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

It's not really possible to do that with realtime reflections, at least not with the script provided. The realtime reflections make use of a reflection camera, which means that for each frame, the reflections depend on that camera's position and rotation and by that on your main camera's position and rotation. Prerendering reflections and then using them only works with a 360° which is essentially a reflection proble. Now AQUAS supports reflection probes, but in the current version you don't have a lot of control over the distortion of that reflection (only by tuning down refraction), which is somewhat limiting.

 

Alright everybody, I have not yet been able to submit the update, because that "bit" of work that was left to make that package ready for submission turned out to be a bit more work than I expected. I was absent from the forum in the hope, that I would be able to finish everything quickly and then get back - to be honest I'm a bit embarassed, that I didn't managed to submit, when I said I would.
I have since reduced the amount of work to a list with only a couple of bullets left. If all goes well I will still be able to submit the update this week.

 

Oh okay, thank you.

Is there a way to limit how far this camera Renders the reflections?
I've tried changing the clipping on it in code and even if I put it to 1 it would still render infinite distance

 

Another question as well. How do I go about using multiple water sources? Normally I'd just put the water sources around map and call it a day. But for some reason - when it renders 2 or more water sources in the same frame it somehow breaks the reflections and they start acting weird.

 

Hello, I have downloaded your apk and tried on my Samsung Galaxy S10 and here is the result:

 

Greetings!

im using this in vr and after following the setup as listed in the pdf, i put the headset on and get a large texture floating infront of me showing both eyes.

unity 2018.4, fresh project with only aquas and the post process stack v2 from package manager

oculus hmd

forward renderering

singlePass not multi

 

Hi all!
We're using Aquas and Aura 2 in our current project.
Has any succesfully adjusted one of the Aquas shaders to work with Aura 2.

The Aura 2 docs has a short tech. guide on how to update the shaders and I have done so for the Desktop and Web/One-Sided/Double-Textured shader and the result is slighlty off.

The volumetric effect and fog are showing up correctly but it seems there is an offset in either the reflection or refraction?


Left - Default shader. Right - adjusted shader.

Any help would be great!

Pieter

 

Hello, I have a question about details of the distant view.
The details of the distant parts are omitted as in the red frame of the image.
How can I maintain the details like the green frame?

 

I am getting this error with 2019.2.0f1:

Assets\AQUAS\Scripts\AQUAS_CameraSwitcher.cs(29,122): error CS0103: The name 'AssetDatabase' does not exist in the current context

Can I dump this script, for an easy fix? I just need Aquas water and one camera for this job. Thanks.

 

You can. It’s only for the demo scene anyway.
There is a fix in the forum here, if you aren’t using the demo then you don’t need it.

 

Great - thank you. No, not using the demo.

 

@dogmachris you lose us again?

 

If you have multiple waterplanes that render with the same material, make sure only one of them has the reflection script on it. The script will pass the reflection image to the material which will then be applied to all waterplanes that use the material. Does that work?

 

No I'm not - still late - still in the final stages - still ironing out bugs - sorry for the delay, I know it's becoming embarassing at this point, but I'm working.

 

Oh interesting thanks mate.

 

I'm working on a VR application using Aquas water and am having trouble with reflections. The FAQ on the Aquas website states that in general water works fine in VR when using multipass mode, however that is not what I am seeing. The reflections between the left and right eyes are offset causing an unnatural feel that is a strain on the eyes. I've also tried singlepass mode, but it is even worse.

To test this, I've used the sample Lake scene and dropped in the default SteamVR camera rig and placed it near the shoreline. The reflections up close look alright, but looking further across the lake the reflections are quite different between left and right eye.

There is also something odd going on when the HMD is tilted. The reflection on the water changes in one eye or the other with a light color that does not appear to be from the sky or landscape.

I've uploaded a screen capture so you can see it in action:

Unity 2019.2.3f1
AQUAS 1.5.4
SteamVR 2.3.2 (sdk 1.4.18)

Side note: AQUAS_CameraSwitcher.cs is missing: using UnityEditor causing an error after a fresh install.

