[Community Project] WIP Weather & Ocean Water Shader

[n00854180t]

@n00854180t - I have been trying to get a better mesh setup working, so far it has not worked out, changing the vert positions in a BP is creating a lot of artifacts when playing in editor. I abandoned that approach for the time being going back to a large sub-d plane as the tessellation does a pretty good job, but it's still something I would like to try and implement at a later date, so thank you for all the info and I will keep you posted on how it goes!

Hmm, you shouldn't need to change the vertex positions for that - just make it static with the layout mentioned before (main grid surrounded by planes, with a wall at the edge). T3D used the vertex shader to push the skirt's top verts up (and maybe out too) to make it seemless. Moving with the player should be done by just transforming it, make it a BP or whatever with your statically laid out verts in the configuration above (you could even use a sub-d for the middle grid too) and then attach it to the character (which should be offset to the grid so that there are only a few grid squares behind them wasted) and lock the Z position.

The only vert changes that are really needed at run time are pushing the very end skirt up to the horizon so that it works when players move in the z direction.

You'll have to account for the rotation and stuff in your wave simulation - you don't want it to rotate with the player rotation, basically.

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Regardless of the infinite ocean idea, it looks awesome, very nice work.

[DotCam]

Ok guys, I could keep adjusting the system forever, instead I am releasing an initial version of the system today. Right now Buoyancy is not working correctly, the system is all there, but needs more troubleshooting, hopefully I have that ready by the weekend.

So without further delay, Here we go, for UE4 version 4.5.1

I was able to reduce the download size, so only the Demo Project can be downloaded (to cut back on internet traffic).

For a demo project containing the Ocean System and More - DOWNLOAD version 0.1.2 (bug fix) now on GitHub, download the version that matches your editor version
-Everything has been placed into a basic scene so you can just start playing with the waves and explore the systems involved.
-You get all of the files in the download above, plus I have included my WIP Skydome & weather system. It is far from complete, but I like it better than the default for now, and may be a good starting point creating your own system.


This system uses techniques from many tutorials, however it would not have been possible without the help of the following users:
JBaldwin, Handkor, berna , ufna, Ehamloptiran, KhenaB, gregdumb and many others. Click on their names to see the corresponding threads!

For those wanting more info on how the waves are created mathematically, THIS ARTICLE goes over everything. Specifically have a look at the section on "Gerstner Waves" for the actual equations that produce the waves.

However I have a request for those who download, since the community helped me create this, I want this to become a Community project, so if you have an idea to improve either the Sky/Weather or Ocean system (which both need more work), please make the changes on your end, and either send them to me and I will incorporate them into a master project for all of this, or post a link with your changes here, and I will update the project.

The forums have many requests for a working water/weather system, and I think that with this project we could create an awesome looking, highly functional product that will give other users a chance to learn how these are created. I have not included everything in the downloads above, but I will be continually updating them as new parts are added.

So to the Community: Please help me make this a reality!! It would be such a great tool to have around for all of us, never mind just those who are new to game development.

For now any improvements you can share, please either post them here, or PM me with the files, I will integrate them and add a new release for the community.

I'm still working on the tutorials, but wanted to allow anyone who wants to download it give it a try now, as it is highly commented.

I love the UE4 community here and made it my mission to provide as much content for free as possible, it's my way of saying thank you to Epic for the awesome community they built here, you all feel like family to me!
This project wasn't supposed to take this long, however I am going through a difficult time at the moment. For this reason I could not work on this project as much as I would have liked to, and is why I would appreciate anyone's help to improve this system for the community.

Enjoy everyone! Look forward to any suggestions, additional features, and help from the community to make this even better.

[huahuapro]

thanks a lot! great work indeed!

[Nobody]

Very cool stuff! Unfortunately my Project ist still on 4.4, so I can't fully play with this for now until I can Update to 4.5

[DotCam]

Very cool stuff! Unfortunately my Project ist still on 4.4, so I can't fully play with this for now until I can Update to 4.5

I will be adding a download for version 4.4 over the next couple of days as well. I don't know how much demand there is for earlier versions, but I can add them as well if requested.

[Shockwave-peter]

This account's public links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!

Beware, you can get your dropbox account permanently blocked! Better push project to git/bitbucket or upload to mega.co.nz
and thanks for sharing this with the community!

[DotCam]

This account's public links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!

Beware, you can get your dropbox account permanently blocked! Better push project to git/bitbucket or upload to mega.co.nz
and thanks for sharing this with the community!

Well that escalated quickly! LOL... Thanks for the heads up

Looks like I need to find a better upload site, sorry about that! I didn't expect it to generate this much traffic. Will update the thread with new links shortly!

[BrUnO XaVIeR]

Wow, great shader! Bookmarked

[DotCam]

Ok guys new links are there, hope Mega works better...

On a side note, I managed to get the project down to just 156mb so I decided I would only upload the one part. If you wan't just the Ocean files, let me know, but everything is included in the link above.

[Nobody]

I will be adding a download for version 4.4 over the next couple of days as well.

That would be awesome

[n00854180t]

@DotCam - seriously awesome work man! Now that it's packaged up I can maybe take a look at it and try to get an infinite plane going, though I may need help pushing the verts around in shader and also building the mesh itself (your grid + planes to stretch to the horizon (just flat textured is fine there) + a vertical wall on the edge). Then there's the issue of offsetting the X/Y calculation for your wave system based on player rotation and movement.

I may not get to play with it for a bit but when I do I'll try and get as far as possible and then hit you up and we can maybe work through it together.

[calmasacow]

download always stalls out around 70%

[n00854180t]

download always stalls out around 70%

You might try another browser, Mega can be finnicky.

[DotCam]

download always stalls out around 70%

I just tested it out and it did download the whole file, it did pause for a couple of seconds at 40% & 81% but did end up completing. I am using Chrome.

I don't know if DropBox will ever let me share files again (apparently they don't like internet traffic ), but I can see if that link still works, will PM you with it if you aren't able to get it from Mega.

[DotCam]

@DotCam - seriously awesome work man! Now that it's packaged up I can maybe take a look at it and try to get an infinite plane going, though I may need help pushing the verts around in shader and also building the mesh itself (your grid + planes to stretch to the horizon (just flat textured is fine there) + a vertical wall on the edge). Then there's the issue of offsetting the X/Y calculation for your wave system based on player rotation and movement.

I may not get to play with it for a bit but when I do I'll try and get as far as possible and then hit you up and we can maybe work through it together.

That would be great if you are able to!

I have a few other failed meshes/materials still in my master project, so not everything is included in the download, but I was planning to try and remake the T3D-like mesh again, it would be so much better.

I'll let you know if I make any progress on that, there are still many things I need to add into the project but I just wanted to release something for now.