Smart Water for Indies and Pros.

I am confused... who exactly developed this addon? Unity3dx or Nikko?

 

Nikko = Unity3dx. I had to create a new account.

I submitted Smart Water to the asset store, it is under review right now, 280Mb with the Island Demo included for Unity v3 ...iPhone is on the way, very soon then PRO. But I need to have a really stable basic version first as it is the foundation for the other plugins.

Btw, here are some new updates, in case you missed them. Just use the Update system at Unity3dx.com, that's for the ones who already paid SmartWater.

03-May-2011: Version 1.43
- Fixed the FPSCamera prefab that was broken in the last version because of an incompatibility with the Island demo.
- Added the foam, that was missing in the Island demo.
- Small fixes in the demo scenes and water prefabs.

01-May-2011: Version 1.41
- This version includes the Island demo modified to support Smart Water...it uses the new FPSCamera included in the v1.4

28-Apr-2011: Version 1.4
- new FPC/FPS camera prefab, so that you can drag and drop and have an FPS shooter type gameplay.

 

SmartWater just released in the asset store here

 

Hello unity3dx

found were to update



Thanks

Hans

 

cool... but still waiting for the mobile version
looks so nice, i'm crabbing it already!

 

me wants it... i program for open gl 1 still in old 2g devices :/
you said it was easy to do, if it's not really worth it as a sale, mind posting how?

 

I am very busy with a project for a Toymaker, I will try to make a package asap. But I cannot guarantee..

 

Could you release a lite or demo version (only 1 shader and uglier water or something) to have a look at the performance in the project it will be used for?

 

As I already said, the performance are = to 2 bump mappings.

Take one one plane, apply 2 material with bump mapping and see if it kills your game.

It is very hard to to release a demo without giving the source code! And if I do something that is not exactly what Smart Water is, then mesuring the performance is pointless.

Btw there is only one shader. No multiple pass. Everything is hand optimized in ASM to fit the 64 instructions limits for one pass with Shader2.

 

News:

Version 1.5 released:
1- I modified Smart Water so that you can use all the parameters without having to run the project. It was a customer request. I think it is a major improvement, specially for designers.
2- added support for Smart Water 2G,3GS and PRO plugins (drop down menu and tests in the editor.)

All scenes and prefabs have been updated with the changes.
To have the (1) function in your project without having to import a water prefab, you just have to drag and drop smartWater.mat on your SmartWater plane and it should be ok. If you have difficulties, open a ticket here http://tickets.nikkoid.com
In order to have 2 or more different waters in the same projects you need to use different materials. In the new asset, you will find several pre-made materials. SmartWaterPlane, SmarWaterObject1, SmartWaterObject2 etc... you are not limited to these ones, you can duplicate ad lib.

 

I'm not having any luck getting the update--the unity3dx site says it sent an email, but I never get it (have gotten them in the past when I purchased Smart Water). I filed a trouble ticket yesterday, no reply,and now www.unity3dx.com doesn't even show up for me in a browser, just a blank page. Nikko, you there?

 

Yep I am here, remember I am in Thailand. So there is 12 hours difference with the USA, if you send me an email at 10am your time it is 10pm my time. So I will probably take around 12h to respond.
Site was down due to a stupid update issue, fixed.
If you are using hotmail, the updates are going into the spam folder. Why? How can I know. I have changed something in the email system (used CRLF instead of CR to comply with RFC 822), maybe it will fix this issue?

I will check your ticket.

 

How is it going with pro version?

 

I am packaging the iPhone (OpenGL 1.1) compatible version. I will do it just after.
The iPhone version was a major move, because I had to make the editor so that you can switch from one platform to another by selecting it in a drop down menu. Smart water adapts itself immediately in editor or ingame, and everything else is working (underwater etc...)
Of course for iPhone 2G, 3G has a fixed pipeline, the look is not as good as the Indie version (no refraction/reflection) but it is good enough I think for these little old devices. This work will also help the PRO version, because it will use the same method to adapt itself from the editor.

 

Hi,

Nice pics. I'm waiting for the opengl 1.1 version
Are those screens from that version? Would be nice to have a pic or youtube of that one to evaluate

When do you think you'll have it out?

 

Yes these pics are from the OpenGL1.1 version. Everything from SmartWater Basic is working for OpenGLES 1.1, except that it is not as beautiful of course.
But you can go underwater and have a similar effect (with underwater shader)
You can mix several water shaders on the screen.
You have caustics, etc...
Only the refraction/fake reflection is gone.
I made 2 shaders, 1 pass and 2 pass, for speed.
I also made a demo scene and several prefabs (a 2 joystick camera for example) ready to use.

