I havn't looked at the manual but the circular wave seems to work in all the axis. Didn't animate it either but that shouldn't (ehem) make any difference. If you'r stuck (and your object can be rotated to a different plane with little problem) then try this: First, rotate your object so that the plane you want to deforme is in the plane that is working. Then group your object to reset the bounding box and hot point to 0,0,0 and apply your deformation. Then rotate the object back to its proper position. The deformer works in relation to the bounding box coordinants and not the object. This means that you can group the object again & again and apply many deformers to the same piece, providing you have a fast machine and some patience.