The Wave Warp effect produces the appearance of a wave traveling across an image. You can produce a variety of different wave shapes, including square, circular, and sine waves. The Wave Warp effect is automatically animated at a constant speed across the time range (without keyframes). To vary speeds, you need to set keyframes.

Wave Type

The shape of the wave.

Wave Height

The distance, in pixels, between wave peaks.

Wave Width

The size of the wave in pixels.

Direction

The direction the wave travels across the image. For example, a value of 225° makes the waves travel diagonally from upper right to lower left.

Wave Speed

The speed (in cycles per second) at which the waves travel. A negative value reverses the wave direction, and a value of 0 produces no movement. To vary wave speed over time, set this control to 0, and then set keyframes for the Phase property.

Pinning

Which edges to pin so that the pixels along those edges aren’t displaced.

Phase

The point along the waveform at which a wave cycle begins. For example, 0° starts the wave at the midpoint of its downward slope, and 90° starts it at the lowest point in the trough.

Antialiasing

Sets the amount of anti‑aliasing, or edge smoothing, to perform on the image. In many cases, lower settings produce satisfactory results; a high setting can significantly increase rendering time.