WaterSurface Shader

The WaterSurface Shader is used to create indoor water volumes and rivers.

Basic Properties

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 is using a cubemap for the Water Volume.

4. Waves movement speed sets the speed of the waves movement. Goes 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. Bumpmap Scale makes the waves and ripples, which are created by using the Bumpmap, look bigger.

6. Big waves scale scales the big waves on the bumpmap. Only works if the BumpMap Scale >0.

7. Small waves scale does the same as Big waves scale for the smaller waves.

8. Reflect amount changes the amount of reflection on the water surface. The higher the number, the bigger the reflection.

9. 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.

10. Transparency ratio changes the perceived transparency of the water surface. The higher the number the less transparent the water seems to be. Also the higher the number the more the reflections are visible.

Sunshine and Foam

11. Sunshine enables sunshine reflection on the water surface.

12. Sun shine glossiness determines how glossy the water surface is. The lower the number, the shinier the water becomes on a bigger area.

13. The Sun Multiplier sets how strong the reflection of the sun is visible.

14. Foam enables Foam rendering. Only on High and VeryHigh Specs.

15. Foam factor controls the foam amount on water surface intersection with other opaque scene geometry. The higher the number the less the foam amount is.

16. Foam multiplier sets the visibility of the foam amount controlled by the Foam factor. The higher the number the less transparent the foam is.

Sun Shading and Soft Intersection Factor

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

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

No Flow, No Vertex Fog and Real-time Reflections

19. The Real-time reflections checkbox enables Real-Time Reflections on the water surface

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

21. 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.