AQUAS Water/River Set - Water & Rivers for Mobile, VR, Web, Desktop

Hello I have a question will be there update to tesselated shader of water? I saw some time ago on youtube some cool video. IS this still in plans to implmement that? AlsoIt woudl be great to have some better flow map edit tool Like in R.A.M

My second wuestion is about inity 2018.1 Is aquas working well with it?

 

Hi there
I purchased this asset yesterday, and have enjoyed playing around with it so far.
however I have encountered one problem, one of the reasons I purchased it was because of the integration with Gaia and Enviro.
how ever when I add the underwater effects to the scene the (via the Gaia Extensions panel) it breaks the fog in Enviro.
I am using the Microsplat Terrain shader on my Terrain also but the fog works with this, it is only when I add underwater effects to the scene.
Thanks in advance.

 

Hi everyone,

I came across a small problem, which I can't find a solution for. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction?
Depending on the angle of the camera, I get wrong/black "reflections" through my water.
I'm using latest AQUAS with latest Enviro. Any ideas how to get proper reflections or atleast get rid of the black reflections? Did I miss something?

Thanks in advance!

Best, Sickscore

 

can it be used also to create a "cartoonish" water style?

 

Hello,

Got a problem with the underwater effect making the screen going all pink and spamming PostProcess errors
I made a video of the issue:

Thought it would be an issue because of Cinemachine but I disabled it for the test. Also I deleted the Ocean and all scripts and made a new one with the easy setup wizard. Still the same issue

 

May I ask which version of Unity you're using, I would like to see if the issue is tied to a specific version? Also please try reimporting AQUAS and see if that does anything.

 

It might probably be, but it would require different normal maps. The thing though is, that cartoon water usually uses diffuse textures too to get that cartoonish look. AQUAS doesn't use diffuse textures at all (except for realtime reflections), only normal maps.
Are you looking for actual cartoon water or rather for some low poly solution?

 

I have not seen this behaviour before. Have you tried removing and readding the water via quick setup? Also do you get correct reflections when for instance not using enviro? How about the demo scene? Does it reflect the way it should?

 

AQUAS and z-buffer fog has always been a story of a kind. But Hendrik, the maker of Enviro has made an integration that should take care of that. I think he even has a video or at least a PDF that explains how to get Enviro's fog working with AQUAS - I don't have it at hand though. Have you looked into it?

 

This AQUAS is actually flat, so it doesn't need tessellation. If you mean the new AQUAS (with the waves), it is still WIP. I've just finished implementing the projected grid scheme to have an infinite ocean. I'll keep the forum posted.

I have heard of some issues with AQUAS and Unity 2018, but I wouldn't be too worried just yet, since Unity 2018 is still in beta, so it's not yet finalized. If the release version still throws up errors, I will of course adress them at once.

 

Hello, I'm using the latest 2017 version (.4)
I did try to reimport it already. I could try to delete it completely and reimport it of course

What is strange to me is that in the scene view, the camera is rendering the effect properly, not in the game view though

 

Hi,

I decided to test Aquas with Unity 2018.1 Beta. I quickly got around the post processing double defines, but I'm having a bunch of shader errors.

I know 2018 isn't out yet, but read somewhere that one of the errors are caused by a deprecated function.
float attenuation = LIGHT_ATTENUATION(i); is causing an unexpected ;

I tried to change it to UNITY_LIGHT_ATTENUATION but it seem to require more parameters and I'm not really into shader programming, so not sure how to work around this.

Is there a fix for this? If not I'mm just wait for 2018.1 to come out and test it again, but wanted you to know this in case the function is removed.

Thanks

 

Everyone are hopping to Unity 2018 guys. You better start preparing to tweak it now. The architecture shouldn't change much from the current build since it's about to go live.

 

Same problem here with Unity 2018, you can replace:

Code (CSharp):

1. float attenuation = LIGHT_ATTENUATION(i);

with

Code (CSharp):

1. UNITY_LIGHT_ATTENUATION(attenuation, i, _LightColor0.xyz);

but I've no idea about Shader stuff specially the last param "_LightColor0.xyz" must be the worldPos value but I don't know whats the correct parameter.

