Ultimate Water System - The most depreciated realtime water simulation [Depreciated Support thread]

[Mod note] This asset has been depreciated and is no longer for sale - use the thread to support each other.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REPORT ALL BUGS HERE: https://github.com/Moonlit-Games/Ultimate-Water-System
DOCUMENTATION: goo.gl/LmRBBh
ASSET STORE LINK: http://u3d.as/XrV
HOTFIX DOWNLOADS: http://goo.gl/nBx7dS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current status: 1.0.1 published on Asset Store

You can now upgrade to Ultimate Water System from PlayWay Water System
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Ultimate Water System - is a AAA-quality, fully fledged water simulation plugin for Unity, with such functionalities as dynamic water physics, buoyancy, foam, wet lens and many more!

Main Features:

​

Photo Realistic Water Simulation

Based on the recent oceanographic research, can simulate hundreds of thousands of waves with excellent foam and particle spray simulation adding a lot of realism to storm and windy weather. UWS is based on Unity Standard Shader (PBR), supporting Forward and Deferred pipelines, tessellation, planar reflections and reflection probes.

​

Dynamic Water Physics / Ripple Effects

Based on Shallow Water Equations it simulates water ripples movement on GPU (both pixel and compute shader implementations are provided) This allows for dynamic interaction with other mesh-objects in game (even particles, see rain below). Additionally, static obstacle detection enables ripples to be blocked by other objects such as rocks, pillars, etc.

​

Buoyancy Physics

Allows for simulating forces affecting Rigidbody movement, based on water density, as well as object mass and volume.

Underwater Shader

Renders objects taking into consideration depth and distance based, customizable, underwater light absorption, enables using underwater-only particles (i.e for marine snow).

​

Caustics

Simple texture projection that defines the areas of concentrated light.

Wet Lens

Normal map based lens distortion created by air-water contact point, (or alternatively - blurs the whole screen).

​

Advanced Rain Drops

Parametrized, dynamic simulation of raindrops on camera lens surface, featuring air friction, external forces (including camera movement), glass imperfections.

Shore / Object Detection / Foam

Simple shore foam implementation based on the distance between water surface and underwater terrain and objects.

Subtractive volumes / Volume Masking

Allows for removing water from specified volumes (i.e. in the inside of the submarine).

​

Water Decals (Projectors)

Projects textures onto water surface, enabling creation of leaves, dirt, oil spills etc.

Water Profiles

Ultimate Water System supports highly adjustable water profiles (separate for water and physics simulation), that enable user to create almost any desired setup.

All features can be seen in action on dedicated
Youtube Playlist​

Additional

• Many built-in water profile settings, based on Beaufort scale and actual oceanographic research
• Few geometries supported: radial grid, projection grid, uniform grid, custom mesh
• Shader collection builder ensures that only necessary shaders get into the build
• Full shader and C# source code included
• Basic Water Particles Included
• Highly adjustable quality levels

You can see this plugin at work in Ultimate Fishing

 

Does this asset require a PlayWay water licence or does it include the playway code?

 

I am very happy that a developer is continuing developing this asset. If you launch it as a new asset (which I read from your post above), you should offer something new to the customers who have allready purchased playway in my opinion.

 

...is unfortunately not very clear. An extension typically requires the original to function.

 

It does not include PlayWay Water license, however it contains some parts of PWS like 3D models, or some of original scripts, though heavily improved.

The are many new features in this asset that will not be available in PlayWay Water System - as this plugin is not developed by PlayWay but by Moonlit under Ultimate Games as publisher.
Main features are probably dynamic physics (interaction of objects with water, even particles), foam on shore/object detection, vector-map build rain drops camera effect, or decal projectors - but that will depend on your project.
Beside that, this plugin is internally based on rewritten version of latest PWS beta, including all it's original features.
Also, new features from PWS will appear in updates to Ultimate Water System.

This is not extension - it's rather a more advanced branch, only available as separate product. I've removed information about PWS from original post to avoid futher confusion.

No PlayWay water license is needed to buy this plugin - it's a separate, standalone asset.

 

Did you set a price for the asset?

 

Price will be set to $175

We've also just added demo showing how accurate are dynamic physics calculations (water-object interaction)

 

Looks great. Is it possible to limit the area of the water. Add it to a custom plane? to use with a lake etc and not an infinite plane. Or a swimingpool for this water physics.

