That Sinking Feeling

Following on with my success at creating a realistic wave movement in the water I thought I would challenge myself. I decided to create something else that could be useful to the group and the project. I decided to try and create a ripple effect on the water. With the help of this tutorial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa6udmVKGn8&feature=related) and a few hours this is that I managed to create:

Using various different components and of course my favourite mental ray materials I have managed to create a realistic ripple, although the timing of the ball and ripples could be a bit more synchronised (it looked better in 3DS then it did rendered). I used a variety of new tools, such as the space warps and the bind to space warp tool. I clicked onto the geometric/deformable menu and chose ripple. I then used the bind to space warp tool to add the ripple effect to the plane. I was then able to adjust the settings of the ripple through the modify tab. I then added a ball and quickly used the auto key to animate the ripple and ball.