Purpose

Ripple simulates waves on a heightfield over an XZ plane. Use it for pond rings, rain, interference and plucked surfaces. Each grid location has one height, so this is a surface-wave solver without overturning waves or detached liquid particles.

Use

Place Ripple in the Geometry view, under Solvers. Start with the default 256 by 256 grid over a 4 by 4 world area. Seed Splash On Build gives an initial disturbance. Press Drop to add a central splash, or raise Rain Rate for repeated drops.

For impacts from another node, select its points resource in Resources > Connections. To add an obstacle, connect an sdf resource and change Obstacle from Off to Reflect off SDF or Confine inside SDF.

Inputs and outputs

The solver publishes the field0 height field and displaced surface points. The additional point output P_2 carries the per-point color data in the current declaration.

Connect the height field to Rigid’s field input to try buoyancy. Enable Buoyancy on Rigid and align its Water Level and Water Height Scale with the Ripple surface. This connection lets Rigid read the water; impacts back into Ripple need their own points connection.

Controls

• Grid Cells and World Size set sampling density. Rest Plane Y positions the surface and Height Scale scales its displacement.
• Wave Speed controls propagation. Damping controls decay. Max Substeps limits the stability substeps, so check the reported effective speed when pushing speed or grid density.
• Source Strength and Source Radius control disturbances. Rain Rate is drops per second, with Rain Strength set separately.
• Boundary offers Reflect, Absorb, Wrap and Fixed 0. Absorb Band controls the width of the open-water damping region.
• Trough Colour, Crest Colour and Foam Colour shape the point colors. Foam Amount is a color effect on the surface, not a separate whitewater simulation.
• Simulate pauses advancement. Reset restarts the surface; Seed Splash On Build determines whether a new initial splash appears. Rebuild applies pending grid changes when Auto-Rebuild is off.

Notes

Choose Absorb when reflected waves from the edge distract from the impact. Wrap connects opposite boundaries and is useful for repeating patterns.

The height field and displaced points are resources for downstream use. The current polygonal Path Trace workflow does not turn the height field into a water material or mesh by itself.

Ports

Inputs

• geometry points
• sdf sdf collider
• points points

Outputs

• field0 height field
• P points
• P_2 points

Parameters

Ripple

Auto-Rebuild on Build Params (Autorebuild) Toggle op('ripple').par.Autorebuild

Default:

On

Options:

Off, On

Rebuild (Rebuildnow) Pulse op('ripple').par.Rebuildnow

Default:

None

Simulate (Simulate) Toggle op('ripple').par.Simulate

Default:

On

Options:

Off, On

Reset (Resetsolver) Pulse op('ripple').par.Resetsolver

Default:

None

Domain

Grid Cells X (Gridx) Int op('ripple').par.Gridx

Default:

256

Range:

8 to 4096

Grid Cells Z (Gridz) Int op('ripple').par.Gridz

Default:

256

Range:

8 to 4096

World Size X (Worldsizex) Float op('ripple').par.Worldsizex

Default:

4

Range:

0.05 to 200

World Size Z (Worldsizez) Float op('ripple').par.Worldsizez

Default:

4

Range:

0.05 to 200

Rest Plane Y (Floory) Float op('ripple').par.Floory

Default:

0

Range:

-100 to 100

Height Scale (Heightscale) Float op('ripple').par.Heightscale

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 20

Seed Splash On Build (Seedsplash) Toggle op('ripple').par.Seedsplash

Default:

On

Options:

Off, On

Rebuild Grid (Rebuild) Pulse op('ripple').par.Rebuild

Default:

None

Solver

Wave Speed (c) (Wavespeed) Float op('ripple').par.Wavespeed

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 40

Damping (k) (Damping) Float op('ripple').par.Damping

Default:

0.2

Range:

0 to 20

Max Substeps (CFL) (Substeps) Int op('ripple').par.Substeps

Default:

4

Range:

1 to 32

Drop (central splash) (Drop) Pulse op('ripple').par.Drop

Default:

None

Source

Sources (Hdrsrc) Str op('ripple').par.Hdrsrc

Read only.

Default:

"" (Empty String)

Source Strength (Sourcestrength) Float op('ripple').par.Sourcestrength

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 20

Source Radius (Sourceradius) Float op('ripple').par.Sourceradius

Default:

0.1

Range:

0.001 to 5

Rain Rate (drops/sec) (Rainrate) Float op('ripple').par.Rainrate

Default:

0

Range:

0 to 2000

Rain Strength (Rainstrength) Float op('ripple').par.Rainstrength

Default:

0.5

Range:

0 to 20

Boundary

Boundary (Boundarymode) Menu op('ripple').par.Boundarymode

Default:

0

Options:

Reflect (walls), Absorb (open water), Wrap, Fixed 0

Absorb Band (fraction) (Absorbwidth) Float op('ripple').par.Absorbwidth

Default:

0.1

Range:

0 to 0.5

Obstacle (SDF) (Obstaclemode) Menu op('ripple').par.Obstaclemode

Default:

0

Options:

Off, Reflect off SDF, Confine inside SDF

Outputs

Height Field Resource (Heightname) Str op('ripple').par.Heightname

Default:

ripple_height

Displaced Points Resource (Pointsname) Str op('ripple').par.Pointsname

Default:

ripple_points

Color

Surface Colour (Hdrcol) Str op('ripple').par.Hdrcol

Read only.

Default:

"" (Empty String)

Trough Colour (Colorlor) Float op('ripple').par.Colorlor

Default:

0.02

Range:

0 to 1

Trough Colour G (Colorlog) Float op('ripple').par.Colorlog

Default:

0.1

Range:

0 to 1

Trough Colour B (Colorlob) Float op('ripple').par.Colorlob

Default:

0.3

Range:

0 to 1

Crest Colour (Colorhir) Float op('ripple').par.Colorhir

Default:

0.55

Range:

0 to 1

Crest Colour G (Colorhig) Float op('ripple').par.Colorhig

Default:

0.85

Range:

0 to 1

Crest Colour B (Colorhib) Float op('ripple').par.Colorhib

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Foam Colour (Foamtintr) Float op('ripple').par.Foamtintr

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Foam Colour G (Foamtintg) Float op('ripple').par.Foamtintg

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Foam Colour B (Foamtintb) Float op('ripple').par.Foamtintb

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 1

Foam Amount (Foamamount) Float op('ripple').par.Foamamount

Default:

0.5

Range:

0 to 20