I think @dogmachris can clarify this

 

Hi is the postproccesing folder essential for a final build?? I mean will I break something by deleting it, I'm trying to keep only the necesary files in my project, so what are the core files Aqua needs?

 

please fix for 2017 & 2018

 

Morning, hoping you could help with an issue we are having with Aquas mobile shader on iPhone 6.

Unity version: 2017.4.1f1

We're running into an issue with the mobile shader: Aquas/Mobile/BicoloredFoamy.

This is what it looks like on device:

On Device:


Shader Settings:


In Unity:


Any Ideas?


Thanks,

Vaportrail007

 

Yeah I've heard that something is to happen with the way light attenuation works in 2018 but I'm not certain it will stay that way. Once I have definitive info I will adjust the shaders accordingly.

 

You should be fine deleting the post processing folder, if you don't use underwater effects.

 

This is due to the limited z-buffer support on certain devices. The issue was solved on Unity's side in version 5.4 or so, but apparently not not for all devices. Unfortunately I can't tell you which devices are affected, but the ones affected will probably only be able to handle the opaque shader.

 

Thank you for the reply.

 

I have applied an Aquas material (copy) to a plane, as per the pool tutorial, and everything appears to work, except reflections. All I get is this milky look, varying according to how high the reflection value is set. This is a mesh landscape.

This is Aquas 1.5 with Unity 2017.3.0f3, on Windows 10.

If I bring in the AquasWater prefab, it works great, with reflections. I haven't used Aquas in a while and suspect I am missing something. I need to apply Aquas to rectangle meshes for these ponds, but I've been battling this for a couple of hours and cannot get the reflections. Would appreciate some help please.

 

Huh - never mind - it seems to be working now. Not sure why - I turned the specular up to 2 and switched reflections off, relying on the reflection probe. It suddenly worked. Very odd. I can't get that milky effect back now.

 

Did you have the reflection component on the waterplane?

 

I did, yes; in Aquas you mean? Switching the reflection component on made the surface brighter, but still that milky, foggy looking look. Which actually seemed to be related to the foam visibility setting, which when set to 0 made the surface completely white and bright, and when set to 1, rendered the water plane transparent, or translucent according to what else I had set.

But now I have just the reflection probes, reflections are as expected. Switching Aquas reflection component on makes the water plane a tiny bit brighter, but nothing else.

It might be me, but Aquas is usually a very straightforward tool to use, and does what it says. I can only think that maybe the water plane mesh (a simple plane from Unity) and the size/scale, about 2m square, was somehow to blame.

 

Hey @dogmachris - just a friendly note (and hopefully no-one else here reported it already) - you've put AQUAS on a Creative Commons CC0 license in the asset store, which you might want to fix.

 

This worked for me. Thank you for the hint.

 

The next Aquas upgrade will have waves and an infinite mode? That is HUGE! Thank you! Finally, no need to have both Aquas for inland water bodies and another asset for oceans.

 

Is there another asset you'd recommend to use with AQUAS to simulate ripples/waves from moving objects? I was looking at RealWater but it hasn't been updated in some time.

 

I never noticed it was there - it should not be - I have already made contact with the UAS staff to get it sorted.
Thank you for the heads-up!

 

Since AQUAS is flat you will not be able to simulate ripples as physical waves on the mesh. This would require a high density (probably even tesselated) mesh that would almost certainly tank performance. Personally I would either look for particle effects to simulate ripples or create one myself with Unity's particle system. That's how many games still do it.

 

Just looked and saw myself:

License Agreement
To the extent possible under law, Christoph Peters has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to the files in this directory and its subdirectories. This work is published from: Germany. The work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain Dedication. For more information please visit: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

I'm no lawyer but it would read as anyone who bought it under that license should/would be able to continue with that License and if you can change it you could only enforce it on ongoing packages. The other problem is also since under that license if you used fixes or code provided by others you need their permission to change the license. This could end up being a potential bad scene.

Seems a big oops which could have some serious issues, may be nothing but I can foresee there could be some difficulties should people push back? Why would they? Cause they can....

I am very interested in how this will end up.

 

Yeah so Unity 2018.1 came out officially today and it looks like UNITY_LIGHT_ATTENUATION is here to stay.

EDIT: This works however his misspelling of ATTENUATION made me believe it didn't.

