Envelope distort feature that allows user to choose between horizontal or vertical distortion

[lewlewland]

How do I get something to fit in an envelope distort with the top object without distorting vertical? It would be a great if there was a feature with the envelope distort the distorts only the horizontal axis or only the vertical axis. I've found work arounds for this in the past but I'm trying to create something right now where my workarounds would create way more work than feels necessary. I know that I can achieve the desired effect using a mesh but this would take quite a bit of time to line all of these up.

I've attached a small sample (multi colored wavey text) of my idea here but for the end result I'm hoping to create a pattern without this text being being distorted on the vertical axis and making a mesh for that would take a long time.

I've also attached an example (fire design) of the kind of distortion I'm looking for. I created this using the bulge warp feature.

Is this a possible feature to have created?

[barbara_a]

You might have more control with Make with War or Make with Mesh.

[lewlewland]

Warp unfortunately would not allow me to create the random waves I'm looking to create and using a mesh will take me very long to do but will work. I feel like there should be a way for the program to decide that vertical or horizontal axis points are locked in order to only create distortion with "Make with Top Object" on those axises.

[Monika Gause]

You could take a look at the plugin FilterIT (not for free, but there should be a demo for evaluation)

[tromboniator]

This really only took a few (maybe ten?) minutes, including setting up the type:

1) Draw a rectangle and apply Envelope Distort > Make with Mesh. In this case, give it four rows and two columns.

2) Adjust the points and handles to create "random" waves.

3) Release Envelope Distort and delete original rectangle.

4) Select the resulting mesh and desired type object, Envelope Distort > Make with Top Object.

You can always adjust the type or the mesh to fine-tune it.

Peter