water droplet animation ..?

[Tom Daigon]

Best done in 3D animation program.

[Chris Smith]

My friend was the one who did the water drop going down the side of the Corona bottle. He actually did it by hand painting a greyscale map in AE and using that map as a displacement map. It looksed incredibly real.

However in general terms I agree with the other post that it’s probably best done in a true 3D app.

Maya: use blobby partciles

in C4D: Use instanced spheres to particles inside a metaball object.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[Tom Daigon]

Or in Lightwave. Search for incredibly beautiful single drop falling into water
tutorial on Newteks forum. Involved but awesome!

[Mike Smith]

Many thanks to all.

I don’t have Cinema 4D or Lightwave (though I am tempted). I do have Caligari Truespace, which is more limited (and also Bryce, which is fun) but don’t know if I can get this to work in either of those …

I’ll have a go at the displacement map idea / approach, maybe combining it with a ripple on a plane /surface from the GPU effects section of Premiere Pro … might be able to make something useful.

Will also try to find tbe Newtek tutorial.

[Arthur Vibert]

Artbeats has some excellent stock shots that are pretty much what you are describing. You might want to check that out – then all the work will be done for you : )

Arthur VIbert

[Tom J]

For something simple and effective, why not use AE’s own Caustics and Waveworld? You can combine the techniques from Jim Tierney’s Tutorial on Caustics with the use of Rick Gerard’s popular quick tip “wet paint” or was it “Dripping Paint” for a good effect? It may take some work, but I think you can easily do it in AE.

However, a 3D proggy is probably the best bet… :>)

Check out Jim’s Tut by clicking on the AE banner at the top of this forum.

Then a quick search in the forum for wet paint gave me this link:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=280591&archive=T

Hope that helps,
Tom

[Mike Smith]

Mant thanks for the pointers; much appreciated. I’ll try out those tutorials. They look promising.

The stock footage idea (or filming something new in super-slomo!) would be another good approach, but what I’m after just now is more a general / generalisable graphics approach I can adapt and reuse: I’ll see what I can get to in AE.

Thanks again.