[Community Project] WIP Weather & Ocean Water Shader

[DotCam]

DotCam what part of the coast makes you such a nice person

Must be the better coast haha jk...

I dunno, I used to work in tech support so I guess it's just the way I'm programmed. By the way, don't think I have said this enough; Thank you for all your help with answering questions on here man, really appreciate it! It's difficult to keep up with everything there's just so many posts, so again, thanks!

Surely you must get the daily PMs asking how to install etc. too?

Shhh! Don't encourage them

[Nsomnia]

How about more than just changing the amplitude value gradually? Is it possible to change the wave composition/phases gradually to change the actually final waveform gradually? Like going from small fast ripple waves to large rolling waves gradually without disturbing the physics objects.

Look into driving not only the amplitude but direction phase what have you via a lerp or wind speed or such.

[DotCam]

Attention all 4.12.2 users having trouble opening the project

Can any of you tell me what the error message was? I have upgraded to 4.12.2 (from 4.12.0), opened up the project, and it loads just fine. It didn't even re-compile the plugin, just loaded right up.

The first time you open it, it will hang at 45% loading until the engine shaders are compiled, but I am not seeing any errors. If that is what you are experiencing (long load times, looks like it is frozen at 45%) just wait for it to finish.

If it was anything else please let me know so I can look into it. Thanks

[Nsomnia]

s

I actually have a question. What version was it that used a struct for each test point with FVectors and I think Density and TestRadius floats. 1.0 seems too early and 4.7 too late (the bone override struct was implemented by 4.7)

Would like to compare my code to see how im doing.

Edit: Nevermind appears 1.0 was it

USTRUCT(BlueprintType)
struct FBuoyancyTestPoint {
	GENERATED_USTRUCT_BODY();

	UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite, EditAnywhere)
		FVector Location;
	UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite, EditAnywhere)
		float Buoyancy;
	UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite, EditAnywhere)
		float VolumeRadius;
	};

Was what I wanted to see I beleive.

[DotCam]

I actually have a question. What version was it that used a struct for each test point with FVectors and I think Density and TestRadius floats. 1.0 seems too early and 4.7 too late (the bone override struct was implemented by 4.7)

Would like to compare my code to see how im doing.

Edit: Nevermind appears 1.0 was it

USTRUCT(BlueprintType)
struct FBuoyancyTestPoint {
	GENERATED_USTRUCT_BODY();

	UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite, EditAnywhere)
		FVector Location;
	UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite, EditAnywhere)
		float Buoyancy;
	UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite, EditAnywhere)
		float VolumeRadius;
	};

Was what I wanted to see I beleive.

I don't think any of it was removed (aside from the struct you have posted above), we just started using the BuoyancyForceComponent instead. Check the BuoyancyComponent file in the latest build, it should have the implementation details. It is float vector array based, but you would want to use an array of structs and break out the float vector you need instead right (is that how your planning to do it)?

I'm on my tablet right now so I'm not positive, I'll double check the github repo.

[Nsomnia]

I'm still quite new to coding learning as I go and just doing some coding to learn but yes your correct thats the approach for this SceneComponent im practicing with (trying to get away from blueprint headaches, which causes coding headaches!). BuoyancyComponent is a MovementComponent so i'll have to do some testing and messing around until tonight when my european programmers get online since im using SceneComponent as my base.

Edit: "========== Build: 1 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped =========="

Thats always a good sign when my header files compile, then I can mess around in the actual declaration of everything.


Thanks

[dazuk1978]

Hey @Dotcam,

I managed to get everything integrated into my 14.2.2 project using latest Ocean Project from github, following your page of instructions to migrate and copy/paste stuff into the project.

I have a few questions/issues though.

1> I've noticed there is an experimental 'sky' folder and I have dropped the skydome from that into my project and it looks cool so far. However, when I press build I get some warnings about the skydome. One was regarding a rotator static mesh which I figured out to be the moon having collision set but actually not having collision. The second I cannot get rid of and I'll post an image now to show you:


I know it's experiemental, but I'm just checking it's something you're aware of and see yourself or if it's a new issue?