 

It definitively is possible You can add multiple waters defined on many different meshes and physics simulation can be turned only on some of them if you'd like that.

I will post link to documentation in near future.

 

@Moonlit-Games-Studio so are you guys the new stewards of the PWS code? Because @zuzzu said someone was picking up the code and running with it but never mentioned who. If that's the case can we get some kind of upgrade discount? I picked up PWS at 5.4 and it stopped working at 5.6 and up.

 

Hi,

Now, as I have understood this, Ultimate Water System is a improved version of PWS, and it is a separate standalone product.

You mentioned that new features from PWS will appear in updates to Ultimate Water System, does that mean that PWS (the original) is still going to be developed with new features, but by who ? @Moonlit-Games-Studio or the original developer @zuzzu.

Thanks!

 

I'm also questioning the connection to this asset and PWS. What is the legal status here?

Do existing customers of PWS get any discount? The price tag is almost twice that of PWS...

 

Hi @Moonlit-Games-Studio !!!!

¿You are the study has acquired PlayWayWater code ??


regards

 

We've received a code-base from original owner, with a task to enhance it with further functionalities.
Moonlit will be responsible for Ultimate Water - as for the PWS you must contact the appropriate team.

Updates to PWS will be provided by original developer, and we will introduce them in UWS in future updates. Unique features of UWS will not be available in PWS.

As it often happens with intelectual properties, legalities can sometimes be difficult to understand (even for us - the devs).
I can only assure you that Moonlit has all the rights to develop and publish UWS on behalf of Ultimate Games.

The price tag is high - but in our opinion - fair.
We've put great amount of work into the dynamic physics simulation, as well as in many other features and improvements, and we will be bound to provide future updates and maintenance all supported versions of Unity, including merges of PWS updates.

Ultimate Games and PlayWay are working now with Unity on solution to make package upgradable from original PWS - stay tuned

 

Hi @Moonlit-Games-Studio !!!!

Does this mean that customers who already have purchased PWS will not have to pay the full money that UWS costs and only pay one part?


regards

 

Looks great, looking forward to the release of this asset.

EDIT: Released, unfortunately no upgrade price for owners of the PW Water asset owners...

 

This looks great, but I could barely afford Playway (and could never get that working for my projects) - even if there was an upgrade path I'm not sure what I'd be able to do

It's troubling that this developer does not allow private messages.

 

Disappointed at the approach taken here. If you buy out a product and continue it in a substantial form, you have a responsiblity to current customers. Trying to avoid that and distance yourself, well there are no good reasons for that really.

 

Well to be fair, let's assume he acquired the source code with a license for redistribution or similar - then it's just a new product, doesn't really matter what it's based on. Everything is based on something. Just imagine that he never mentioned anything of Playway at all.

Shader Assets that are "built upon Unity Standard Shader" don't give me a discount just because I'm already paying for the Unity Editor license that includes the Standard Shader.

That being said, I hope there will be an upgrade path from Playway. Maybe all Water Assets should have an upgrade chain - Ceto > Playway > Ultimate Water System > - and after 10 you get a free license for Aquas to actually finish your game and stop playing around with water assets ;-)

Anyway, good luck with the sales, looks really great so far.

I'm still on Ceto here http://store.steampowered.com/app/571630/Puzzle_Island_VR/

 

I purchased PlayWay just a few weeks before its developer announced the...transition. I've been anxiously waiting to see what would happen. Count me "interested, but hesitant" on UWS, because "once bitten, twice shy". I will monitor this thread to see what UWS does about upgrades from PW. $175 might be a reasonable price in isolation from PW, but as a migration path *from* PW it feels like buying some of the same features twice. I realize from the developer's viewpoint it might not seem that way.

 

Separate question: One of the issues with both Aquas and Suimono is VR support, with both performance and visual artifact issues. What is the status of VR support in UWS?

Also, what specific Unity versions and platforms have been tested for UWS?

 

Thanks for that much-needed bit of levity.

 

while I'm not exactly a starving artist, and the difference between say, 75$ for an upgrade, and 175$ for the full license isn't a huge deal, it's not about the fact that "Everything is based on something". It's about the fact that we paid 100$ to PlayWay for a product that we assumed would continue to work, and basically got the poop end of the stick starting in 5.6... except that wasn't the case - zuzzu gave his code to someone to take care of it, and unless that isn't the case, those of us who bought PWS should have some kind of break to getting UWS, even if its in the form of getting a [partial] refund from zuzzu. I bought my copy maybe 30 days before it stopped working, others even closer to the day. If he brings the code up to snuff and makes it work in 2017 then nevermind. if Moonlit brings the code up to snuff then nevermind. If neither of those things happen, and the only way we can use PWS is to upgrade to UWS, then we're entitled.

 

But that's not what is happening here. And that's not actually how it works. I've been through this same scenario basically twice myself. If you are small you can get away with almost anything. But out in the real world, it doesn't work like that. Not only is it just good business to be transparent in transitions like this. You also can't avoid liability just because it's an asset. That's not how the courts tend to view it now days, and rightly so. Because of course companies are going to try and say oh we just purchased the asset not the company. But that doesn't really hold water, and both customers and judges know it. Which is why when I went through this not only was it right in the contract how we had to notify customers and all, but I had to carry tail insurance for a year.

 

On a different note, because I would like to see someone be successful on the asset store with a good water system. I would highly encourage them to actually drop the price.

You have to look at the market you are selling to. There are price points that work well on the asset store. Some of it is perceived value for specific types of assets. Some of it is just that most purchasers are doing this for a hobby.

For the hobby folks, most of them just want a good basic solution that has the core features they want. They aren't going to pay $100 extra for things that are to them relatively minor. Like Hydroform for instance doesn't have near the wave quality of Playway. But it has a very similar overall look. So you will probably find a lot of people settle for that. But if this new solution was say $89, you would probably pick up a lot of sales that would have gone to Hydroform.

So the best price really has nothing to do with the merits of the water system on it's own, without any context of competition or who you are selling to. Just thinking about it in terms of what is 'fair' is all wrong. If you want to make the most money from it that is.

Playway water for example, god the worst price point ever. Like really $100 even? And I can't remember it ever changing to keep up with changes in the market.

You might also look at breaking it up into a modular product. So have a base version well into the hobby price range that you can sell a lot of units of.

Just look at what happened to Triton. Complete failure and he tried to blame it on everyone else. But the fact is he didn't get that what he thinks the product is worth has nothing to do with anything. He sells to the government and he thought oh it's worth the same to Unity developers. Sad because he has a great water system, is just clueless about marketing.

 

You're right, we don't really know what's happening and/or what the license agreement is/was - i can imagine that initially the new Dev was supposed to continue Playway but in the end they didn't find a good agreement?

It's probably not ok to direct the disappointment of Playway towards Moonlit.

 

Well, if I forked an asset and offered it at a doubled price point to an audience that already bought it, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those were getting aggravated. I'm not trying to talk down the improvements that have been made (they in fact look quite nice), but at the end of the day the asset _store_ is were business is made, and this practice is not good business.

The new developer should have worked something out before re-releasing it under a new name - that would have diminished most bad reactions and pacified most owners of the old asset. If I may reference what a clean asset transfer is to me, I'd like to mention UFPS and it's transition from VisionPunks to Opsive. Clear, open and frequent communication all over the place and full-fledged support for the old asset.

 

I think the difference there is the 'old' asset transferred to the new publisher. In this case we are getting the (sort of) same product but with a new publisher and I am betting the store software has no mechanism to handle that. My issue is that Playway has been getting sold for these past months when it should have been deprecated or similar to keep this licensing debacle from becoming an issue later, but I guess they had to milk the product as long as possible.

 

@snacktime i appreciate your sentiment and understand where you're coming from, but this is more closely similar to say, if you had stored 100$ in a bank, the bank gets bought out, and the new bank says they don't have your money, take it up with the old bank.. Or perhaps more precisely you put down money for a car, 1 month later the car stops working, the company that made the car sold to another company, and the new company who owns the rights (and liabilities) of the old company won't honor the warranty. That's a better example of what is happening here.

Again - assuming that:
1. Moonlit "bought/acquired" the PWS code and license and
2. They update PWS to work

then I won't care what the price of UWS is or having to pay a separate fee to get a similar product.

 

Hi, I want to express my opinion, I hope that it is constructive and no one will get hurt.
1. Price. It is really very much. As mentioned before me, many of the buyers as I do not earn money, it's just a hobby. And $ 175 is too high, given the other assets in the store. Perhaps the division of asset on several different levels will benefit in sales.
2. Your asset is called Ultimata, but it does not contain tools for creating rivers and streams. Or is the problem description?
3. PVS. Think you need a better way to describe the situation, as the moral aspect is very important in the desire to support the developers and buy their asset.

In any case, thanks for your work, and good luck.

 

I would pay $175 happily but only if the support is fully professional. So much time wasted with Playway.

I am also concerned about feature set, some appear to be downgraded from PW:

- underwater looks too clear/ unrealistic
- no demo of stormy waves
- physics looks jerky/twitchy: why is galleon shaking like a leaf?
- no mention of VR/ single pass rendering: deal breaker if not supported
- overall visual quality seems lower, but could be artist choices
- fog / atmospheric scattering integration? No mention or demo.

At $175 you are in pro territory. All of the above are required, as is timely forum response. So far not great. We are watching, and hoping.

 

I will say the documentation is much improved but still incomplete in a few sections.

The new dynamics features look great.

Not sure if the physics are good enough for VR boat sim. Hard to find out without buying but the videos suggest not. A demo or video of steerable boat would be helpful.

 

Key question: is the author of playway receiving any of that $175? I suspect so. If so, unethical. Charging once for broken asset and charging again for (maybe) fixed asset.

If this is the case refunds of all Playway payment to UW purchasers should be automatic.

If not, please clarify.

 

With respect, this is a rather harsh accusation to make without evidence. There are numerous posts on this thread linking the unresponsiveness of PW to the dev of UWC. Depending on their contractual relationship to one another, that may or may not be fair.

Please remember that this is a weekend. Yes, we would all wish that the UWC developer would respond to this thread and answer our questions, but we need to give them a reasonable interval during normal working hours to respond.

I share your irritation with the way some of this has been handled, but in fairness I urge us all to allow a reasonable response time from the new developer, instead of assuming they will do us wrong.

 

Let me be clear, I assume no malice. I don't think anyone is trying to do harm. What I do see is poor communication on zuzxu's part and a very unusually high price on a troubled asset. I think this is an important point to clear up.

I see inexperienced business people trying to do something cool and inadvertently harming others thru their inexperience. This is the spirit of my question. Not to condemn, but to point out that something seems to be off that could easily be corrected - taking care of the people who have been funding this adventure.

I have spent dozens of hours trying to stabilize Playway. This is a cost of at least hundreds in time wasted. I would like both these businesses to respect their customers. This question is material.

 

The thing is I remember back to my very first business, which actually was how I started out in my twenties. And I would have never handled it like this because I just inherently felt obligated on stuff like this. That's how I was raised.

So to me lack of experience doesn't count, I don't cut people breaks because they don't know to do the right ethical thing. That's more directed at the old Playway, the new guys haven't actually done anything yet to judge them on.

 

We have also purchased PlayWay, but I would like to remind everybody that the beta functionality made available by zuzzu is not included in the original package on the assetstore. This version has a lot of new features and functionality - and all this is included in the Ultimate Water System package (from what I understand).

The most important thing is that development of this system is continued, and that a serious and reliable developer is on board (I don't know Moonlit. but I hope they will do a good job).

Regarding the price - this is chump change for such a complex system - imagine how many hours it would take to develop this in-house compared to purchasing it on the assetstore.

And last but not least: If Moonlit didn't take over development, you would have lost the money on your original purchase of PlayWay (due to lack of compatibility on coming Unity version etc.).

 

Issue is people don't think like this or understand, I agree its nothing for a tool like this....

 

I agree and disagree, the new developer, won't be able to stay in business, if he is handing his tool out to people.. its also not his fault, play water developer is disappearing or shutting down .... So this developer just used the code and extended on it much further..so I see your point, but we need to see both points... At the end of the day tools like this in the gaming world, AAA, would cost you 30k, or more......So paying $175 for a tool like this is nothing, hobby or business.... so to get quality, and a good tool people need to pay .....

I have been in the indie and AAA, professionally for decades, and its way cheaper now a days for us.....you guys are lucky, now a days...Just saying.

PS: Looking forward to adding this to our new Steam game, that is releasing around next year.

 

Yes, look at Ceto - we purchased Ceto and built a lot of custom features and functionality around it - then the developer shut down (I don't blame him). Then we lost a lot of work and had to redo this for PlayWay - so we are extremely happy that we don't have to go through this again, and also to look for another solution that will work for us.

 

People always demand an ideal solution for their subjective situation - it needs to be a win-win for anyone to be interested.

