Fling

Fling works in After Effects 2022 and newer, inside the Motion Dock. It moves 2D and 3D layers, including ones with separated dimensions, and leaves locked layers alone.

Yes. Free forever, with no trial, no watermark and no locked features. Select some layers and start dragging.

Install the Motion Dock, our free panel for every Motion Fun tool, then add Fling to your dock from Edit Layout. After the first install, restart After Effects and find the Motion Dock under Window → Extensions.

Both. With Keyframe Mode off, a drag moves your layers straight into the shape. Turn it on and Fling sets Position keys at the playhead instead: move the playhead, drag again, and the layers animate from their last key into the new shape with the easing you picked. Stagger starts each layer a few frames after the one before, in the order of the shape.

It turns each layer to face along the shape it lands on, like fish swimming around a ring, and it turns curves exactly, so a spiral or a wave reads cleanly. Set it in Edit Mode under Properties and every drag uses it until you change it. Layers that already have rotation keys turn the short way round. Slingshot ignores Follow, since a scatter has no direction to follow.

Yes. Every fling is a single undo step named after its shape, like Fling Ring, so one Cmd+Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows) puts everything back.