Beautiful liquid simulations using Caustics and Wave World | After Effects Tutorial

We go over an often overlooked effect that comes built into After Effects.
Get the project file 👉 bit.ly/liquidAE...
Learn how to use Fractal noise and Wave World in combination with Caustics to get some VERY realistic liquid results. We go over three different methods for creating various liquid animations. Skip ahead if you want to visit a specific one!
Ripple logo reveal - :21
pool/water scene - 6:16
Influenced liquid reveal - 11:23
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[@bikotheanimator6169]

I followed the first version with the ripple effect, which is what I was looking for. The remainder of the video is too confusing. I may not use those.

[@bikotheanimator6169]

3:28 I get lost so quick. His new shape layer created a RECTANGLE? And I looked back at my first shape layer with the caustics, and it does not have a rectangle either.

[@nikamaisuradze8523]

anyone wondering, how to make loop of fractal ( that water waving animation after 6:40), you should just check cycle loop checkbox under "Evolution Options" and than just add two keyframes in "Evolution" one at the start of the loop with 0% Evolution and another at the End of the loop with Evolution value 360%. you dont really need to use Expressions times*100. Looping is usefyl if anyone wants to make infinite GIF Loops or something like that

[@pluginplay]

Great advice, I will certainly look more in to this parameter!

[@BlackMixture]

Dope! Love this dude!

[@pluginplay]

Thanks homie 🍻

[@nikamaisuradze8523]

Where da hell can I find "Expression Evolution" (6:44) man it doesn't show up to me, I have no Ide where to type that time*100

[@nikamaisuradze8523]

OOHHH FUCK MAN you should mention that its necessary to hold ALT key and then press that Stopwatch to enter the expression, MAN tutorial is very useful and thank you for that, but I wasted about an hour searching to find out how the fuck could I get EXPRESSIONS, Im sorry It just got me mad.

[@bikotheanimator6169]

Ok, I am struggling with an issue that has been frustrating me for hours. I followed multiple tutorials to do a water ripple effect for a logo. It came down to the Wave World and Caustics plug-ins. I have everything set to go. The problem is, maps and caustics gives a grey background that I can't remove while maintaining the effect. The water layer has a blue fill, but I would like to be able to remove the blue solid in the background and only have the effect on the logo image. I can't believe this is so complicated. Why is it so difficult to maintain an effect and have the background completely transparent? I am running out of time. I couldn't find a job in 3D animation anywhere, and now I am stuck trying to figure out problems in after effects with no job or money.

[@bikotheanimator6169]

I may have to try this. I tried another caustic tutorial, and for some reason, the caustics creates an extra wave ripple that I can't seem to remove, and it flickers and jumps all over the place. Annoying.

[@bikotheanimator6169]

Has anyone figured how to have an entire animation transparent while maintaining the effect? This is frustrating.

[@RobbeyT1]

Great tutorial, love it! The only problem is you cant buy AE because it's through monthly subscription only, and I hate that and wonder why people want to do such a thing. It's only through people willing to giving up control over the right to own anything that's getting problematic. AS we approach 2030 and the "Great Reset" type of world is gearing up, we seem willing to give away our freedoms for a dystopian type of world where "You will own nothing and be happy". I can see it coming on fast now and no one seems bothered, until eventually it's too late to change. Easy rule, either buy it and own it, or do without.

[@riki4644]

Sir, this is the youtube comment section.

[@arishaa2655]

you. aRe. AWSOME

[@opalstudios]

who was starting world war 3 in the background holy good vid btw

[@pluginplay]

Lmao thank you 🙏

[@jakeen229]

Great video, but I think there is an app that shows what buttons you're pressing. Still kinda new to AE and not sure how to pre comp

[@ijatefendi8396]

Hi, just wondering how come if i used solid layer instead shape layer? is there any different for the result? thanks!

[@pluginplay]

You can use a solid!

[@nipungrover7058]

@@pluginplay I tried using a solid but when I apply caustics to it, it doesn't work.