Iit is not as realistic as the basic version, but because it keeps the mechanic of the basic version, the textures animations and also interpolates the color, size of caustics etc...you just have to use the drop down menu to switch from one version to another.
You can change the target platform on the fly too. So when I will release Smart Water for OpenGLES 2+ it will be possible to check the phone version and to switch to the corresponding water.

I will post a separate thread for this version and also a youtube video where I demonstrate the thing, with my French accent as usual.

It is already out on http://unity3dx.com, and I am uploading to the asset store. I also had to update Smart Water basic to 1.6 with a lot of internal changes too.

Here are the changes for the v1.6 (online on my website already)

31-May-2011: version 1.6
- Important improvement and support for the 1st extension of Smart Water: for Mobile (OpenGLES 1.1)
- new logo
- new code for the editor and the brain now support several underwater for example
- all the shader patching is replaced with materials
- drop down menu to select the Smart Water platform
- new button in the Setup to disable the automatic material management. This is for when you need several Water materials in the same scene (see the manual)
- updated user manual, now available online in a flash viewer.
- the island demo has been removed because it was doing a lot of errors with the Mobile version. It will be available in download separately in the free section of http://unity3dx.com.

 

i like it... but i don´t need underwater effect since i won´t be underwater.
would that add speed? I don´t know how to the shader is implemented or if it´s only called when you are actually underwater but if removing the underwater effect improves speed it would be a great checkbox to have as an option

 

btw, i bought the package but it keeps telling me that the download doesn't exist... the url gives that error only for the mobile package. The basic one seems ok

 

@creat326: opening a ticket is better than write in the forum, I check the ticket system more often. Link fixed a while ago of course.
About the underwater, the underwater does not slow down anything. If you are above the water, there is just a collision detection with the water plane. The underwater is activated only when you go under, so there is no CPU used specifically for that when it is hidden.

 

Smart Water for Mobile is finished. Now I have Open GL ES 2.0 that is working exactly the same as the Indie version, that mean all the parameters, the prefabs, the demos, are compatible. It will be included with the OpenGL 1.1 version, so that the customers who have Smart Water Mobile will get it as a free update.

Smart Water Mobile still have some bugs with Android, I have a customer who is checking that and the problem should be fixed quickly.

Here is a picture and a video for the night. Smart Water Open Gl ES 2.0, iPad1, iPad2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, Android 2.2+

View attachment 21226

 

Lot of updates submitted in the Asset Store. These will be available in http://unity3dx.com in about 2 hours from now.

Smart Water 1.64:
- added support to Smart Water Mobile OpenGL ES 2.0 (new item in drop down menu for Open GL ES 2.0)
- fixed bugs about water plane initialization
- fixed bug when using several water on the screen and the underwater for each
- too much fixes and bugs fixes to list.

Smart Water Mobile 2,10
- added support to OpenGL ES 2.0 devices, the result is almost identical as Smart Water Basic.
- fixed several bugs with Android
- fixed underwater bugs
- fixed multiple water material on the same screen bug (in scene 2waters.scene)

Now Smart Water is working on the following devices (some still need to be confirmed)
Open GL ES 1.1 shaders
# Android 1.6
# iOS for iPad, iPhone, 2G, 3G and iPod Touch generation 1 2

Open GL ES 2.0:
# iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPod Touch 3rd generation and later
# Android platform since Android 2.2[10]

Basic:
MAC/PC/Web

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=21284&d=1307376787

That sun shouldnt be visible under water like this.

 

This screenshot you talk about is from the iPhone 2G version... remember. OpenGL 1.1. Not very powerful

Here is a real picture from Stock Photo.



Here is an underwater screenshot made from the "clearwater.scene" example using the Open GL 2.0 version for iPad/iPhone. No post processing, no full screen shaders as it is compatible with Indies version of Unity as well. I just changed the color of the sun to match the color of the real photograph and used the displacement map 03_normal...



Sure I will do something better for Smart Water PRO. But it is not yet.

 

Thanks for explanation, it looks better like this. What features are you planning for pro water? Some mesh displacement too?