Is there anything I can do to fix the reflections to work in VR?

Thanks for any help.

 

i'd be quite keen to know if the linear color space issue is going to remain in the new version.

it really looks like Unity wants us to be using that where possible.

 

It's absolutely not embarrassing to take the time and get it right. You've made a fantastic asset already and I'm sure most of us are patiently excited to see what the next update brings. You're still more active than most creators, and the level of support you provide is fantastic. Take the time you need!

 

@dogmachris Hi, can I create the river with flow water using AQUAS Lite version?

 

does aquas reflection support post fx as i am using the beautify pluging but the bloom is not being reflected in the water

thanks

 

No worries - We appreciate your hard work and awesome asset.

 

Why is the screen position out of view frustum error still existing seeing as the reflection script is based on the standard assets water.cs script which does have a fix for the said above problem, it is ok for the maker of aquas to keep palming the error off as a unity error, but if a fix exists for the original script that you have used as a base for the reflection script why can you not fix the reflection script.

the error happens at random when in game view could be 20 minutes in or 5 minutes in there is no reason for it, it also will happen in a build if you leave on the debug when you build, i am sure that it does not crash the gameplay of a build but how can we release games to a paying customer knowing this could be a problem and may cause a crash.

and why is the aquas water plane at such a high scale when put into the scene, my god it is at around 15000 at its standard size.

please get the above fixed or it is over for me ever using aquas in a game project again as i can not trust it to not crash, i never get the error in the editor only in play mode or build with degug on., the error always points to line 100 of the reflection script, something to do with reflection render.

 

I'm having an issue with the reflections on the water. They're being culled and I can't figure out why.

https://imgur.com/a/EdZQC6W

 

@dogmachris You still there lol ?

 

One of the big performance problems with outdoor scenes is rendering large numbers of trees in the water reflection. In previous versions of Unity, terrain trees shared the same layer as the terrain, but from Unity 2018.2 onwards its possible to put terrain trees in a separate layer from the terrain.

In terrain settings go to 'Preserve Tree Prototype Layers' and check the box. This keeps your trees on their original layer when added to the terrain.

Now you can set up the Aquas reflection script to ignore the trees but still render the terrain in the reflection. A quick way to do it is create a new user layer and add the terrain to it. Then go to your Aquas object in the hierarchy and under the Aquas_reflection script change the Reflect Layers to your new user layer. At this point it will reflect the sky and terrain but not the trees improving performance significantly (note that if you select 'Nothing' in the Reflect Layers option it will still reflect the sky). Anything you need reflected can just be added to the new user layer and anything else is ignored.

 

Is there any fix for AQUAS and AURA 2 -- when might it be available? Is there a tutorial to fix?

 

Did you get any help for this? or find a fix?

 

No, unfortunately I didn't. I switched to Lux Water for our water effects/scenes - since I was able to properly adjust that shader to work with Aura 2.

 

If you wanted the script fix:
#if UNITY_EDITOR
using UnityEditor;
using UnityEngine;

 

@dogmachris i want to know if this asset is abandoned. There was supposed to be an update in June and it never came. The asset owner comes on here once every other month and says hi but thats it... i want to know if i am wasting my time waiting on this asset.

 

Hey SickaGamer - I highly doubt this asset is abandoned. Its a major player with drop down integrations with Gaia. Chris is probably doing most on his own and if he's trying to achieve new levels of water physics it could be challenging. Rather wait for something great then rushed to something average. I would say he could easily sell the rights before letting it go - "Aquas" is a house hold name with Unity. My two cents but could be wrong . lol

 

Hello, the asset is broken with 29182.6f1 I getting red errors. Please fix!!!

 

Asset dead?

 

Hey Devision4 - Can you post your Script errors? Maybe we can help.