[@angelbaby3342]

Hey! Was wondering, is there anyway to do this with expressions or without using anything from the effects menu? I’m trying to make something like this for a website. But it needs to be in SVG. And the only way to do that is through Lottie. But Lottie pretty much does not export most of the effects from the presets menu. So you kind of have to manually create it with layers, strokes and paths properties or if you can use expressions, you can convert them to keyframes. Do you know how I could go about that?

[@pluginplay]

That is a tricky one! I would look into some javascript liquid animation libraries to accomplish this, if you need it to be web native. Otherwise you may have to go with a gif, webm video or image sequence.

[@angelbaby3342]

@@pluginplay gotcha! Thanks so much

[@joannam5420]

Great tutorial:) Thank you for this. I have one question though as I've been trying to familiarise myself with after affects - how do you get the waves to stop moving and turn into a solid background?

[@DaveHuxtableLanguages]

Wow! First I've ever heard of either of those effects. Great tut!

[@pluginplay]

Happy to help!

[@Otterlyjittery]

When I set the Water Surface to the Map comp (@3:02), I keep getting the error "Invalid Buffer Image Size". Does anyone know how to solve this problem?

[@nicoluminous]

curious when I add wave world my shape layer disappears. any idea why? Thank you for this video!

[@TrippleNippelGuy]

I have the caustics effect on a clip that I'm trying to use for a music video, adding caustics to the clip gives some tint of white on the video which decreases the quality and makes it impossible to colorgrade the clip properly. I decreased the surface opacity to 0 but the tint didn't go all the way. I am trying to have the wave effect with transparent background, so I can apply the effect to my clip and still manage to colorgrade it properly

[@nodame]

I have the same problem, hopefully someone will reply.

[@pluginplay]

Try playing around with the Sky, Lighting, and Material parameters in Caustics. I would set sky intensity to 0, specular reflection to 0 and ambient light to 1. See how far that gets you!

[@jeantabbo6206]

Hey, when doing the 3rd animation the end result does not show me the logo as it is, it shows it as water with no colors. Maybe because I'm using a text? Thanks 🙏

[@ladinaviva]

Fantastic video! Thank you 1000 times :) Water Paaaaarty!!

[@gogodiegosilalahi5166]

Can we made the wave blocked/reflect when facing an object around the area? Please answer i need for my study😔

[@krzysiekmargo797]

Oh man, I use this water effect on my video which is 4 minutes long, it says that rendering will be at least 12 hours LONG!

[@rawna]

When I switch the view to hight map the waves don't show up even when playing with the different options. It was so fun trying it tho. Cool stuff ;)

[@shoaibliaqat4180]

Hello Sir, Can You do the Cloth simulation For 2d Characters ?? thanks

[@pluginplay]

I am sure that is possible!

[@tenden2566]

Good day! I made a wave in the form of a barrier for a person, but how can you tint the wave itself?

[@jamaliphoto]

How to download this video? Tnk

[@Krisishere]

I'm a rookie with After Effects, so here's a basic question. With the wave world effect, would it be possible to add some slight coloring to the effect itself? I'm trying to overlay it on an icon, but I've got a hard time making it noticible.

[@polovnikvozmezdiya]

Try Hue/Saturation Effect and don't forget about Colorize checkbox

[@aaronjohnson4604]

@@polovnikvozmezdiya OMG thank you so much for your reply to his comment! I needed that!

[@leongwengtung57]

How make ur logo (white part to the highest) because you use shortcuts key so I don’t know how to do it

[@quinnetan6286]

the caustics effect didn't work on my layer

[@tachyon7777]

Awesome tutorial! Is it possible to create this animation programmatically, so that the text can be updated dynamically? And in general, how much of the Adobe After Effects features are available via programmatic API? Thanks!

[@HungHoatHinh999]

5:07 what shortcut you used for jump to other comp?

