Maya render tests, tree texture and melting ice by animating vertices

Shot_13 showing the melted ice men. I created a simple polygon plane and applied a mia_material_x_passes water shader to it, and animated the vertices on the soft select option, and the ice men move through a combination of a rig, plus lattice deformers and again, moving the vertices in soft select mode....

Below left: Perspective view

Below Right and main image: Render showing tree geometry with a 2K texture map and lighting....this render took approx 30 mins, so I will double check all the settings before it gets sent to the render farm....