 

I can't wait to work on the PRO version, that's the best part. I will have to do a lot for experimentation. I want to keep the same 'low cpu, low gpu' idea. My plan is to have (if I can do it)
- real refraction / reflections, should add one pass
- distortion (see thru distorts what you see) should add another pass
- chromatic aberrations.
- I will try to have some mesh animation, but I must find to find a way to 'fade' when you come closer so that the mesh is visible only when you are close to it. Dynamic tesselation with Direct X 11 would be the top, but apparently Unity is not ready for it.
- better underwater with full screen fx (using rays of god, and fog in depth texture)

For all the Smart Waters, I want to add
- particles when objects enter in collision with the water to fake movement in the water when for example you walk into it.
- water splash on the camera
- more presets

More plugins:
- sound Fx plugin. I have a great pro engineer who will record the Ocean and some water soundfx this summer for that.
- Coastline automatic generation. This coastline issue is really bothering me, I need to make something.
- Waterfalls

I also want to make a beautiful demo scene that will work on all platform. Maybe some kind of Island in the water with a complex landscape using the techniques developed for the Planet Mirano demo.

 

That sounds really good. It has everything I expect from water system. Looking forward to buying your pro version

 

Will the Pro version also allow to make waves like unity water3 prefab?

 

Yes when close to it. When far from the water, for performance issue, the waves will be faked, so that the water never takes too many polygons. I hope to be able to fade between the 2. I think it is how Crytek water is working.
But the problem with real waves is that the waves are passing thru a boat for example. So, if you have a boat and you have a strong sea, some waves might popup from inside of the boat if you see what I mean.

 

This is exactly sollution we need.
Water passing through boat is no problem, it can be solved by some mask, i ve already tested such masking mesh with appropriate shader.

 

Btw, I would like to apologize to the ones who bought thru the Asset Store.
I have sent an update Monday and I think because Caitlyn is in vacation, it is not approved yet.
If you need the new features (OpenGL 2 for iPad/iPhone for example) you can open a ticket and copy your Asset Store receipt at http://unity3dx.com, I will create an account so that you can use my update feature without waiting the long approval from UT.

 

Hello,
well i bought Smart Water the Mobile Version Today but i can't get the Editor Menu to run...
Is it Windows only ???
There are no settings in the inspector.... Plz fixx this soon !
thanks
Muckel

 

I got the latest update, and now it doesn't work--the Current Material field is always "None," even when I play the scene. That's supposed to auto-assign, right? I have tested it in a fresh scene with just the Smartwater prefab and camera in the scene (and a Directional Light). The water remains pink, and I get this repeating error in the console:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
SmartWaterBrain.LateUpdate () (at Assets/09 SmartWater/scripts/SmartWaterBrain.js:296)

 

@ gecko: Is it possible to open a ticket on my website please? I do not read this thread very often and cannot do the technical support in this thread and on unity3dx.com at the same time.
Please open a ticket here http://www.unity3dx.com/index.php/about/ that's where I can handle your issue.
Also please provide the version number you use and the OS. Thanks
Also if you create a water from scratch, using building blocks, you might have to drag and drop the camera, the sun etc...It is much better to start from one example at the beginning.

@Muklel, I think you opened a ticket as I got the same picture in a ticket couple of days ago. Is the problem solved for you? I didn't got an answer after you updated on the website.

In any case, if your problems are solved pleased report it here too . If anything is wrong, please contact me thru my ticket system, I am committed to help and fix everyone, case by case until it is working for you in your game.

New version v1.67:
- in this version Smart water can auto-select the right shaders at run time. Smart water check which OS, Device you use and adjust itself.
You can disable this by uncheck the new checkbox in the Editor->Setup section.

Asset Store: Still waiting for the Asset store approval for the latest updates (2 weeks now)... hopefully it will be ok tomorrow. UT takes the things very seriously and Smart Water give them an hard time for testing.

Advice: before you create a water from scratch (using building blocks) be sure you have learned from the example scene how it is working.
Smart Water is a complex piece of code because of all the different version handled. Also feel free to open a ticket, but please do not write in this thread and expect a quick answer, I have hundred of threads at Unity's forums and I cannot monitor everything.

 

Planet Mirano is an upcoming technical demo for iPhone/iPad/Android/PC/MAC

Here is a Smart Water Basic/Mobile screenshot from the PC version, the water is looking the same on all platform (as soon as they supports OpenGL ES 2)

 

I think this is not the case.....It will be rather something like documentation team, from who a havent seen single update in 1/2 year.