[@pluginplay]

It is tab

[@Justedmyr]

And That How A Tutorial Should Be. Respect man

[@pluginplay]

Preach 🙌 thanks for the support!

[@toratoft8525]

Hey thank you so much, quick question tho is this scalable? I’m making an box that could love this effect..

[@pluginplay]

The effect will work across the entire size of your composition :)

[@Donovann09]

The "wave world" effect is not included in ae by default is it ? What is this plugin please ?

[@nathanthomas8603]

Yeah, inc in AE

[@CBZProductions]

Does not work, looks like lines not waves

[@waqaransari3666]

I don't deserve all this information for free. Thanks.

[@aleksandrslarionovs3494]

My Wave World Wireframe Preview shows nothing, only Height Map works. Any idea how to fix it?

[@pluginplay]

Hmm that is weird. What type of layer is it on, a shape layer?

[@Otto-D]

Dont forget to set 2.Water as the Bottom in the Caustic Effects (After Pre-Comping your logo together with the water color shape layer)

[@poupou6666]

move it to second 1 and will bring up a wave

[@BarsAE20]

Thank you so much)))!! Very useful lesson for beginners/ I spent two hour, but that"s OK

[@pluginplay]

Glad we could help!

[@sathwikchandra5241]

thank you u saved my semester !!!!!

[@andrewliao3085]

Hello I did the exact same thing at till 4:20 but it does not work. It only shows a solid white color on screen, anyone can help??

[@pluginplay]

Hey Andrew, is your surface opacity turned way up? Can you confirm that you have the same numbers in your caustics effect as I did in the video?

[@anastasiaanastasia2273]

Thank you so much, awesome tutorial, really helpful!

[@SushilKasare-t7r]

Thank you for project file

[@HippyDipps]

Thank you so much! I was looking to making a Sonic Adventure title screen mock, and this was exactly what I was looking for!

[@EddietehFace]

Great tutorial! Question - is there a way to add perspective to these effects, instead of just top to bottom view? Thanks!

[@pluginplay]

Great question, Eddie. This is a 2d only effect :/ If you are looking for actual extrusions you probably want to look at a dedicated 3d program such as C4D, Blender, etc..

[@aijunwang6937]

hi, I had a problem: a warning "invalid image bugger size" showed up after I set the caustics, and the software crashed, could you help me?

[@Prosseen]

I have the same problem..

[@Prosseen]

Oh just figured it out! Instead of using shape layers I used solids and it solved the error

[@CAILAN]

thank you!!!

[@agfirs_o2579]

Never thought i would get into this editing after 6 weeks

[@cxssdf7392]

8:00 reminder

[@markgonzales3863]

hey guys just discovered this amazing effect. I am running into an error the moment I add the caustics effect over the map precomp in another shape layer. I have tried it several different ways and I am get an error every time. I am on a Mac as well. Could anyone let me know what might be going on. Thanks. I have not tried using Caustics with any other effect just wondering if I might have better results. HELP!

[@careof7070]

same here. image buffer size error. i tried increasing memory (up to 29 gb) and nothing helps.

[@roboshowtime]

thank u so much!

[@Dgirl228]

This is amazing! Thank you so much for this awesome tutorial!

[@tampaveterinaryhospital2616]

Great tutorial. I have a logo that I want to apply the affect to- but want only the logo to have the affect- with no background- so I can use the logo over a video channel. So, I would export RGB/Alpha and use the logo overlay in Premiere Pro. How does one do that?

[@pluginplay]

Hey there. You should be able to set the surface opacity to 0 and have the ground layer's background be transparent :)

[@MrJohnadrin]

can we reveal the logo more in the second example

[@InnerlockStudios]

Turn down the contrast on the fractal noise map

[@pluginplay]

Also try turning down the surface opacity in Caustics :))

[@djj3585]

Thank you for the awesome tutorial!, i dont speak English very well but it was very helpful ! learned a lot from you.

[@Chewbacca2000]

Thanks man!!

