I had probably the most ridiculous idea, seeing as how I’m completely new to level designing and this is my first engine I’m using. (I do this in my free time off of work as a hobby.) - I’ve managed to get a complete translucent water effect and it gradually fades based on the camera angle in a third person world, however the reflection I’m getting off of it is now kind of unrealistic, as it’s just offsetting what’s in the world into the reflection. I suppose now my question is, how do I rotate that reflection 180 degrees to mirror what’s in the scene? Here’s a screenshot of what I mean…
I’ve been using the base material for ocean water as a starting point, but I used these two tutorials to add the translucency:
v=KPmRV1Z9ikYhttps:///watch?v=GRnKO1z4WZs
– Once I finished these two tutorials, I noticed that the translucency for me was reversed, and I had lost my water reflections. The transparency was opaque where I look, and transparent on the edges. To solve this, I deleted the flip he was using inside the tutorial. As for the reflections, I changed the material type from “Translucent” to “Additive”. I’m unsure as to if that’s a good thing or a bad thing to do, however it did solve the issue I was having.
– As for my reflection issue, I resorted back to the content examples maps and found a metal reflection that was flipping the reflection 180 and slightly distorting it, which I’ll be testing tonight to see if the result is what I need.
While that’s probably okay in some circumstances, the difference between Translucent and Additive materials is that the Additive one quite literally ‘adds’ to whatever is behind it, and also receives NO light information. You’ll probably find that your water may look okay in some environments but not others, or even that it glows compared to the rest of the scene. For some kind of murky alien water that could be pretty cool though!
Yeah I agree on the murky water, however I’m not using the same colors from the original base material, and have duplicated the original material to set further down to give it more of a realistic feel as well. Not so much murky on my laptop anymore, however I still have the conundrum of the reflection which I’ll be working on tonight, and the “sky view” I forgot to mention earlier. When you’re close to the water and just running across the material, it seems pretty amazing. However, once I release control and zoom away from the landscape, the transparency widens instead of becoming opaque from distance. A lot more work and learning to do, but I think it’s coming along pretty nicely with me being a newbie. =)
Don’t forget guys sometimes the old methods are the best 
You can still do cube-mapped realtime reflections I believe, and add them to the material manually. Probably a little more expensive now that we have all this fancy reflection stuff, but worth looking into. I’m going to try it out on my shaders eventually it’s just finding the time.
Guys use PrtScn to grab screenshots or some software cause I seriously can’t see a thing…
Hopeless those vids rock next week I am going to probably start redoing some of our water scenes.
Can one make a request for Outdoor Water and or Flowing Water Vids as well? Just add to what you have already done etc. I am demanding aren’t I. Either way really good vids and I appreciate it man!
I’m happy to have posted them to the thread, however the credit is due to the individual who created them! - Pub Games really does make some good videos, as well as Tesla Dev and .
If you can find a way to rotate the translucency 180 degrees, or create a really water area with translucency and reflection please share it!
– ://www.pcgamer/2013/04/26/water-just-got-a-thousand-times-more- - This video just about made me flip a table. Is this possible in Unreal Engine 4? Is there a plugin in a plugin section I can’t find that I didn’t know about?!
These is a better water system
These is a better water system why UDK can’t so something similar??
?v=lPyLhqKxzmI
These is a better water system
These is a better water system implementation why UDK can’t so something similar??
?v=lPyLhqKxzmI
This is really nice!
(It looks better if you post the video like a video element inside the forum.)
Yes Alex3d is nice and easy implementation of water / day of time etc for the level designer something like these of course with the excellent EPIC touch will do great. And i did not post it like video element because i don’t know how to do that. sorry
There is a button: “Insert Video”. rsss
Hi there,
I know it’s been a while since the last reply to this thread was made ;), but I, too, have to admit that your UE4 water looks absolutely stunning.
Could you by any chance try to upload that tech demo video for us so we can at least try (and probably fail :D) to create something similar?
Either way I’ll keep following your excellent work (and your projects on the indie/modDB)!
Best regards,
Til / “Albatros”
Currently I’m not too happy with my implementation, but as soon as I have the time I will. I’ve landed myself a mega-hectic mega-intensive but mega-throwing-money-at-me job in the last month, so I’m uber busy right now 
All the methods I used however are available around the web, it’s just up to you guys to do the research 
That honestly is the best way to learn!
ufna created FFT water implementation plugin - https://wiki.unrealengine/VaOcean_Plugin
It should help you to make water like in that video “Ocean Realtime Render”
But it’s really acceptable for large open water surface.
Any another situation requires another method.