Skip to main content
Sanpanza
Sanpanza
Known Participant
December 11, 2017
Answered

Concentric ring ripple on image comp

  • December 11, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 4704 views

Need to put together a comp for a client that includes a concentric ring ripple effect. I cannot look amateurish. Can anybody guide me to a tutorial on how to add this effect? I not only need to create the distortion pattern but need to include some reflectivity AND control for both 2D distortion and reflectivity. Once I get this down then I will mask accordingly.

The image below is a rough cut of the image I am working on for this client. Most of the tutorials I have reviewed seem to be incomplete or amateurish. Any help would be deeply appreciated!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer sharp_hands16B8

    If I wasn't using a photo to composite for this effect, I would build it with alpha channels, etc. See descriptions below.

    Create an alpha channel with concentric circles that are white on a black background
    Blue that alpha channel so that the white to black blends making a more "rounded" surface.

    Create a new layer, fill it with 50% gray.

    Now use Render > LIghting Effects and under Texture choose the alpha channel you've made earlier. Adjust settings for height and other properties. It will look a little gritty, you can smooth that later.
    This will give you some ripples against the surface.
    Now, use Plastic Wrap from the Filter Gallery and this will add smoothing and "wet" looking highlights to your ripples..

    Now that you have this on a gray layer with ripple shadows and highlights being moved above and below middle gray, your blend modes will give you more flexibility for compositing. Use the middle grays as an option for blending in reflections from your composite image.

    Continue layering in additional plastic wrap filters, throw some diffusion in for texture under Stylize > Diffuse and experiment from there for the layering of ripples/highlights that you want.

    Blurring really helps when smoothing how the lighting renders some of these effects.

    Alpha channel with concentric white circles, increasing in size

    Blurred so that Render LIghting Effects will round out the form

    New Gray Layer we will build the ripple into

    Using Render LIghting Effects on the Gray Layer, choose your Alpha Channel from the Texture Pull down menu option in the filter

    Under Filter Gallery, choose Plastic Wrap. Use lots of smoothing and play with highlights for volume

    Now under Filter Distort, use Twirl to spin it in a way that details blend together. This only works if you have your circles dead center at the start.

    I added a little oil paint texture for some natural looking surface distortion and then added a small amount of plastic wrap highlights again to finish it out.

    Being solid gray, this could now be easily blended into other images using various blend modes like overlay, screen, etc...

    3 replies

    sharp_hands16B8
    Community Expert
    sharp_hands16B8Community ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    December 11, 2017

    If I wasn't using a photo to composite for this effect, I would build it with alpha channels, etc. See descriptions below.

    Create an alpha channel with concentric circles that are white on a black background
    Blue that alpha channel so that the white to black blends making a more "rounded" surface.

    Create a new layer, fill it with 50% gray.

    Now use Render > LIghting Effects and under Texture choose the alpha channel you've made earlier. Adjust settings for height and other properties. It will look a little gritty, you can smooth that later.
    This will give you some ripples against the surface.
    Now, use Plastic Wrap from the Filter Gallery and this will add smoothing and "wet" looking highlights to your ripples..

    Now that you have this on a gray layer with ripple shadows and highlights being moved above and below middle gray, your blend modes will give you more flexibility for compositing. Use the middle grays as an option for blending in reflections from your composite image.

    Continue layering in additional plastic wrap filters, throw some diffusion in for texture under Stylize > Diffuse and experiment from there for the layering of ripples/highlights that you want.

    Blurring really helps when smoothing how the lighting renders some of these effects.

    Alpha channel with concentric white circles, increasing in size

    Blurred so that Render LIghting Effects will round out the form

    New Gray Layer we will build the ripple into

    Using Render LIghting Effects on the Gray Layer, choose your Alpha Channel from the Texture Pull down menu option in the filter

    Under Filter Gallery, choose Plastic Wrap. Use lots of smoothing and play with highlights for volume

    Now under Filter Distort, use Twirl to spin it in a way that details blend together. This only works if you have your circles dead center at the start.

    I added a little oil paint texture for some natural looking surface distortion and then added a small amount of plastic wrap highlights again to finish it out.

    Being solid gray, this could now be easily blended into other images using various blend modes like overlay, screen, etc...

