How to use animation presets on a bunch of objects without distorting them?

[cosette]

Hello guys, please I really need your help for my problem.
I have a bunch of spheres ( around 400). I want to animate them without any distortion.
Obviously I cannot animate them one by one. I tried to use a lattice and apply to it the wave effect but it didn't work they became distorted.

the project im doing is simulating a kinetic sculture. ( you can check it out on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kulYx6vol0)

Is there something to use like a lattice that could animate the spheres themselves and not the vertices of the spheres?

Or do you have any idea how can I simulate these effects for the spheres?

Thanks a lot! I appreciate you help! 

[joojaa]

Use a particle instancer  on a softbody. Pretty basic stuff its explained in the manual. If you must you can then use a laticce on teh particles themselves.

[cosette]

how is that done? i couldnt find tutorials, and does it do the effects like the youtube video?

Thanks a lot and sorry im a beginner  

[carledwards-edwards]

Just a thought, but; you could make a sheet (polyPlane) with one vertex for every raindrop. Use any combination of deformers you like to animate the shape. Create an expression on each sphere's .translateY attribute to read a particluar vertex of the plane's position in Y.