2> With that same experimental skydome, I increase the speed so that I can see the day/night transition and this highlighted some issues too. For instance:
A> if I set the Cloud Opacity to anything but 0.0 then I get some very strange shadowing/lighting issues. Like light where there should be shadows, and shadows everywhere else (black). Again, a screenshot to help illustrate.


B> When the sun dips beneath the horizon, it's obvious there's still a sun shining down there as there's some funky occlusion on the horizon in the direction the sun is/was.

This one is I think intentional and on the whole kinda correct BUT the oddness is in the movement of said occlusion. The 'rays' shift very dramatically as you rotate or pitch your view around making it obvious that it is in fact lightshaft occlusion. I had a similar thing on a day/night cycle I was modifying and I just ended up scripting the intensity and lightshaft stuff to turn off at given times of day but I know you're much smarter than me so there'll be a better way!

3> At night, the moon is not visible. I see the rotator mesh (in checkerbox material?) moving occasionally (if it's not too dark) so I think it;'s missing some kind of moon material??

4> Should I just use the normal skydome for now?

Awesome project mate, can't wait for dynamic weather and time of day that maybe has some nicer and smoother transitions of sky colours (like you don't have enough to do).
I wanted to point these things out to you in the hopes it would help but I'd be very surprised if you don't already know about them all!

Thankyou!

Daz

[DotCam]

I'm still quite new to coding learning as I go and just doing some coding to learn but yes your correct thats the approach for this SceneComponent im practicing with (trying to get away from blueprint headaches, which causes coding headaches!). BuoyancyComponent is a MovementComponent so i'll have to do some testing and messing around until tonight when my european programmers get online since im using SceneComponent as my base.

Edit: "========== Build: 1 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped =========="

Thats always a good sign when my header files compile, then I can mess around in the actual declaration of everything.


Thanks

Great! Yeah I know what you mean, been there (still find myself there too often)

For the Component, the reasoning for the UMovementComponent is a USceneComponent has limitations (a UPrimitiveComponent is an abstraction of the USceneComponent, adding additional features). You should be able to change to a movement or primitive component without much (if any) changes to your code. Here are some key differences:

SceneComponent:

A SceneComponent has a transform and supports attachment, but has no rendering or collision capabilities. Useful as a 'dummy' component in the hierarchy to offset others.

PrimitiveComponent (MovementComponent is a slightly modified primitive component):

PrimitiveComponents are SceneComponents that contain or generate some sort of geometry, generally to be rendered or used as collision data.

Another key is that MovementComponent's provide a form of movement to the Actor (or Character) that they are a sub-object of. For the physics to work properly, it needs to have collision support, which isn't available for a SceneComponent. Also many of the physics actions require access to the PrimitiveComponent for things like angular damping and mass calculations.

Hope that helps

[Coniunctiolight]

as I solve this problem .--. please help

[DotCam]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]97057[/ATTACH] as I solve this problem .--. please help

Just press "Yes" when you see that. It is a minor problem with the blueprint that I have fixed internally, nothing that will cause any issues though. It will be fixed on GitHub in the next update.

[DotCam]

Hey @Dotcam,

I managed to get everything integrated into my 14.2.2 project using latest Ocean Project from github, following your page of instructions to migrate and copy/paste stuff into the project.

Great! glad to hear it

I have a few questions/issues though.

4> Should I just use the normal skydome for now?

All of this has been fixed, I have abandoned that blueprint for the moment and have been re-writing it all. The calculations for sun/moon & moon phase were moved to the plugin, they are pretty heavy math calculations and blueprints tend to compute it much slower.

This is all ready to go, I'm just stuck on implementing the moon phases into the material properly. It is so close but isn't good enough yet. Was planning to update the github repo with these changes later today or tomorrow morning depending how things go. I might just leave the phases out until I get it all sorted, everything else works flawlessly.

So I wouldn't use that blueprint, the moon calculations are off (and the light you see at night is supposed to be from the moon, but was unhooked due to rotation issues). Hope to have it out shortly!

