Ripple effect

[secretsquirrel]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to create a watery rippling effect, but I'm having no luck so far. Does anyone know of a good tutorial for this kind of thing?

I found a tutorial on flashkit.com, but for some reason I couldn't get it to work.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance...

 

[funkymonk]

There is a pretty simple one at

http://www.designsbymark.com/flashtut/ft_wateripp.shtml

You can most Likely design this a bit better but it gives an idea where to start.

roda B-)

 

[secretsquirrel]

Thanks, roda.

It's given me somewhere to start, but I was more after something along the lines of the example at:

http://www.flashkit.com/tutorials/Special_Effects/Ripple_E-James_Cu-528/index.shtml

 

[funkymonk]

Ahh.... That's quite cool. I think I'll have a go at that one, cheers for the link.

roda B-)

 

[secretsquirrel]

Let me know if you get it working...

It's a bit weird, cos it says to draw a filled circle to use as your mask, but when you look in the .fla the mask is just the outline of a circle.

 

[HowardMarks]

i am too trying to attempt that tutorial and im buggered if it makes any sense. I've got something near the effect but it looks awful! Nick Price
nick.price@misuk.net

 

[funkymonk]

Let us see if we can crack this together then.....

rod B-)

 

[secretsquirrel]

If I follow the tutorial, my exported movie just appears as the static image I started with, although the MC in my library plays as it should.

But if I change the mask to a ring, the MC does nothing except fade the whole image in and out.

 

[HowardMarks]

if you move the MC slightly so that the picture within it and the picture on the maintimeline dont directly line up you begin to see a ripple effect appear..When they're directly on top of one another the mask makes no difference as the whole image is always there all the time! Nick Price
nick.price@misuk.net

 

[funkymonk]

OK..... I have just finished the tutorial. Mine came out pretty much the same as the one on the tutorial. I did find it a bit hard reading through and trying to understand what he ment, like telling me to put the picture on the mask layer when he'd already told me to put the circle there. I guess that is part of the learning process, spoting when the tutorial gets it wrong. Anyway, my .FLA turned out the same as the download but one thing I noticed is this. The quality of the finnished product is the placment of the "MC_ripple" on the main stage. It needs to be lined up with the picture on the main stage so when your mc plays, it dosent distort loads, just a little bit. Subtlety is key here I think. How are you two doing...?

rod B-)

 

[funkymonk]

Another thing.... Are you using a fill or stroke for the mask...? It does not work with a stroke as I found out so make sure you convert lines to fills....

rod B-)

 

[HowardMarks]

ive completed mine but the effect is far too subtle to even be seen...Just cant seem to get it right Nick Price
nick.price@misuk.net

 

[secretsquirrel]

Just about got it working. It's not quite the same as the one in the tutorial though

Are you guys using rings or circles?

 

[HowardMarks]

well i was using circles...and then i changed to thin rings, then to fat rings. And the darn thing still doesnt work...Its odd cause the movieclip seems to play just fine, it just doesnt effect the main movie...arggh! Nick Price
nick.price@misuk.net

 

[secretsquirrel]

Finally!!!

Thanks roda, I forgot about converting strokes to fills

 

[HowardMarks]

yeah i got mine just about working now. thanks guys Nick Price
nick.price@misuk.net

 

[funkymonk]

heres my finished piece.

http://www.c-3.co.uk/test/flash/ripples.html

I can put up the .fla as well but it is the same as the one I downloaded - more or less. One thing I did notice with the .fla from Flash Kit is his picture gets larger on the fade out at the end on the mc. Don't know why that is, mine stays the same size cause he didn't tell me to enlarge it at the end.

rod B-)

 

[HowardMarks]

wow that looks much better than the one on flashkit! well done fella! Nick Price
nick.price@misuk.net

 

[funkymonk]

The one I did is a large file so it's up to you if you want to see it. Most Likely the same as your own though. First thing I did was grab an image from 'my pictures' in windows. didn't think of croping first... DOH..!!

rod B-)

 

[HowardMarks]

any chance u could post it as a flash 4 file? Im still waiting for my copy of 5 from Macromedia! Now worries about filesize i have a fast connection. Cheers mate! Nick Price
nick.price@misuk.net