Final Product What You'll Be Creating
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.
Tutorial
Download Tutorial .flv
File size 113MB
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By Rob Schofield
I am a freelance videographer and motion graphics artist out of Western New York. I spend a good amount of my time on corporate videos, advertisements and private events.
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Awesome, nice logo effects.
really nice!
Just, wow!
love it!!
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!
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!
lol, ahh thats great guys. brought a tear to my eye it was so funny. lol
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.
this is really, really helpful. thank you very much!
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.
VERY NICE !
I LOVE IT ! :)
Thanks from France :)
good and handy tut bruh….much respect!
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.
wow this is amazing
thank you for sharing
Have a quick question
The preset works on mac?
I haven’t tried it on a mac, but it should work fine. has anyone else tried it on mac?
Buen FX muy buen look
gracias por el aporte
un saludo….
Thanks….
Nice tut, thanks for Distributor.
But the interesting part is: how do you separate or split the tutsplus Logo in 400 selected layers….!??
You can use this script: http://aescripts.com/rd-slicer/
Great! Thanks.
Really nice !
But how does this work on a mac? Or does this even work on a mac?
Thanks!
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!
How works this exp, in which layer put the dist null and the layer?
Talking about Mac, does BlipTv suck only on Safari or does it suck in every browser and OS?
Good job Rob !! Really great !
i like it very much thanks for sharing
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.
Very useful – many thanks!
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!!
glad to hear its working on mac.
Once again, glad its helping out and thanks everyone for all the feedback!
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!
make sure to make the layer 3D before adding the preset. if that doesn’t solve the problem let me know.
awesome!!!!, keep doing mate
thanks
Ouch! That was sooo silly of me! It works perfectly now! Thanks so much! :)
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 ?
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.
Wait, am I the only one who can’t find the ZIP to download?
Ha, nevermind. Got it.
Not too Good
This made my day today. Thanks!
Awesome Presentation and preset.
Really liked how you explained the shortcomings of the other ways of doing similar things.
Hi do use have an updated distributor for after effects CS5 64-bit?
I have to say, this is VERY COOL and VERY USEFUL!
Great Job you did.
I tried on CS4, it works great!
And I wanna know can it run on CS5? I just installed CS5 but it seems like I can’t run it.
Thank you
can somebody please tell me how to get it to work on cs5 ?
well since nobody was helping, i helped myself. here is a cs5 64 bit animation presets. no xml means no defaults , use wisely. i am really amateur. just had to use this effect. hope the author or some member refines it and brings us the cs5 version in a polished manner. till then enjoy.
http://rapidshare.com/files/412561302/distribute_in_3d.rar
the steps for usage are the same … just rename the null layer as main !
Hello again.
Seem like so far has no luck on CS5 yet?
Im trying to use the global rotation but nothing happens when I change the x – Rotation or the Y rotation but the z-rotation does work, is there something silly im not doing?
Any plans to release a CS5 update?
I hacked up a working solution for the Distributer Custom Effect on CS5.
Rohan above, seemed to have pulled his hack for CS5-
I tried getting in contact with Rob Schofield to test and approve my edits, but couldn’t get in contact with him.
so if you need it for CS5 here it is:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9340447/Distributor%20CS5.zip
cheers man !!! you included an install also !!!
awesome … OPEN SOURCE FTW !!!
TESTED ON PC … WORKS PERFECTLY….
if you have errors than your null object is not named
cont or your layers aren’t 3d !
thanks Rob Schofield, lodestar08… great job !!!
Hello.
Any luck for the for CS5 PC version?
Oh, it’s me again.
How silly I am, actually it works on PC also, COOL!
Thanks guys!
After Effects warning: Bad method arguments: wiggle() needs between 2 and 5 arguments Expression disabled
Hi Rob – I tried to follow this tut and your instuctions on how to install the Distributor.
i downloaded the 3D distributor from AE Scripts and it’s by Lloyd – but it’s not at all the same as what you show in the tutorial. nor are the files the same in the zip folder as you show in your tutorial.
I have a single jsx file in the zip. No controls in the effects panel etc etc.
what Distributor are you refering too??? This one disributes selected layers arbitrarably – with no control as you show can be done with the one you are using in the tut.
can you provide a link to the one your tutorial refers too.
thanx
chase
Chase, I posted the link to my CS5 revision a few comments above your post. but here it is again:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9340447/Distributor%20CS5.zip
NOTE: I cannot remember if I also included Rob’s CS4 version. though his link should still up at the top (i think)
ALSO NOTE: Lloyd Alvarez’s comment above regarding the render hit you may experience varying in degree depending upon the size of your comp and of course your settings and RAM etc. I’m hoping to find a workaround to this (something like a low count option switch to help with RAM previews—though it will not help during final render- sorry / If anyone has a better solution please give it a shot)
be sure to follow his instructions on installing and comp set up
enjoy,
@lodestar08
http://twitter.com/#!/lodestar08
http://derickemanning.com
Any chance you can re-up that link?
Hi,
Can’t find the CS4 ZIP to download?
Thanks
Where can I find the zip file for Distributor?
Umm Im a little late, but where’s the script Rob?
Sorry about that! I must have accidentally deleted or moved the file out of the folder.
Here it is: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9340447/Distributor%20CS5.zip
Added a script to automate the process of having to keep dropping the presets onto the layers you want to randomize. Plus now you no longer have to create or name the null layer controller “cont” manually.
NOTE: *ONLY LAYERS WITH 3D TURNED ON WILL HAVE THE EFFECT APPLIED TO THEM*
cheers