How to make a water plane with a normal/distortion effect (waves/bumps)

Well I have a texture set up, and I tried to figure out how to apply a normal map to simulate a wavey surface. So I added another texture. Selected “stucci” as the image, which seems pretty wave like, and changed the influence “normal - geometry” value to 5. The “preview” render shows the distortion effect (quite over the top but hey). However it doesnt show in the render, can anyone advise on what i have missed?

You post lacks lots and lots of useful info.

Please ALWAYS supply a blend file for support questions. It works perfectly for me when rendered what I think you are doing so without seeing your file how do you expect anyone to give you a specific solution ?

Hi there,

Here is the blend file: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5-Yd6LiksJ4ZzVnYmN4OHB2dWc

Its the textures on the “stationary water” object, the section texture is the bump map, however it both doesnt seem to distort the object/reflection, and alsomakes the material turn very white which is annoying. I think it must be something to do with the first texture, because i applied the same processes to a new scene without any imported textures, and it worked fine, but I dont know whats up or how/if to fix it.