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Its sort of like the sunburst but I need even whitespace between each fin, I dont need them to go completely around the circle just half. Ive tried stroke but did not give me the result I wanted or I was doing it wrong. Going thru and moving the objects with the select tool and rotating is becoming a massive headache. Even in my demo image its not even. Whats the best practice method to do this?
First, reconfigure the artwork.
Use guides to determine the center of the circle and place one polygon at the vertical center.
This step is a bit difficult to show in screenshots. With the pen tool click just once at the circle's center to place an anchor point there. All you want is the anchor point, not a shape or path. With that anchor point still selected, shift-click to select the Polygon as well and group the polygon with that single anchor point.
Now choose Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform
First, of course, tick the preview option. Then click the bottom center point for the 9-point origin box enter a number greater the 0 in the Copies field, and then enter an angle value until you get the offset you are looking for. Click OK.
The polygon should still be selected, choose Object > Expand Appearance. This will create independent shapes for the effect you just applied. You can now use the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) to click and delete any polygons you do not want. You can also delete all the duplicate single anchor points in the center of the circle.
Skaught is right on target. I would follow the same basic principle but with, imho, a critical adjustment.
Effects are there to save time, so I never expand them unless I must to achieve the end result (or pass art on for production). With that in mind, here's how I would alter Skaught's approach.
The machine I'm on at the moment has an old copy of Illustrator. The panel looks a little different in newer versions, but the approach is the same.
If you already know that you want a certain number of radiating objects and you know roughly where you want them, start there.
Position the first of the radiating objects and one uncolored rectangle to act as the center of rotation for the remaining copies.
Use the lower right corner of the uncolored rectangle as the axis to create the duplicates. Because of the way you're rotating this object, you can get away with a rectangle instead of Skaught's single point suggestion: it's just easier to work with.
Since the effect doesn't need to be expanded, you can continue to tweak the original shape and watch the auto-generated dupes follow in kind. You could tweak to your heart's content and exploit other possibilities within the effect.
