[Community Project] WIP Weather & Ocean Water Shader

[KITATUS]

Also a quick note just in case, the Time Scale value is set to 1 by default, which is 1min game-time = 1min real-time, try setting it to like 1000 to make sure.

If that is still not it can you clarify the issue for me? I saw in another thread it mentioned the sun moved for half a day and then quit. Is that your issue, or does the sun/moon not rotate at all? If it doesn't rotate at all, where is the sun related to time of day? is it right at noon straight up, or closer to the horizon (like 4pm/9am)? Thanks man.

That was it. MAN I feel stupid. Hahahaha.

[DotCam]

That was it. MAN I feel stupid. Hahahaha.

Oh awesome, great to hear it is working for you! I really need to write some documentation for it all, sorry for the troubles.

[Ranmas]

I would have posted this video along with my last post, but you know how it goes. Someone broke something during an update and I had to wait for them to push out a quick fix.

[zeOrb]

Wow, this project is dope!
It is literally the most beautiful water I've saw and it even does not require tinkering, excellent job guys!

[Regalith]

That is looking great guys! I now have a few questions for you...

First is the water surface viewed from below, I'm guessing you added in another one sided material plane to get that effect while underwater? Or are you changing the base material values while underwater? I'm trying to decide which way to go on that, leaning towards modifying the material since there are already 2 plane meshes.
Second, those light shafts look great! Was this accomplished using a mesh plane "godray"? also are they placed manually or are they particles?
And of course the caustics, did you guys use a light function? Or is it added to the sea-floor material itself?

Hey there, I was the one who set up the underwater effects, and to answer your questions:

1. There's a new plane that is enabled when underwater. It's just has a translucent material on it with panning normal maps.
2. The light shafts are actually just the default occlusion-based light shafts that come with the directional light. The only difference is the occlusion mask darkness is set to -1 to intensify the effect.
3. The caustics were created using a light function on the directional light. Its much like the panning texture on the water, but I blended 3 different textures. There's also a second direction light that's set up for static lightmaping, though Unreal doesnt support lightmapping on foliage.

O ya, there's also an exponential height fog in the scene too that really helps with scattering the light entering the water and limiting view distance.

hope that answers your questions

[TorQueMoD]

When I build my level (just a simple test scene) I get the error 'Performance Warning BP_Skydome_C_0 Large actor receives a pre-shadow and will cause an extreme performance hit unless bCastDynamicShadow is set to false."
Problem is I can't find anywhere to set this value. According to the UE docs it happens when using a movable mesh... https://answers.unrealengine.com/que...l-cause-a.html
Might be something you guys need to update inside the Blueprint?

[TorQueMoD]

I found the issue. The inner cloud sphere object had both static and dynamic shadows checked inside the Blueprint Component. If you uncheck the Dynamic Shadows option it fixes the problem.

I have another question however... how do you change the default moon mesh? I thought it would simply be to replace it inside the Blueprint but for some reason its still using your mesh. I even tried re-importing my own mesh as a replacement for the moon model but its still using the original somehow.


Finally would it also be possible for you to put together a simple tutorial showing how to adjust the various values of the blueprint via the level blueprint so we can turn lightning on and off, increase and decrease cloud opacity, cloud speed etc. at various times?

[voviks21]

Hi! Can anyone explain me how to lauch this project on windows without UE4 develop program? I cant find binary for windows to launch it...

[DotCam]

I would have posted this video along with my last post, but you know how it goes. Someone broke something during an update and I had to wait for them to push out a quick fix.

Cool! I never expected a project like this would use the ocean, but it is great to see! I have an idea to make the ocean in your scene look better while remaining cheap performance wise. It is basically a highly stripped down version of the material, but with a couple of additions. I will try and post it this weekend for you guys!

Wow, this project is dope!
It is literally the most beautiful water I've saw and it even does not require tinkering, excellent job guys!

Aww shucks thank you zeOrb!
Hopefully the new version will be even better

Hey there, I was the one who set up the underwater effects, and to answer your questions:

1. There's a new plane that is enabled when underwater. It's just has a translucent material on it with panning normal maps.
2. The light shafts are actually just the default occlusion-based light shafts that come with the directional light. The only difference is the occlusion mask darkness is set to -1 to intensify the effect.
3. The caustics were created using a light function on the directional light. Its much like the panning texture on the water, but I blended 3 different textures. There's also a second direction light that's set up for static lightmaping, though Unreal doesnt support lightmapping on foliage.

O ya, there's also an exponential height fog in the scene too that really helps with scattering the light entering the water and limiting view distance.

hope that answers your questions

Hey man good to see you on the forums!

I am really surprised the light shafts were using the default occlusion from the directional light, they look so much better than the last time I tried that approach. But as mentioned I think the height fog is making the difference so I will give it another try. And as I suspected the caustics are a light function, I have the same method in my master project at the moment but it needs a bit more tweaking.

Thanks again for the info, you guys are doing a great job!

[DotCam]

I found the issue. The inner cloud sphere object had both static and dynamic shadows checked inside the Blueprint Component. If you uncheck the Dynamic Shadows option it fixes the problem.

I have another question however... how do you change the default moon mesh? I thought it would simply be to replace it inside the Blueprint but for some reason its still using your mesh. I even tried re-importing my own mesh as a replacement for the moon model but its still using the original somehow.

Hey sorry for your troubles there, that is one thing I managed to forget to fix before releasing the buoyancy version (the shadow warnings noted above). I have turned them off now for the next release.

As far as the moon goes, all you should need to do is open the blueprint, go to the Components tab, select the moon, then in the details panel you should see a Static Mesh box with the moon selected. Change that to whatever you'd like, the material is being set from the "Set Sky Parameters" function which gets called from the Construction Script. So if you change the mesh, you will most likely want to change the Material as well.

Finally would it also be possible for you to put together a simple tutorial showing how to adjust the various values of the blueprint via the level blueprint so we can turn lightning on and off, increase and decrease cloud opacity, cloud speed etc. at various times?

The majority of those properties can be adjusted in the main viewport, if you select the Skydome from the scene outliner, all of the properties can be found in the details panel.

For dynamically changing the values you will need a reference to the Skydome blueprint in the level blueprint and then set various properties. But the answer is yes, I will do a tutorial for that asap!

Hi! Can anyone explain me how to lauch this project on windows without UE4 develop program? I cant find binary for windows to launch it...

This project is meant to be a demonstration of the Ocean and Skydome, not an executable program. While everything would work in a binary version, you wouldn't be able to do anything other than look at it. For the time being I have no plans to make this into an executable, it is meant to help other developers get a jump start at creating these systems in their own game. The project may never get to a point where it would be a standalone, so I cant make any promises. As it stands UE4 is required to use this project.

[BrUnO XaVIeR]

What about the water shader they've shown on TwitchTv. Anybody knows where to get it?

[DotCam]

What about the water shader they've shown on TwitchTv. Anybody knows where to get it?

It's on the Learn tab of the launcher

[Alexarg]

Do you mean the Epics's water shader?
You can download them from your launcher inside the the "Learn" tab

[BrUnO XaVIeR]

For real? Omg, I swear I didn't see it there. Thanks!

[TorQueMoD]

... the material is being set from the "Set Sky Parameters" function which gets called from the Construction Script. So if you change the mesh, you will most likely want to change the Material as well.

Ahh that would be why swapping out the mesh entirely didn't do anything because its still just a sphere but the material is set elsewhere so I couldn't see the change. Is there some reason you chose to set the material inside the construction script rather than simply inside the Components? Maybe it would be possible to expose the material to the editor in the future so people can change it more easily?

Thanks for the help!