[@sukunabaee]

bro i got here from watching a free sound effects video

[@laurenbrown1209]

Love this video!! Is there a way to slow down the ripple effect? So it looks almost slow motion?

[@napoleonrainer5317]

I very like this！❤

[@GermanLoLGam3r]

I did the exact same steps, but when I pre-compose logo and background layer it does not only affect the logo but also (in your case) the blue background. Did they patch something with this effect? Can't find a solution anywhere and it's driving me nuts. Can't get the effect to only apply to one object and not affect the whole screen.

[@pluginplay]

Hey there, which of the 3 effects are you trying to accomplish?

[@GermanLoLGam3r]

@@pluginplay Trying to accomplish that my Object (AE Logo in your case) is the only thing affected by the waves. However, when I choose my pre-composed layer with my object and background in it as the bottom in the caustics effect, no matter what, it is always affecting the whole screen. So the waves are not only seen on the logo like in your case, but also on anything else that is behind it in the composition.

[@pluginplay]

@@GermanLoLGam3r Hmm have you made sure that your logo is black and white in a silhouette fashion? Can you upload a picture to imgur of what your setup looks like?

[@JedJedJedward]

Really helpful! A question: I need about 15 minutes of the pool effect. When I enter time*100 it makes an effect is about 5 and a half minutes and then stops moving. If I lower that number it lasts longer but the ripple become much slower. Anything I can do to lengthen this effect but with the same movement speed you have? Thanks!

[@pluginplay]

Hmm that is interesting! Sounds like a possible limit to After Effects. Could you possibly precomp the effect, duplicate it twice, stagger comps, and then time reverse the middle one?

[@SirCitizen]

merci super

[@Miller1107]

For the first effect is it possible to apply the caustics effect without the lost contrast? Its a pretty noticeable impact to the composition. Your wave effect for the first one in the intro was also much smoother than the tutorial one was, which I couldn't manage to replicate close enough to. Lastly, is it possible to mask this effect to just the logo?

[@SandroTrunz]

You're an absolute living LEGEND. Thanks so endlessly much for SHARING!

[@AssassinsTweed]

Another really good tutorial! I'm just watching these now to learn, not just because I need to do this kind of thing right now.

[@danieldebakowski7979]

Man! Great work, was searching for effect like that for a kont time…

[@sj_nyc]

cool how to video thanks! I have a question! Is there any way I can rotate or change the angle so it does look like 3D? I want to apply this effect on different angle other than top view.

[@pluginplay]

Hey there, unfortunately this effect works only in 2d space. You would probably need to jump into a dedicated 3d software to accomplsish a 3d version. That being said, you can definitely rotate the composition in 3d space, there just won't be any extrusions.

[@sj_nyc]

Plugin Play Thanks for reply! Yeah I’ve tried many ways but couldn't figure out how to apply on 3d. Thanks again!

[@animeveteran]

Hi! There were a couple shortcuts in here I was curious about that I couldn't find the solution to online. 1. How did you create a circle mask that automatically expanded from the center of the composition? 2. How did you shift key frames forward in the timeline without dragging? If anyone else has the answer, too, please reply! I appreciate this tutorial. Thanks so much for making it!

[@pluginplay]

Hey there! Sure thing :) I am working on OSX, but these should translate to Win via substituting CMD with CNTRL. 1 - Hold command while drawing mask and shift to scale proportionally. This works for Shape layers as well. 2 - Option + arrow keys will shift keyframes 1 frame and if you combine that with shift it will shift them 10 frames. Hope this helps!

[@20cas20]

Hi there. Thanks for the video. Is it possible to corp the effect to only a part of the screen? Best Regards

[@pluginplay]

Sure thing! Just set the comp size to be what you want the crop to be in all the comps except the most outside one.

[@iMmD-dy5fn]

Thanks 🙏

[@r0kset_xd129]

How did you do the elipse mask on the first one ? I am using after effect for the first time By te way it's a good video ! Continue like that :)

[@pluginplay]

Hey there. Select the eclipse tool and then select the layer you want to mask. Draw the eclipse over the layer :)

[@MarkShawMedia]

So this is a native effect, as in I don't need to download a separate plug in to achieve this?

