How do you animate ripples caused by a boat moving on water?

Support Animation and Rigging
1

I have a model of a ship moving on a plane with an animated cloud texture so it looks like ocean water. How do I make ripples caused by the ship as it moves across the water?

2

Haven’t tried yet, but will probably have to get it done someday…
When coming to it, i would go for different tests:

  1. with particles emitor (fluid or boolean objects to seam water drops)?
  2. fluid container on the path of the boat wich would have collision on?
  3. Call for the help of someone working for Pixar’s fx?
    But these are just my guesses… :wink:
3

I think the best option would be using a particle emiter parented to the boat mesh.
And then apply a halo material with a modified marble texture (or similar)
Then set the particle End to the last frame of the animation.
And tweak, tweak, tweak…

4

Hi,
for long shots you might get away with displacement maps.


Here’s a crude .blend as a starter, still need loads of tweaking and maybe this method isn’t suitable at all for you, but anyway :slight_smile:
Happy blending!