 

Hey Sorry for the late response, I got this working almost immediately after doing some more digging, I however now have a new issue which I have also posted on the Gaia thread and that is Aquas is completely broken in my copy of Unity 2018 and all of the Integration in the Gaia GX panel has vanished
Ive gone from zero console errors to all of this: its just a project I have for creating puzzles, making prefabs and testing performance so its not a biggy and I have back up of a slightly older version and another version of Unity installed, but I'd really like to get working in 2018.
cheers in advance
Pete

 

Yeah, AQUAS had some issues with Unity 2018 since the beta, but since so much changes during beta stage I didn't bother trying to keep up. I'm currently working on a fix for 2018 and release an update asap.

 

Hey Thanks Mate I would be very grateful if you posted here when you've finished in the mean time I will try experiment with the new features.
Cheers
Pete

 

Thanks for the hint, fixed it, however this will not be the final solution...

 

So, one of the main factors of updating to 2018.1 was that I wanted to use the Shader Graph tool. However for that tool to work you also have to use a render pipeline. Upon importing all pipeline packages in the package manager and using the Lightweight pipeline unity crashes if Aquas is in the scene, and all the material previews for Aquas will be pink.
Loading the pipeline in a new scene without aquas everything is fine, however creating aquas in the scene it will crash.
I also tried to update all materials/shaders in project to the pipeline but the aquas materials were not compatible with the upgrader.

I have no idea if this is a shader/aquas problem or if this is a unity problem.

 

I tried Aquas 1.5 yesterday for the first time and followed a YouTube tutorial on making a river. Everything went well up to the point where I generated a river reference image. When I open the image in an image viewer, I see that it has not produced a river outline like in the demo. Instead, I have two small lakes on the river's path. I hate being so stupid that I can't even follow a YouTube tutorial. Can anyone point out what I'm doing wrong?

Ben

 

I don't understand why a 2018-compatible Aquas wasn't up on the Asset Store weeks ago.

OK, so dogmachris is justifiably frustrated that Unity can't get their act together deciding on a set lighting/shading system and they may not communicate their changes well enough to the community. I don't know if this is true or not, but this is not the first time I've seen long-time asset developers complain about it. I get it if too many changes during 2018's beta development made it difficult for an asset developer to keep up.

However, that said, other assets have been prepared for weeks, if not months. Maybe they had more time to devote to keeping up with all the changes, I don't know. If domachris didn't, I don't begrudge him that. Often real life responsibilities and other projects can keep a person busy.

But light_attenuation has been deprecated and replaced by unity_light_attenuation since 2015. If they haven't changed that in three years, chances are they are not going to suddenly spring that change last minute with a new, major release of Unity.

I think this boils down to something most of us are guilty of...simply ignoring all those benign warnings about a function being deprecated. We get accustomed to ignoring them, because they don't break anything. Even when the warning says a function will be removed or replaced in a future version, we simply dismiss it.

Well, this is a case where neglect has reared up and bit us in the ass, because it was ignored for too long.

 

To follow-up, I was tempted to write a 4-star review over this (to be upgraded to 5* after a working fix is up) but I'm not that cruel and will just wait patiently for the fix to move through the pipeline.

It's quite reassuring that dogmachris is on it. If we see larger waves and infinite tiling in a near-future release, suitable for oceans, then I'd regret writing anything negative about this product, and wish I could give it 10*.

 

Just can't agree with you on general terms. A lot of vendors wait for official releases before they make their plugins compliant, because things can change back and forth right up till the final patch.

Devs that provide shaders tend to have it worse than the rest.

 

Well I did express my sympathy for his situation, and I don't expect an update that is perfectly optimized for Unity 2018 before the official release of Unity 2018. But specifically on the light_attenuation issue...that could have been fixed last year, working well in the 2017 version of Unity.

If I have a choice between using a deprecated function and a new function, both of them will work, I will probably stick with the deprecated function for 6-12 months, due to the new function's possible instability or frequent changes. After a couple years though, it's time to make the shift, even before you have to because at some point, you will have to.

With a major upgrade to Unity coming out...2017 to 2018, as an asset developer, it might be worth firing up your asset in the beta, just to see if support for any of those deprecated functions is completely removed. It's one thing to have to tweak shaders to be optimized for a final release. It's another thing entirely to resolve an issue that is three years old. In the former situation, your asset will likely work, maybe not well, but it works. Or maybe there's a small chance it won't. In the latter case though, there is a 100% chance your asset will break and that should have been anticipated.

