WaterVols shader

Basic Shader Parameters

The WaterVols shader is used for creating lakes and other water areas.

1. The Water Volume helps with creating the water shader for indoor water volumes and river rendering. It requires a cube map.

2. Bumpmap is used to create the waves and ripples on the surface of the water.

3. The Environment slot uses a cubemap for the Water Volume.

4. Waves movement speed sets the speed of the wave's movement. The settings go from -4 to +4, where 0 is no movement at all (looks like it is frozen in time), the + numbers move the water towards the direction of creation, and the - numbers move the water in the opposite direction.

5. Tilling changes the amount of texture map tilling on the water surface.

6. Bumpmap Scale makes the waves and ripples, which are created using the Bumpmap, look bigger.

7. Reflect amount changes the amount of reflection on the water surface. The higher the number, the stronger the reflection.

8. Fresnel Bias determines how much reflection vs. refraction is visible for any given pixel depending on what angle you look at the surface. The higher the Fresnel Bias number the more reflection is visible on the water surface. It only works if Reflect amount is >0.

9. Refraction bump scale allows you to set how much the Bumpmap effects the refraction.

No Flow, No Vertex Fog and Real-time Reflections

10. The Real-time reflections setting enables real-time reflections on the water surface

11. No vertex fog disables fog per vertex. Can be useful when the fog effect is otherwise too much.

12. No flow stops the directional movement of the water. It will look like a lake with all the reflections and sunshine and waves moving in the same place.

Sunshine, Sun Shading and Soft Intersection Factor

13. Sunshine enables sunshine reflection on the water surface.

14. The Sun Multiplier sets how strongly the sun reflects on the water.

15. Soft intersection factor controls softness of water surface intersection with other opaque scene geometry.

16. Sun Shading enables Sun Shading. Use it when the water surface is outdoors. Creates an overall lit surface for the water.