Producing convincing water ripples?

[DavidMac]

I have been trying to create some realistic water ripples in AP. I am after a general randomised overall ripple, not the radiating circle type. This is not an urgent need, it is simply an exercise I set myself as part of really learning AP in depth after years of doing things its competitor’s way.

 

AP has a ripple filter but it has no independent control over amplitude and wavelength and no means of randomisation. It really isn’t suitable for this particular task.

 

PS has an excellent wave filter but the whole point was not to use it!!

 

I found two plugins for this: Redfield Water Ripples and Flaming Pear Flood. The former is Windows only and the latter doesn’t seem to work in the AP plug in environment.

 

I tried using a high contrast black and white image of rippling water as the basis for the Displace filter but the results were less than satisfactory.

 

So does anyone have any suggestions for doing this in AP?  :wacko: 

[anon1]

I don't have a solution but I admire the problem :D

[Alfred]

I don't have a solution but I admire the problem :D

 

Now where have I read that Brilliant quote recently? <_<

[DavidMac]

I forgot to add I also played withe liquify persona for this. It proved very fiddly and the results were not really very useful as it gives the shape (sort of) but completely 2D - no shadows and highlights. 

[ronnyb]

The displacement filter can yield decent results by using a displacement map having the rippling effect you like. i bet there are tons on the interwebs. VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure the scale and resolution are appropriate for your source image/document before applying the displacement map.

[DavidMac]

The displacement filter can yield decent results by using a displacement map having the rippling effect you like. i bet there are tons on the interwebs. VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure the scale and resolution are appropriate for your source image/document before applying the displacement map.

Yes of course. I did pay great attention to that, but the results were rather unexpected and didn't really seem to reflect the underlying map. I'll re-visit. It really does seem the obvious route to go.

[JimmyJack]

Im having much better "luck" when using the Load Map from File option.

 

Care to post the map you tried?

[DavidMac]

I'll have to see if I can find it again. I set myself little 'exercises' purely for learning purposes and experimenting with the various tools. This was one in creating reflections by inversion of part of the image. Once done I don't keep them. When I try this again, if I am still having problems, I'll post with images.