Wave modifier doesn't work on my cylinder

Question

I'm still trying to get used to using Blender, but I'm having trouble animating a cylinder the way I want. I want to get the cylinder to move in a wave motion, like this:

So I figured I should use the wave modifier tool because you can make sinusoidal type motions with it, but when I try to use it, it only really animates the circles at the ends of the cylinder.

I thought maybe I needed to subdivide along the surface of the cylinder to allow it to move in an up and down motion like I'm looking for, but that didn't seem to help. Any ideas?

Answer 1

To make it work properly you have to apply transformations to the object and divide the mesh to make the Wave Modifier work.

First apply the Rotation and Scale (Ctrl+A-->Rotation&Scale) to the cylinder.

Then divide it using the loop cuts in Edit Mode. Press Ctrl+R and increase the cuts number using the Mouse Scroll.

Important thing here is to place the origin point in the desired position, since the wave movement starts from where it is. Select the desired edge loop in Edit Mode, then press Shift+S-->Cursor to Selected.

With the cursor placed press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+C in Object Mode to move the origin point there. Then add a Wave Modifier and play with its settings.