 

Hey guys,

I've got a weird issue concering the depth-mask/volume-mask. I put it on a boat mesh and it's working as it should, up to the point where I look at the boat with AQUAS in the background. That's when this happens:


In front of AQUAS you can see the shader. Aside from that it's invisble.
When I adjust the render queue with the AQUASRenderQueueEditor or on the depth-mask material, it doesn't help at all.
Once the render queue of the depth-mask material is ABOVE 3000 it's completely invisible and I can see the water in the boat again. Below that, it doesn't change a thing. Changing AQUAS-render queue doesn't help either.

Does anyone have an idea?
Thanks!

 

Maybe...He hasn't returned my emails... Even his friends on here can't find him.

 

Issues with Aura 2 and Unity Fog. It seems like I am not the only one, considering other people have commented on this as well.
Do we wait for a fix, or is there some work around?

 

@Endi24 @SickaGamer @MagiSoftworks @Devision4 @PieterAlbers @BryanO @camta005 @directusgames @AdamGoodrich @S4G4N @GMax @CeeBee @cygnusprojects @FargleBargle @Bartolomeus755 @Vondox @magique

Alright everybody, I have news:

I have submitted the update yesterday. Let's see how long it takes to review it and if it meets all Unity requirements right away. If it does - with a bit of luck - it may go online next week.

The reason I went dark those past weeks, is because I needed the time to focus on finishing it, since I was almost a year behind schedule, so I accepted the consequences of negleting support for that time. I must apoligize for that, but I also have to add, that I am sure it will be worth it.

So here are some informations on the update (assuming it will be accepted that way by the asset store):

• AQUAS will go under the name of AQUAS 2020 as a separate asset.
• Upgrading from AQUAS to AQUAS 2020 will be free of charge for anyone who already owns a license. It will stay that way for at least 8 weeks.
• On the long run the old AQUAS version will be deprecated. I expect it to be available on the store until mid 2021 or so, but will announce exactly when it will be deprecated. This will allow users to finish using it in their current projects. In some cases it will not be possible to simply upgrade from AQUAS to AQUAS 2020 in an existing project, because AQUAS 2020 works so differently, that all water would have to be set up from again.
• AQUAS Lite will also be upgraded with the new shaders, but will continue to run under that name.

And here's a list of the changes/differences from AQUAS to AQUAS 2020:

• Water rendering:
  • Infinite water using world space UV mapping
  • Presampling of the depth buffer to allow AQUAS to interact correctly with effects that rely on it (e.g. realtime shadows, screen space fog and volumetric lighting such as aura
  • Increased controls over reflections: The relative amount of realtime reflections and reflection probe reflections can be controlled. The distortion of both can now be conrtolled (previously it was only possible with the realtime reflections). Since realtime reflections using a reflection camera does not in SPSR due to the nature of Unity's Camera.Render() method, reflection probe reflections can now be used as a 100% replacement. Not however that reflection probes are always less accurate.
  • Shoreline masks can be used to simulate shoreline wave normals and give the water a more realistic look
  • New backface materials that are transparent but can still write to the depth buffer, so that all depth-buffer-based effects may work underwater.
  • Performant shallow water with depth support
• Underwater effects:
  • Split rendering for when the camera is partly underwater and partly afloat
  • Optional performance focused setup that only differentiates between underwater and afloat
  • Custom underwater effects - Unity's post processing stack is no longer required
  • Underwater effects are specific to your water plane now: each water plane can have its individual parameters (underwater fog color, fog density, etc.)
  • Underwater parameters are dynamic now: The deeper you go, the darker and denser it gets - if you wish
  • The wet lens effect applies only to the part of the lens that has just exited the water.
• Other:
  • Automatic shoreline mask detection/generation - the quality of the mask depends on the resolution of the terrain's height map - low resolution height maps may give inaccurate results.
  • Full Comatibility with Unity 2018 and 2019 - Tested with Unity 2019.2.8
  • Improved setup wizard for increased ease of use
  • Improved caustics:
    
    • caustics now consider the scene color, which make them a bit more performance intensive than before - in return they look a lot more realistic - in case in which every fps counts, caustics may be disabled or reduced
    • Caustics now also use world space UVs, which makes them have the same scale on any object receiving them. This was a huge weak-spot of AQUAS in the past.
  • I included a camera navigator, that can be attached to the camera at will to make it free moving - this is useful for examining a scene in play mode.