      Sanpanza
      SanpanzaAuthor
      Known Participant
      December 18, 2017

      Hi Mark @mark-heaps​ and @Trevor.Dennis Trevor.Dennis   for the very helpful answers.

      You can see the effect in the bottom right hand side.

      First I increased the size of my canvas from 20 to 32 inches, leaving a large empty border . This had the effect of extending the effect of the filter to the edges of my original frame. I ended up using the the Zig Zag filter on the "pond ripple" setting at 80 for amount and 16 for ridges.

      Duplicated the filtered layer and desaturated it, then did a multiply  blend, duplicated that layer and did a screen blend. Both B & W layers had their opacities adjusted for optimal effect.  Luckily this is only a prototype and have some time to play with more refinements and interpretations.

      Any thoughts in on how to create spatters ?

      Trevor.Dennis
      Community Expert
      Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      December 19, 2017

      You've done an excellent job so far.  I like how the lens effect is masked behind the man camera left, and merged into him camera right.  The lens effect is really nicely done as well. 

      It's fairly straight forward to produce splatter brushes, but there some really nice ready made sets out there.  My favourite brush set is Hair & Skin Brushes by Castrochew  which has some nice splatter effect brushes

      If you want a rougher outline, start with one of the Chalk presets or similar, and set:

      Spacing 1000%

      In Shape Dynamics set Size Jitter, Angle jitter, and Roundness Jitter to maximum

      In Scattering set Scatter to max and check Both Axes, and increase Count to something like 4

      In Transfer set Opacity jitter to max.

      You need to leave the Control for all of those to Off unless you want to control it with Pen Pressure as a for instance.

      This won't give you much of a spread, so to increase that, lay down some splatter on a new layer, and define it as a new preset, and use the same settings as above again. I'd be incline to use different outlines when making the preset to reduce repetition.

      Martin_Bns
      Martin_Bns
      Inspiring
      December 11, 2017

      Hi Sanpanza,

      I work with creative compositings producing compositings and creative images all the time.
      The most important part in this project is to understand that there is no tutorial to do this. What is important is to cheat the eye of the viewer and create a nice composition.

      In this kind of projects is a great idea to start using some images of what you need. Look for images with the ripple effect and use them in order to create your composition. There is no reason to do the ripple effect by hand because the time and the effort you put in is not better than using a photo.

      The reflectivity is often achieved by duplicating the layer of the subject you want to reflect and move it around and play with the opacity until you like the result.


      The depth of field, the use of different tones of colors in order to control the sense of depth in the image is far more important than a perfect mathematic ripple effect in order to convince the eye that what it sees is real.

      I hope that this can help in order to set the right mindset for this image.

      All my best,
      Martin

      Sanpanza
      SanpanzaAuthor
      Known Participant
      December 11, 2017

      Hi Martin,

      Thank you for your reply. I am not sure how I would implement the ripple overlay you are talking about because it would not actually "bend" the lines to create a 2D concentric wave pattern. At least not in the way I imagine you are talking about but perhaps I don't understand you response.

      Mylenium
      Mylenium
      Legend
      December 11, 2017

      What reflectivity? I see none. The rest is just a matter of using the Polar Coordinates filter to good effect and tweaking opacities and colors, but before that you need to do much better work on the cutouts. And by all means lose the green. This is one hell of an ugly color composition.

      Mylenium

      c.pfaffenbichler
      Community Expert
      c.pfaffenbichlerCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      December 11, 2017

      That might come across as a bit harsh.

      But the advice on the Polar Coordinates Filter is excellent, the open question might be on which image it should be applied.

      In the posted image the basis might have been smoke or paint-swirls in water, artificial or photographed. (edited)

        Sanpanza
        SanpanzaAuthor
        Known Participant
        December 11, 2017

        Hi Mr. Pfaffenbichler,

        The current elements are a fractal model of the back hole in the background with infra-red image of a constalation.

        Not sure my question was onderstood. This "rough cut" comp for the client has several layers to it. Just need to get the concentric wave pattern down before I implement subtly.

        I used the zig-zag filer and it gave me accurate surface relieve for the conentric ripple pattern but there was no corresponding reflectivity.  Link in this image attached:

        Any thoughts on the matter would be helpful.

        Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
        Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices