Hi Everyone 
I’ve had this particular headscratcher for a while now (Years). I would like to create a large city that uses a network of canals instead of roads. The number of individual small canal offshoots reach in their hundreds. I already have a particular map created where these should be placed etc.
In the good old days, I probably would have created a landscape from the map I already have and then placed a plane of water underneath. With UE5, I don’t think this is possible? I’ve seen people use the ocean and landmasses to create individual islands but I’m not sure if this is the route I should go. It would be nice to use the new water system but I should imagine, maybe it’s going to be too ‘expensive’ (I’m aware of the world composition system in place) and if I understand correctly, I would need to draw each one by hand with the splines.
Why UE5 I hear you ask? With the new nanite features, I think this is ideal for the way I work and the plans I have for this particular project.
I’m willing to go down the laborious route if I know I’m not wasting my time and it’s the best option. If anyone can think of a better way to do this, let me know. This map also has a port/dock area to add complications. I plan to add fish and hopefully a boat traffic system.
TIA for your thoughts and help with this.
It can really be as simple or complicated as you want to make it.
Frankly, it could just be a large plane with single layer water material on it, that’s all. Unless you intend to go scuba diving…
Just seems a shame to do that with the new water system in place. As I said, ten years ago, I would have done exactly that. I’m aware the water system is not 100% right now, but I just wondered if there were any alternative methods that I haven’t thought of.
I mean it depends a lot on what you want or need it to do. For example, if you want each canal to have its own visually perceptible flow direction, then using water body rivers would be a lot of setup, but perhaps worthwhile and give you the most complex version of what you want.
If you want the bells and whistles of underwater post processing, wave deformation, automatic handling of distance based tessellation of the mesh etc, but you don’t really need a perceptible flow direction, then you could use an adjusted Water Body Ocean as a big plane, which would be much faster to set up.
Or as ClockworkOcean said, on the very simplest level, if you dont need underwater post processing, buoyancy, fluid sim already basically set up etc, you could do a plane with a quality but simple water material and call it done, old school style, if it suits your purposes.
Using the new water is worth it if youre actually using some of the more complex functionality it has built in because then its not necessary to do it all custom yourself.
If I were in your shoes, unless this was my magnum opus and I wanted each little canal to have flow in a certain direction that was noticeable, I would probably use Water Body Ocean with a custom wave asset and a custom material as a sort of middle ground between the options.
But there is nothing fundamentally stopping you from going down any of these paths other than, does it make sense for your end result? No point doing work for its own sake, if you know what I mean.
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