[AE CS5] Animating water in still image

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Please use the COW’s Search feature. If you head over to the COW’s AE Tutorial section and conduct a search for “water” you would have received these results – https://library.creativecow.net/search.php?q=water+%22Adobe+After+Effects%22

HTH
RoRK

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[Ryan Mcafee]

Try using Caustics with wave world.

Ryan McAfee
Moon Community Access Television
http://www.MCA-TV.com

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Not seeing an example of the kind of image you have, I will suggest a few things:
1- try to use footage of moving water (shoot some yourself or buy some from a footage library- no regular plugin can match that) to create a large plate of animated water that matches the size of the waves/ripples in your still image and covers the whole width of it. Make that a 3d layer and match the perspective of your image. Mask out the water surface and comp the water plate behind. Color correct to match the look of the still water.
2- get fancy and use FreeForm. Create a displacement map from the water plate itself to give more 3dimensionality to the water and position the water layer in 3d space to match perspective using the FreeForm controls (like in this tutorial:
https://library.creativecow.net/jelescu_tudor/3D-from-2D-image_AE/1
3- Create distorted reflections of sky and objects that are close to the water (trees, buildings..etc)using the same animated water layer as a displacement map on the mirrored image of the objects.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior Compositor/VFX Artist