Water splashes using After Effects without plugins

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Pance Pictures] “I was wondering how you can make a believable water splash and spray (like something dropping or falling in the water) without using any plugins and using only After Effects.”

You can’t.

At least not without an imagination like God and almost as much time on your hands.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Darby Edelen]

The only way to get even close to this is with a particle effect, of which Trapcode’s Particular would probably be favored. However, your results, even with Particular, would not look realistic.

Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Brennan Wright]

you could just video an object of the same size and shape and rotoscope it out if you have to… Just a thought

[Don Sciore]

With all due respect, why not think about some “traditional” more manual approaches to animation. Create water-droplets and keyframe them. It will take longer but may be well worth the effort and experience. Who knows, it may be the next “new” look.
A little “mesh warp” might be fun. (Don’t forget the traditional principles of animation)

What it won’t look like is a “plug-in”.

Just a thought. Happy Holidays!

Don

[David Bogie]

You know how we used to do this before particle systems existed?
Shoot it.

Set up a tank in the studio. light it carefully, drop stuff in the tank. Use compressed air.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Scott Keck]

LOL, bogiesan is right, can you say “cloud tank”? See “Raiders of the Lost Ark” for details…..

Improviz in SF

[Mike Zimbard]

I completely agree. It’s not always necessary to try and create every effect from scratch, because in many cases when you need realism you’re not going to be able to create it with a simple particle system. Like David says go out and shoot something or if you don’t have the means for that there are some great stock libraries out there with effects that can be easily matted or rotoscoped. We use artbeats water effects libraries all the time in our composites for just the type of effect you’re talking about. I’d recommend downloading one of their low-res thumbnails to test it in your comp and then if it works go ahead and buy the full library.

[David Payne]

does anyone know of any online tutorials for creating a water spray effect in after effects? I’m thinking high pressure hose..I’m totally stuck.