How do I evenly space these objects within my shape?

[Elyse Da Silva]

Hi everyone, 

I am new to this community. I have been tasked to create an animated video for my company. This is my first animated video, and I'm working on building out my assets in Illustator now. 

Does anyone know how to evenly space out these squares within my "building" shape? The idea is to have them look like evenly spaced windows. I will need to repeat this process a lot for this particular scene, and I can't seem to get it right. 

I've tried:

• aligning to the "building" as a key object
• evenly distributing vertically and horizontally to my selection
• grouping together and adjusting the group

Any suggestions on how to get my squares looking nice rather than flying all over the place when I align them? 

[Kurt Gold]

Dear Elyse,

can you provide a couple of sample Illustrator files that include the skyscrapers and the windows you are going to arrange?

There is a way.

[kphotopage · Accepted solution]

Elyse, Hi.

Here I created the windows first.

I used Effects>Transform. Expand Trans.

Duplicate. Put each on separate Layer. 

Next, I deleted extras to create different Building shapes.

Next, I used the script RandomSwatchesFill to recolor.

Final, I drew a black stroke around the windows with the Pen Tool.

Add a background color rectangle.

K

[Elyse Da Silva]

This was extremely helpful! Now I have a full city that I can animate! I never knew that the script RandomSwatchesFill existed, and my mind was blown.

Thank you for the insight and help. Cheers 🙂

[kphotopage]

Glad I could help.

Actually, very fun to do. 😀

Welcome to the forum.

If you need any further help, please do not hesitate to ask.

Members here are very friendly and very helpful.

The majority of us are volunteers and Adobe user just like you.

K