
Once again, glad its helping out and thanks everyone for all the feedback!
( )Madhura December 2nd
Hi! When I tried putting the Dist-layer effect onto the first solid layer, this is the error I got – is it something I’ve done wrong? How can I make it work?
After Effects warning: Bad argument: index 2 out of range for stream of dimension 2
Expression disabled.
Error occurred at line 9.
Comp: ‘Camera’
Layer: 2(‘White solid 9′)
Property: ‘Position’
Thanks!
( )Rob December 2nd
make sure to make the layer 3D before adding the preset. if that doesn’t solve the problem let me know.
( )juan torrealba December 2nd
awesome!!!!, keep doing mate
thanks
( )Madhura December 3rd
Ouch! That was sooo silly of me! It works perfectly now! Thanks so much!
( )Zed December 4th
I did llike to improve my skills on follwing your instructions but my computer doesn’t make me paste the xml file into the extend toolkit window of Preset effect file. It appears an I/O error message. I also ran it as admin.
( )My sysitem it’s 32-bit. What can be done to solve this problem ?
Zed December 5th
Yes, I did solve by myself….
( )I’ve enjoyed this powerful tutorial. It’s amazing how simple it’s to tame a chaotic ramdomness to a final order. Thank you for this beautiful trick.
aaron December 7th
Wait, am I the only one who can’t find the ZIP to download?
( )aaron December 7th
Ha, nevermind. Got it.
( )Terminator January 18th
Not too Good
( )