I'd rather have a 50% chance of an asset not working due to a very last minute change from Unity, which is not the asset developer's fault, than that 100% chance the asset will break. That is entirely not Unity's fault, especially when they gave plenty of warning...I'd say three years is adequate notice.

In other words, fix the stuff you know will break. Get the asset working in 2018 beta. When your asset doesn't work on official release, due to a last minute change from Unity, you can always point the finger at them, and adjust for their last minute changes in a few keystrokes.

 

Hi,
I have problem with night color of Aquas. (I am using Enviro)
It seems all dark.
Any help will be appreciated. How can I make Aquas still looks like water at nights instead of a dark color around terrains.
Thank you.

 

RealWater has an option to use normal maps for ripples, which would hopefully be less CPU intensive. I'll have to experiment with it.

 

On 2018.1 i have follwing errors

 

@TakeRefugeGames

Okay everyone, so since AQUAS seems to be having some trouble with Unity 2018 (not talking about the beta but the final release), I have done some quick digging and managed to at least isolate the 2 big issues. There are temporary fixes for them (not the best ones, but will do for now).

1. The first issue comes from AQUAS being unable to identify which version of the post processing stack is currently installed. For some reason it fails to do so in Unity 2018.

To determine that manually, you can go to the Editor folder and delete the AQUAS_AddDefine.cs script. Then go to the player settings and in the scripting define symbols there should be UNITY_POST_PROCESSING_STACK_V1 or UNITY_POST_PROCESSING_STACK_V2 or both.

Depending on which version of the post processing stack you are using, delete the other one. By default AQUAS comes with the post processing stack v1, so if that is what you want to use, make sure it says UNITY_POST_PROCESSING_STACK_V1 in the scripting define symbols and delete UNITY_POST_PROCESSING_STACK_V2 if it is also there - vice versa, if you're using the v2 version of the pp stack.

2. The second issue AQUAS currently has with Unity 2018, is that patches and objects that render near the water turn pink and fail to render. I figured out, that this is not caused by the water shaders themselves, but by the shader used for the caustics. For now disabling the PrimaryCausticsProjector and the SecondaryCausticsProjector (both child objects of the water plane) should fix it for now.

I am working to get a fix online as quickly as I can.

Please let me apologize to everyone for the inconvenience.

 

Could you make a screenshot of what your river looks like and also post the reference image so that I can have a look?

 

@Worban @hopeful
You're both right. The thing is, that it simply slipped my attention that the function was obsolete for so long. Unlike with scripts, shaders don't throw warnings when you're using obsolete function.

I deliberately decided to not try and keep up with the beta development due to the horror I've been through with Unity 2017. When it was in the beta all of a sudden I got tons of support requests with reports about issues with AQUAS and Unity 2017 (pink surfaces, error messages, etc.). I had quite some headaches trying to wrap my head around everything that was going on at that time and then when Unity 2017.1 was released, the original version of AQUAS worked right out of the box, no errors, no failed rendering, all fine - now wasn't that easy?

I decided that depending on the issues left after the release of Unity 2018 I would only go and fix what actually needs a fix, because trying to keep compatibility up with beta products is like trying to empty a flooding boat with a cullender.

I do have to apologize for the inconveniences caused, by all means, I just do not believe, that if I had changed that light attenuation issue during the beta, would have made any difference for the better at this point - after all this is not popping up as an error for me in 2018.1, but other things instead.

 

@ThermodynamicsMakesMeHot
The issue is resolved now. I was told by the UAS staff that whatever is in the LICENSE.txt file within the package is displayed under that link on the AS page. The thing is that the LICENSE.txt the text was grabbed from wasn't AQUAS's license but the one for Bluenoise64 that comes with the Post Processing stack - and AQUAS by default comes with the post processing stack.

So basically the AS got the wrong license when I uploaded, but this does not make it count as AQUAS's license, because the LICENSE.txt file refers to Bluenoise64, not to the entire package.

After sorting that out, it was removed from the AS page.

@AFrisby Thanks again for the heads-up