Anyone with ideas on how to do this (dynamically) in a material, please feel free to post here with any tips:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...sk-SkyBoxImage

Thanks!

[Nsomnia]

Great! glad to hear it

Anyone with ideas on how to do this (dynamically) in a material, please feel free to post here with any tips:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...sk-SkyBoxImage

Thanks!

I only have 4 moon phases in my skydome, full moon, no moon, quarter and half, which are just different textures to approximate phases set through a dyn.mat in the BP_Sky bp and then the moon radius scalar parameter for size. My setup uses a sphereMask for the moonRadi parmeter but not to do dynamic moon phasing, it seems your after trying to simulate acutal moon phases by masking part of the moon texture and skylight?

Edit: Your moon phase calculations are probably better than ones we have in our mshed up skydome from a bunh of marketplace assets, some work, and your skydome, I re-read your post.

[DotCam]

I only have 4 moon phases in my skydome, full moon, no moon, quarter and half, which are just different textures to approximate phases set through a dyn.mat in the BP_Sky bp and then the moon radius scalar parameter for size. My setup uses a sphereMask but not to do dynamic moon phasing, it seems your after trying to simulate acutal moon phases by masking part of the moon texture and skylight?

I could share the moon calculations if it helped, but we blueprinted them and theyre quite messy. Need to convert all the maths to BPFuncLib nodes. Similar to your ToD setups very stringy

Yeah, masking a moon image with a spheremask (or spherical normal) shadow. I can get it to work perfectly in a preview of the material, but as soon as the moon starts rotating (or orbiting if you will), the moon image gets skewed and rotated along with it.

Getting the correct phase on the correct day is calculated in code and output in a -1 to +1 scalar float, where -1 & 1 == full Moon, 0 == new moon. With the calendar system I've built I can get accurate positioning & phase for any day of any year from year 0-9999. That parts working great, its just getting the material to visualize it that's not working.

If it won't work, I can easily make a flipbook texture with 29 different images (one for each day of the cycle) in Photoshop and change the texture each day. I just like to do things dynamically (ie. the hard way).

[Nsomnia]

Yeah adding more textures would be my next step unfortunately im not a material wizard. Will scour my courses though.

[dazuk1978]

Great! glad to hear it



All of this has been fixed, I have abandoned that blueprint for the moment and have been re-writing it all. The calculations for sun/moon & moon phase were moved to the plugin, they are pretty heavy math calculations and blueprints tend to compute it much slower.

This is all ready to go, I'm just stuck on implementing the moon phases into the material properly. It is so close but isn't good enough yet. Was planning to update the github repo with these changes later today or tomorrow morning depending how things go. I might just leave the phases out until I get it all sorted, everything else works flawlessly.

So I wouldn't use that blueprint, the moon calculations are off (and the light you see at night is supposed to be from the moon, but was unhooked due to rotation issues). Hope to have it out shortly!

Anyone with ideas on how to do this (dynamically) in a material, please feel free to post here with any tips:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...sk-SkyBoxImage

Thanks!

Hey, thanks for the info - can't wait for the update.
I have an issue though you may be able to help me with. I zipped up my project that was working fine and moved it to my main PC but on opening the level it said this:


and then when the map loaded I had two issues:

1> Lots of errors linked to the message above I am sure:


2>It was missing just the BP_Ocean from the World Outliner. When I tried to add the BP_Ocean entity by dragging and dropping one into the world it had a white circle with a red cross on it to indicate it was not going to allow me to drop one into the world. It asked if I wanted to anyway and when I said yes, it crashed the editor.

Here's what it says when I try to double click on the BP_Ocean in the content browser:



Any ideas? On my other PC I'd specifically saved it when I'd had it working very nicely, even after shutting it down and reloading so I'm confused, especially with it being zipped up which should be identical setup and files to what I had working :/



Thx

EDIT: I know you said in your reply earlier to remove the experiemental Sky stuff and I was about to once I'd loaded in, but as you can see I can't get loaded now