 

Never mind my bug report above--I'd renamed the Smartwater folder in my project, which messed things up when I imported the new version. Totally my fault. It works great now that I deleted the old and imported the latest again. Thanks!

 

23-June-2011: version 1.68 : http://unity3dx.com

• added new caustic animation loop
• added new main water animation loop
• added 4 new prefabs using the new graphics
• added 6 new example scene using the new graphics
• changed the way the autoconfig is working, now using #pragma so that there is no more errors and need to edit the code when you change platform.
• changed the way the underwater plane and spotlight are managed. Now in all the scene they can be disabled, SmartWater will enable them at will.
• added new feature to stretch the water textures according to your water plane size. You can now use the X/Y parameter to adjust the size.
  
  Attached: the new prefabs.

 

HI Im intrested in this but i need some input. I want great looking water for my VIZ that uses low computer cpu. First ill use it for a webplayer build and then im planning to use it for ipad 2.

Is this what i need? and why is this better than the unity pro water?

 

No one can tell me if this is a good product?

 

The Unity Pro water features like real reflection are not included in Smart Water yet.
For Indies it is very good in all but the price.

 

Ack, smart water was not as smart as I thought

I seemed to have jumped the gun on this one and purchased a license not aware that there were no real-time reflections, foam or displacement options, but I am a happy to know that a pro version will be released soon that will hopefully have these options?

But all in all, it looks great and I'm hoping the pro version will be equally as good. Good job, I imagine there is a way to incorporate Unity Pro's realtime reflections but I am still very unfamilar with unity at this point.

 

Problem is, that current Unity water is useless anyway. Water3 is half-finished (not usable at all) and pro water is too slow. Try to put more then one in scene, it is insanely resouce consuming, you have to do some LOD, culling, etc...On the other side this sollution is fast. I am very curious about pro version.

 

Even with the short time I played around with water3 I found it to look fairly decent if you only need a small body of water, increasing the size so as to create the look of an open ocean seems to create some rendering issues not to mention waves that are much too large. I've thought about trying to replace the mesh, but haven't messed with it much. I have high hopes for smart water pro and can't wait to see it.

 

I just want to add that if anyone is considering buying SmartWater they should think twice, not only is the product only worth about $40 max (I wouldn't pay more than $20) and you'll get no chance of a refund if you are dissatisfied. I have gotten good results with water3 and there are going to be improvements in ver. 3.4 so I won't be upgrading to nikko's "pro" version unless it totally blows unity's water out of the...water, and I have quite a bit more faith in the Unity development team than "unity3dx". He definitely won't be getting any repeat business from me so it's obvious he's after the quick dime and not the slow dollar.

So my answer for linusnorden is that this is a so-so product worth less than half what he's asking, is a bad business to deal with, and you would be better off saving your money and using the simple techniques he's using (spec map, normal map, reflect. map) and recreate it yourself, you'll save yourself 100 bucks and some disappointment.

His instructions broke my scene and I had to recreate it and after importing it into an empty project half the preset scenes didn't even function "as advertised" so I just deleted it and went back to water3. At some point I might look into his script to see what is going on but right now I would rather not think about the money I wasted

 

unfortunately I agree with most of avedis comment. I bought the package and I havent used it. the water just doesn't look good on mobile. it doesn't look realistic or what I was hoping for, it doesn't look unrealistic but cool either. I ws hoping for at least some cartoony look or something but the water on close-up looks pretty bad for any mobile game.

I'm hoping next release looks better but right now is definitely not worth the cost. most of us would want either a super realistic water for mobile or a cool eye catching cartoon look. so far it does neither.

 

Any progress with pro version? Unity really lacks some usable water system.

 

This is broken in 3.4, and the author appears to be not communicating with anyone. Who do I contact for a refund?

 

I'm using it for my mobile game and I think it looks really good. I guess it's a matter of personal opinion and preference. It was very easy to get setup using the included sample scenes as a starting point. The time savings for water looking like this is worth it to me.

@msken The author has already said in this thread to file a ticket if there is an issue. Here's the link again: http://www.unity3dx.com/index.php/about/

 

Hi,

I think Smart Water can be the best solution for the ocean effects in my project (KSP), but I want to confirm something before buying.

My intention is to use smart water on a spherical, procedural planet, so what I want to know is how well does the shader adapt itself to being moved and rotated around (is there any texture stretching when the water plane isn't XZ aligned? How well would it tile with neighboring ocean mesh quads?)

Cheers

 

You are right and it was my own fault, my apologies to the author.