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Feature Request About the waterline....No one wants to share even a hint of how to make it.

Discussion in 'Shaders' started by CJA_888, Aug 3, 2020.

  1. CJA_888

    CJA_888

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2019
    Posts:
    15
    The waterline is an essential visual effect in most games today, but it's hard to make. The Unity store has a lot of plugins for water, but most of them don't have the freedom to configure effects, so I hope my friends in the forums can provide some tips on how to create waterline effects.
    The difficulty is that the water is dynamic, not static.
    Unreal Engine can already make waterlines very simple, why unity engine is still so complicated.
    Please help me.



     
  2. Raul_T

    Raul_T

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2015
    Posts:
    363
    If your water solution does masking for underwater post process you can use that to create your waterline effect by modifying its existing underwater post processing.

    For example I hacked in a crude waterline effect for Ceto ocean (now a deprecated asset) back when it released by blurring the underwater mask then lerping between waterline and underwater post process. Applying whatever waterline effect on the top part of the mask is possible with a bit of basic shader knowledge, but for my project back then I just wanted to fade it to black.

    Unfortunately I dont have the source code for this anymore, only a screenshot of it (was back in unity 5 era iirc) and it was made for Ceto specifically, but if your ocean provides an underwater post process effect that makes use of underwater masking its definitely possible.
     
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  3. CJA_888

    CJA_888

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2019
    Posts:
    15
    Raul_MadGoat,Thank you for your answer. I think what you said is quite reasonable. But if the sea surface is very large and the blur alone should not cover the waterline, can you explain to me in detail what you do?