With the above features a lot of the issues AQUAS currently has with Unity 2018 and above will be sorted out (shader errors, errors related to the pp-stack and incompatibility issues with various effects)

There are a couple of things that I have not finished before publishing, because I could not afford to loose any more time. I will start focussing on adding SRP compatibility, since AQUAS 2020 only supports Unity's standard render pipeline as of yet. In that step I will also add a bunch of features that I could not finish until now, such as the screen space mesh and the small waves.

This weekend I will be mostly busy submitting the update for AQUAS Lite and making tutorials (which I will of course post, as I put them online), just to make sure, they're ready when AQUAS 2020 goes live. Right after that I will get working on some feature scenes, since I submitted AQUAS 2020 with the screenshots of AQUAS, and I want to replace those with new ones showing some of the new features.

I'll be on the forum tomorrow morning to answer the due support requests.

Sorry once again that I kept you all waiting for so long.

Cheers everybody!

 

Exciting stuff @dogmachris Thanks for making this a free upgrade.

Any chance of Aura2 being supported? Last I tried it, it wasn't playing nice with Aquas and I wasn't able to tweak the shader as per the Aura2 dev's recommendations. It's all way out of my league.

 

Awesome news!

 

An amazing upgrade. Can't wait to try it! hopefully this will placate some of the more vocal and less patient developers out there.

 

Yes, Aura 2 will be supported without any tweaking of the shaders. If you would like AQUAS to support really any depth-buffer based effects in a scene, all you have to do is add a component to the camera, that's it. It should then work out of the box with Aura, screen space fog from weather systems, even realtime shadows.

 

It seems like the convex hull of your boat it too big. Ideally it should perfectly envelope your boat, if it's bigger, that is the issue you get. The reason is, that the convex hull object is actually only rendering "over" the water and prevents it from rendering wherever it is. So if it does not exactly match the boat, you will either have water rendering in the boat, or no water rendering outside of the boat.

Does that help you?

 

If you're getting errors related to the AQUAS_CameraSwitcher.cs, please delete the script, that should do it.
I will remove compatibility with pp v1, so AQUAS doesn't require this danmable script anymore.
AQUAS 2020 btw doesn't require the pp stack at all, all effects are made by AQUAS's shaders.

 

Oh boy the update is here!! Going dark was worth it!! "Presampling of the depth buffer to allow AQUAS to interact correctly with effects that rely on it (e.g. realtime shadows, screen space fog and volumetric lighting such as aura" ...I cant wait to try this! Big fan of your work, you genius water shader god you! ;P Thx for all the hard work! cheers!

 

Please, please, don't make a fuzz, I'm just plain Yogurt...

BTW everyone, I've also updated AQUAS Lite, and it already went online. Those of you who own it, may want to update, if you're curious. It now contains the default shader from AQUAS 2020 without shoreline wave effects and flowmap support (see the changelog for more information).

I'm still working on the first tutorial video, I realised it's a bit more work than I thought to prerecord the audio and match it to a proper screencap, but I'm on it.

 

Hey Chris! I think you spent majority of your Script time rolling out a massive AQUAS_CameraSwitcher.cs update? lol

 

@dogmachris ,

Do we have an ETA for Aquas 2020 release live on the Asset Store?

 

Actually that helped, thank you!

Now I tried the buoyancy feature in combination with that, but with around 170 triangles on that boat there's no way I can make this performant, is there? Having 5-10 boats in the zone simply has a ridiculous performance impact.

Any help on how to make that buoyancy effect performant would be greatly appreciated.

Mithrael

 

Ok everybody, here's the first tutorial video, as promised. It's not really about setting up the water, it's more an introduction to the demo scenes, just so you can check if everything's working as it should when AQUAS 2020 is imported.