img_effect_WaveWarp

The fourth and last of the pack's img_effect_* distortion set, and like CircleWarp, Liquify, and Stretch, it's filed under the pack's Deprecated category - present and working, not the node the author is actively building on. This one applies a sinusoidal ripple across the image - a water-surface or heat-haze kind of distortion, rather than a single localized pull or push.

How it works

wave_direction sets the wave's orientation: horizontal and vertical ripple pixels along one axis in a repeating pattern, while radial ripples outward from a center point (center_x/center_y) like concentric rings - the classic water-drop effect. wave_frequency controls how many ripple cycles fit across the image (low values give a few broad waves, high values give tight, dense ripples), and strength controls how far pixels get displaced by each ripple - negative values flip the displacement direction, which for a repeating wave mostly just shifts the phase rather than producing a visually distinct result.

The inputs and outputs that matter

• image (required) - what you're rippling.
• strength (FLOAT, -2 to 2, default 1) - displacement amount per ripple.
• wave_frequency (FLOAT, 0.1–20, default 4) - number of ripple cycles across the image. Low = broad, gentle waves. High = tight, dense ripples that start to look like noise past a certain point.
• wave_direction - horizontal, vertical, or radial.
• center_x / center_y (FLOAT, 0–1, default 0.5 each) - only meaningful in radial mode, where they set the ripple's origin point.

One output: IMAGE, the rippled result.

How to install it

ComfyUI Manager: search ComfyUI-Apt_Preset, install, restart. Manual:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/cardenluo/ComfyUI-Apt_Preset
pip install -r requirements.txt

install.bat is Windows-only; on Linux (comfy.icu's executor included) run pip install -r requirements.txt directly. No model downloads needed - this runs on the pack's general image-processing dependencies (opencv-python-headless, scipy), bundled with the rest of the pack's much larger requirement list.

Common issues

center_x/center_y only do anything in radial mode - if you're in horizontal or vertical and the ripple doesn't seem to respond to moving the center, that's expected; those two directions ripple across the whole frame uniformly regardless of where the center point is set.

High wave_frequency values (double digits) combined with high strength tend to produce something closer to visual noise than a recognizable ripple - if the output looks like static rather than a wave, back one or both of those down before assuming something's broken. Conversely, if nothing visible is happening at all, check strength isn't sitting near 0.

Being deprecated with no successor named in the current schema for this specific effect, this node is the one to reach for if you specifically want this look, but don't expect further development on it - tune the four parameters harder if it's not quite right, rather than waiting for new options. Standard pack-wide install note: a fresh ComfyUI-Apt_Preset setup pulls a large requirements.txt covering the pack's other 100+ nodes, and there's a documented case of that failing to import - if you hit IMPORT FAILED, check the ComfyUI console for the actual missing-package error first.