Lake and Underwater
Playway Water system is great for a huge Ocean but it does not work so well on small bodies of Water.
Introducing FastOcean from bearWorks. This asset has many issues that I need to fix, but it catch my attention with some unique features.
- It is fast. Someway they managed to get the reflections faster than the classic planar reflection that is so slow with Aqua, Water4 or Smartwater.
- I love the Glare effect, it is visually amazing.
- The code is easy to understand and modify.
But there are several serious issues that I need to fix:
- the shoreline is not working great on my project (linear mode plus too much light in the day, the result is just white or invisible in the night).
- the ocean does not respond to Global Illumination, in the night it the same as in the day light.
- i don’t like the way the transparency is done… there is no distance fade.
- no sound effects under the water.
Having fixed all these problems, now I have something that is working good for my use, I can change easily the water from calm to choppy, check if I am inside the water or out for the character, and the underwater is yet not perfect, I will polish it later, but it is working enough for now. For some reason my changes have corrupted the underwater transition, this is something that I will deal later.
I have added a check for underwater and turn on a hipass filter to get the sounds more low. I will add a specific underwater sound when doing the main character.
I have also managed to add the underwater vegetation, which is surprisingly not slowing down the game even if it is quite dense, I am using Yughues Underwater Plants v.2 which is I think the best in that category.
Here is the modified FastOcean shader with its glare effect, improved automatic shoreline, day and night cycle compatible and with a corrected transparency that fades with the distance.
And the underwater, without fishes yet…but working day and night.
And the video because it is always better animated.