# Better quality (reflective) water? (4.26 Water plugin) **URL:** \ **Category:** World Creation\ **Tags:** Water, quality, reflection, unreal-engine, question\ **Created:** [January 9, 2021, 10:10pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/better-quality-reflective-water-4-26-water-plugin/477020 "2021-01-09T22:10:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![3S\_Interactive](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/3s_interactive/32/499107_2.png) [@3S\_Interactive](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/3S_Interactive)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 10:10pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/better-quality-reflective-water-4-26-water-plugin/477020/1 "2021-01-09T22:10:40Z")
Is it possible to get the 4.26 water to be more ‘reflective’, perhaps by using higher console variable settings? In the past, I have used a Planar Reflection to get that highly reflective ‘glassy’ water effect: [Updated Underwater Surface Translucency - YouTube](https://youtu.be/XKnMB7NYYw8?t=12) but adding a planar reflection to a 4.26 lake doesn’t seem to have any effect. ---
**Author:** ![3S\_Interactive](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/3s_interactive/32/499107_2.png) [@3S\_Interactive](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/3S_Interactive)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2021, 2:47pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/better-quality-reflective-water-4-26-water-plugin/477020/2 "2021-01-15T14:47:36Z")
Actually, the 4.26 water system is fine. If I lower the roughness on the water material (and experiment with caustics and specular) I can get some pretty nice looking (shiny) water. I don’t need a Planar Reflection after all, which is great because was always fairly expensive to use. ![327324-426water.jpg](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/8/6/7/8676502c2690209df56cfb4470ea7c325036cb22.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![osiris\_dev](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/osiris_dev/32/88710_2.png) [@osiris\_dev](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/osiris_dev)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2021, 2:39pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/better-quality-reflective-water-4-26-water-plugin/477020/3 "2021-09-22T14:39:57Z")
Can you show the parameters of your water? I want to get reflections but nothing helps. ---
**Author:** ![rexalbel](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@rexalbel](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/rexalbel)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2022, 11:02pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/better-quality-reflective-water-4-26-water-plugin/477020/4 "2022-06-02T23:02:00Z")
Can we see what your settings are? I see shine, but nothing is reflected and planar doesn’t work as you said. I’ve messed with roughness and specular which increases how polished it looks, but nothing seems to make anything reflect. In addition caustics seem to not be working despite being on. I’m on unreal 5 is this the problem? If so that would be surprising, i would have though they would have built the water to use lumen and reflections out of the box. ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/a/5/9/a59c03d70a4d705a3122ea9eeec1dd47c355ccaf.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![3S\_Interactive](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/3s_interactive/32/499107_2.png) [@3S\_Interactive](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/3S_Interactive)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 12:08pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/better-quality-reflective-water-4-26-water-plugin/477020/5 "2022-06-21T12:08:03Z")
A couple of posts/peeps wanted to know the settings that I used for the reflective lake water in my original screenshot. I didn’t use any special settings other than tweaking the water material ‘roughness’ to be very low in order to increase the ‘shine’. All other effects were more or less default. If you are not seeing any reflections, it may be due to other settings in your UE4 setup (e.g., post process settings, screen space reflections on/off, different project settings). In any case, I uploaded my UE4.26 water project to Dropbox so you can download it for comparison: [Dropbox - Water\_4.26\_reflective.zip - Simplify your life](https://www.dropbox.com/s/qgkpxjwl4m0ebb9/Water_4.26_reflective.zip) Note that it is an old UE4.26 project, so later versions of UE may have updated the water plugin/materials. ![screenshot_4.26](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/7/f/5/7f5acf5f3d2b56ae194d169831e50e6924ca0ec9.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![3S\_Interactive](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/3s_interactive/32/499107_2.png) [@3S\_Interactive](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/3S_Interactive)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 12:09pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/better-quality-reflective-water-4-26-water-plugin/477020/6 "2022-06-21T12:09:48Z")
See my most recent post. ---
**Author:** ![3S\_Interactive](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/3s_interactive/32/499107_2.png) [@3S\_Interactive](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/3S_Interactive)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 12:10pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/better-quality-reflective-water-4-26-water-plugin/477020/7 "2022-06-21T12:10:36Z")
See my most recent post.