[@pluginplay]

Correct, all built into vanilla After Effects!

[@MarkShawMedia]

@@pluginplay nice, I really gotta learn this program

[@kamaur01]

I haven't seen someone use this since AE6. Copy Pasta brought me here.

[@pluginplay]

There's a lot of powerful built in tools in AE that people tend to forget about. We're looking to showcase more of them in the future :) Thanks for the support with Copy Pasta!

[@shahrulidzham2170]

You just got a new subscriber. Keep creating cool tuts!

[@GabrielbodyboardHair]

Hey man, This is awesome! I wanted to know how you could apply Waveworld to a Fractal block? as in the wave would be the Fractal blocks moving outwards? if that makes sense?

[@pluginplay]

Thanks ya! If you use a displacement map on those fractal blocks and set the map to be your wave world effect you should be sitting pretty :)

[@mikexirou]

Thank you so much for sharing this!!!

[@pluginplay]

Thanks for the support!

[@nilangafonseka]

cant open the Ae file in windows

[@wolfgangmerneg5277]

hey bro what graphic card you using ? im looking for a good one, thanks for this awseome video !

[@pluginplay]

I am using a 2016 MBP touch bar 15 inch with a Radeon Pro 450 graphics card in it.

[@nathanthomas8603]

Great tut! Lets go ahead!

[@연-c9o]

6:23

[@DutchieDopa]

can you help me with the pool one on a picture of me?

[@pluginplay]

Sure thing! Send me an email [e-mail]

[@ahmedheriher3242]

thank you bro

[@pluginplay]

Our pleasure!

[@dilipb.n1574]

Which software using here

[@pluginplay]

Adobe After Effects

[@tvplusmorondava8920]

Excellent content, thank you

[@pluginplay]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@arishaa2655]

just staring

[@Arthur.H.Studio]

Excellent content, thank you

[@arishaa2655]

how did you learn this ??????

[@pluginplay]

Years of staring at screens haha

[@efenhuang1834]

Thx a lot!!!!! Pretty cool tutorial!~

[@pluginplay]

Thanks much!

[@MoraCogollo]

this is gold

[@srinivasrao134]

thanks sir

[@pluginplay]

Of course :)

[@LastGrifon]

Thank you!

[@pluginplay]

Our pleasure!

[@nilangafonseka]

thanks for the tutorial.. love it

[@lucasvignale261]

BEAST

[@maksym5150]

Thanks

[@pluginplay]

Welcome!

[@briseee_]

This saved me the week, thanks man , you´re awesome

[@pluginplay]

No. You're awesome ;) Glad we could help!

[@dozTO]

Pretty good~ Thx a lot!

[@pluginplay]

Glad you enjoy!

[@aspirante.a.vagabundo]

Excelent!

[@pluginplay]

Thanks so much!

[@karasekjh]

Hi. this is amazing! Is there a way to use it as a revel of a logo over a video from camera? transparent water of course. I like the third one most. sorry for my bad English. i hope you understand me.

[@pluginplay]

Yes you are able to do that! Try dropping in your footage in the 'Bottom' precomp underneath your logo. You should be good to go then!

[@scop8036]

When i create a shape layer, the layer appears on my timeline, but nothing happens in the viewer. Looks like i set a 0% opacity layer, but the shape layer opacity is 100%. Can someone help me??

[@scop8036]

Man, After Effects looks IMPOSSIBLE to me. I just don't understand why i can't apply some effects to some solids, and some not. The need of the "pre compose" thing don't get inside me head!

[@sublimedesign6052]

​@@scop8036 Hey mate, if your referring to the shape layer for caustics and the ripples not showing through make sure you select "move all attributes" option and tick the box for "adjust comp duration" when pre composing. Took me time to realise this LOL! AE is a real mind mincer haha