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Wave World
Okay, I’ve been playing with Wave World over the weekend with no success. I can see the wireframe preview, but I can’t get it to displace my bg image.
How am I supposed to use this?
(I’m assuming this is going to be a major breakthrough with other effects as well.)
Thanks,
Mike
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7 Replies
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wave world just generates a gray scale animation (when set to height map, rather than wire frame) that can then be used with other effects for dispacement or highlights or other ways of making something seem watery.
if you just want simple displacement, precomp the wave world layer (move all attributes, don’t open comp). add the layer you want to displace and add the effect diplacement map. choose the wave world layer as the displacement map and you should see some displacement happening. adjust as needed.
if you want displacement and highlights (or even reflections) you can try caustics. as with diplacement map, apply caustics to the layer to be deformed (it will be defined as the bottom, like a pool floor). set the wave world precomp as the water surface, if you don’t want the water to have color set surface opacity to 0. you can adjust the wave properties as needed. you can also adjust the lighting and material properties to give nice highlights. additionally you can even set a sky layer to relfect on the surface of the water.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Thank you! I finally got it to work.
(Even so, there’s a shorthand I’m not familiar with yet… precomp the Wave World layer… does that have the image on it, or is it a solid? Anyway, that’s one of the things that makes AE have a steep learning curve at the beginning… That, and I swear I did this exact thing over the weekend without sucess…)
I’m off to try caustics tomorrow.
Mike
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[mikederk] “precomp the Wave World layer… does that have the image on it, or is it a solid?”
as you work with ae you’ll find that some effects (call it effect 1) that will be used by other effects on other layers will need to be pre-composed before the other effect can use the data generated by effect 1.
it sounds a bit confusing, but in your case you would apply wave world to a solid (you could apply it to any layer, but it won’t use or effect any data from that layer, like blur or glow would, so a solid is fine). you would apply displacement map to the layer that was going to be effected.
if you set displacement map to use the wave world layer as the ‘displacement map layer’ it wouldn’t do anything. you need to precomp the the wave world layer by choosing layer>pre-compose, then telling ae to move all attributes (which in this case is the wave world effect and any settings/keyframes) to the new comp.
now when you select the wave world precomp to be used for displacement for the displacement map effect, you will see the effect working. so you have two effects on two layers in two different comps, and that’s just for one effect… you can see how things can start getting pretty complex in a hurry. but the concept of ‘nesting’ comps within comps is a good one to start learning.
if you try caustics out, and want to use fractal noise as a sky to be reflected on the surface, you would again apply fractal noise to a solid, then precomp that (moving all attributes), before you can define that layers a ‘sky’ layer in the caustics…
just about any time you have an effect on a separate layer that will be used by another effect, you will need to precomp that layer first. so, if you wanted to colorize you sky layer/comp you would need to add that effect in the precomped sky layer to use that in the caustics effect first.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
You rock. Not only did you help with with Wave World, but I used Caustics today and it all went right the very first time. Thank you for taking the time to explain this so well. I had a feeling attacking Caustics was going to be a good way to learn a lot about the inner workings (the philosophy?) of After Effects.
I was able to build a pool, a pool bottom, a sky, and a pool surface that rippled and reflected it all perfectly. It had a mask, things were nested and pre-composed.
Now, if I really had guts, I’d try to build a jacuzzi with the jets turned on!
But, I think I’ll let that wait for now…
So, thanks again, and to Aharon and Andrew for their tutorials.
Mike
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if you want a jacuzzi with jets, get ready for particle systems… another good learning experience 😉
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
[moldyboot] “if you want a jacuzzi with jets, get ready for particle systems… another good learning experience ;-)”
Exactly why I chose a jacuzzi! The perfect kind of noobie torture.
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Hi,
I was wondering if anyone could help me.I am trying to make a flag and i have been using wave world to make the wave simulation along with turbulant displacement.
But when i go to use a displacement map with caustics to put the coloured flag layer over it, i cant get the flag to fit exactly right ontop of the waveworld simulation or cant seem to scale it to fit.
Does anyone know what im doing wrong or am i missing a small setting that can control this feature. i feel im so close but yet so far.
Im fairly new to wave world but have been using it for he past 2 weeks so have got a little grip on it.
If anyone can help me i greatly appriciate it.
Thanks
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