Creator Assistants: Cylinder Creator

Cylinder Creator is used for distributing layers based on the surface of a cylinder. It is not to be confused with Cylinder Distribution, which distributes layers within and around a cylindrically shaped area.

How it Works: Select the 3D layers in your composition that you wish to distribute on the surface of a sphere, and go to Window> Cylinder Creator or Lite. This will create a cylinder based on the layers you give it. It arranges the layers in a circle with a given radius, and then stacks the rings of layers to form the cylinder. This works best if all the layers have the same width. Otherwise, the tool can’t keep all the layers inline and the cylinder ends up being a hodge podge of rings. This may be fine, but if not, make sure everything is the same width.

To create this spiraling Cylinder tunnel, we used 9 layers and set Radius Set By First to 8.

Bounding Box

Defines the dimensions (or size) of the cylinder that your layers will be distributed around.

See Creator Assistants, Common Parameters

Radius Set By First checkbox

Determines the radius of the cylinder by looking at the first several layers in the Timeline. The exact number of layers used is set by the value field. For example if you set Radius Set By First to 5, the first 5 layers in the Timeline will determine the radius of the first ring in the cylinder. This first ring sets the radius for the cylinder, and all subsequent rings of layers will approximately be this size.

This checkbox is particularly effective when all the layers have the same width. The rings are all the same size and all their layers are the same distance from each other. If the layers are different sizes, then there’s no way to create a 'perfect' cylinder and you will see gaps between layers.

NOTE: This checkbox turns off Longitude (see below) and Active Surface> Equator Only (see below). This is because layer orientation is determined by the size of the radius based on the number of layers.

At left, Radius of 3 layers all equally sized. In middle, Radius of 6 layers all equally sized.
At right, Radius of 6 layers of all different sizes, which results in gaps and other unevenness.

Cylinder Center

Defines where the center of the cylinder will be located in 3D space by specifying the X, Y and Z position.

By default, a setting of 0,0,0 will result in the center of the cylinder being in the upper left corner of the comp. If the Use Comp Center checkbox is selected, a setting of 0,0,0 will result in the center of the sphere being in the center of the comp.

Distribute Evenly checkbox

Results in the selected layers being distributed evenly around the surface of the sphere.

NOTE: Selecting this option disables the Height and Longitude settings.

See Creator Assistants, Common Parameters

Don’t Intersect checkbox

Prevent layers from being placed in a position where they would intersect other layers.

See Creator Assistants, Common Parameters

Scale Layer To checkbox

Scales all selected layers to the numeric value that is entered.

See Creator Assistants, Common Parameters

Height, Longitude group

These controls determine together how far apart the layers will be distributed on the surface of the cylinder. They are measured in degrees.

- Height: Represents the vertical spacing of the rings of layers. For this to work correctly, you need to be aware of how many pixels high your layers are. For example, if your layers are all 240 pixels high, and you want to create a seamless cylinder without any overlap, you’ll need to set the Height Min/Max to 240. This will place a new ring of layers every 240 pixels and since your layers are 240 pixels high, a a seamless cylinder is the result.
- Longitude: Determines how often a layer gets placed around the diameter of the cylinder. This is the angle at which a new layer is placed. If Min/Max is set to 30, then a new layer will get placed every 30 degrees. The smaller this value, the more dense the cylinder will be, as it’s basically increasing the resolution of the cylinder diameter. Of course, depending on the size of your layers, this will potentially introduce more overlapping of layers.
- Min/Max: The maximum and minimum amount of space that can be inserted between two layers. To get uniform spaces between the rings, keep the Min and Max values the same. To get a random distance between layers, set different values for the Min and Max settings.
- Distance: Sets the amount of space between layers.
- Increment: Sets increasing or decreasing distances between layers. Negative values will result in decreasing distances between layers.
- Since the segments go all the way around or up/down the cylinder, once the segments have been determined, all layers have to follow them. So this behavior isn’t quite as random as in other Assistants.

NOTE: Longitude gets turned off if Radius Is Set By is turned on. This is because the radius is determined by how many layers are selected. In that case the angle is going to be determined by the size of the layers and how many of them there are.

All layers are 320 x 240. At left, Height at 120 causes overlap between layers. In middle, Height at 240 places the layers without any seams. At right, Height at 300 causes gaps.

At left, Longitude Min/Max at 30. In middle, Longitude Min/Max at 45. On right, Longitude Min at 20, Max at 75.

Orientation buttons

Decides which direction the layers should orient themselves: Inward or Outward.

See Creator Assistants, Common Parameters

Begin Distribution At buttons

Determines at what point on the sphere the first layer will be distributed. The first layer always gets positioned on the sphere so it is aligned perfectly horizontal or vertical. The locations that layer can take are: Front, Back, Left or Right.

For each option, layer distribution starts at that location and runs the circumference of the cylinder. Once it runs out of space, the Distribution moves up or down one Latitude notch and again starts to distribute the layers around the cylinder. It continues to do this until it runs out of spaces to place layers or layers to place.

NOTE: If Align Surface (see below) is using a Sector instead of Whole Cylinder, it is best to have Begin Distribution match. If you’re using the Front Sector, start the Distribution on Top; for Right Sector, set Distribution to Right; and so on. This will produce the most reliable expected results. Mixing and matching the Hemisphere and Distribution can produce some cool arrangements, but if their results are not what you expected, make sure their options match.

Active Surface group

Determines which part of the cylinder will be active for layer distribution. You can distribute layers across the entire cylinder or only a portion of a cylinder. The Active Surface options are:

The Active Surface options are:

- Whole Cylinder: Layers are distributed around a full cylinder.
- Sectors: Layers are distributed around a half cylinder, with choices for which half of the cylinder will be used. Options are Front, Back, Left or Right. In general, you will get more predictable results if you choose a position that matches the Begin Distribution option. Top for Top, Right for Right, and so on.
- Equator Only: Layers are distributed along the equator of the cylinder only. The layers wrap around the back and front of the cylinder. If you leave Create Ring With Layers off, only as many layers as will fit will be placed around the equator.
- Equator Only, Create Ring With Layers: When used together, this option will place the layers evenly around the equator of the sphere. Create Ring With Layers will ignore the Radius or Bounding Box parameters and make a ring with all selected layers. This option is great if you have 50 layers and want to place them in a circle, but don’t want to waste time figuring out what radius you’d need to place them all.

NOTE: Equator Only and Create Ring With Layers are grayed out if Radius Set By First (see above) is active. Together they have similar results as Radius Set By First, but only create one ring, no matter how many layers are present.

Insert Keys checkboxes

Three checkboxes that specify which layer properties will have a keyframe set for them: Position, Rotation and/or Scale.

See Creator Assistants, Common Parameters

Reverse Layers Order checkbox

Random Layer Order checkbox

Use Comp Center checkbox

Repeat Layers checkbox

Crop Text Layers to Size of Other 3D Layers checkbox

See Creator Assistants, Common Parameters