Why on earth would a commercial entity take over PlayWay and give it out for free? That makes no sense what so ever from a business perspective (and the assetstore is a business, not a share and joy community)

 

agreed... no one would do that lol./

 

I was trying to address that in an earlier post. What something will sell for is linked to it's perceived not actual value, and can only be evaluated in the context of the market you are selling it in. Ignore this at your peril if you are an asset developer.

At $175, I will bet good money you will make less then if you priced it under $100.

 

That is a very good point.

 

Thank you for clarifying your intent, and I do concur that communication could have been much better.

I understand what people are saying about the price, but I also know what software development costs, because I run the IT department of my company as my "day job". $175 is a fairly high price compared to other assets in the store, but that is a very tiny fraction of the cost of developing an equivalent code base in-house. There is an understandable tension between Unity users -- especially those who are not part of a pro gamedev team and are paying out-of-pocket (which, by the way, is my situation) -- and the asset developers who need fair recompense for their time to build and support the assets.

We all agree we want great tech support on an asset with such a complex code base; the corollary is that they can't provide good support if their company is not viable over the long term.

 

That's all true but you are drawing a line that doesn't really exist. From how much it cost to make something to what it should sell for. Nobody cares what it cost to make. They only care about what value it offers them vs the competition.

How many people want realistic water right now? It's actually on the decline due to low poly/stylistic trends. If I was them I would expand it to cover a wider market. I would make a version that looks similar to Aquas but with say the wave stuff they have that Aquas doesn't, with physics. I would be looking for angles like that. I would want to dominate water entirely, not just be the high end niche. It's not interesting enough money wise to be high end in the asset store.

 

Hey Moonlit, sorry to hijack your thread, obviously lots of passion. We all want this to work!! I'm a little gunshy about plopping down my 175 until I get a better feel for how solid the implementation is. If you have VR single pass and the physics is workable I am all in. Just a little hesitant.

 

Back to features. These aren't ones I necessarily need but caught my attention for things that could be improved.

- Shorlines. Playway is very basic here

- Waves. Playway went for realism too much here IMO and didn't factor in gameplay. Like I can't create big smooth rolling waves in playway. From the screenshots it looks like you are heading in a better direction on that.

- Wakes and water splashes. I'd say splashes around moving objects is probably more important, if you were having to make a choice. Wakes are nice but splashes just better bang for the buck because you can use that to cover more of what you need, like stuff hitting the water as well as splashes around boats.

- Support for both mobile and more stylistic water. This is pretty big given the current trends. Whether I upgrade to this depends largely on does it work better with a stylistic look. Because I am about to go back to Aquas because of that, even though I'd have to give up wave physics for the most part.

- Physics. Pretty much everyone out there uses this open source script as a base for water physics (incluiding me). It's ok but could be so much better. Playway has the volume based stuff, which honestly again went in the wrong direction (realism).

The idea I had but never implemented for physics was to have an api that gave a relative power along with the wave height. So it would be easier to handle the logic for small vs big waves. You really can't do that well with the current solutons out there that just apply force based on height.

- Source. Probably not an issue for some but as someone that does this for a living, and is capable of tweaking/fixing stuff myself, this is a requirement. Vendors come and go, if i have source I can at least make it work through the current game. Unity doesn't break a single version so badly that I can't fix it myself.

 

Your assertion is valid and represents the distinction between cost-based and value-based pricing models. But that does not negate the basic math of cost versus revenue. A value-based model can still fail to make a profit. This is true even if the customers' perception of value is 100% correct and the developer was wrong. If that is the case, then the developer did not have a valid business model from the start because their cost was too high for what the market segment would sustain.

I'm not sure I agree with this, but I'll grant your point as a hypothetical.

Two counterpoints: First, trends are like fashion and change over time, sometimes rapidly -- what artistic style will the next generation of games favor? Second, the trend you cite may apply to games but not necessarily to archviz, training, and simulation apps.

To directly answer your question, apparently at least some people want realistic water, else PW and UWC would not be topics of interest to any of the people in this discussion.

There are assets selling for well over $175 on the Asset Store. For instance, AVPro Video lists at $450, and so far it has over 200 reviews, so it's obviously selling well. There are other video playback solutions that are cheaper, but apparently there is a market segment that considers AVPro worth the price. Maybe you are correct, and there is not a viable market for water systems at $175, but it's also possible that there is such a demand. I guess we'll find out.

BTW, @snacktime, please know that I do respect your viewpoint. The discussion is interesting (at least to me), but I do not intend to give offense or disrespect.

 

We might respectfully disagree on other points, but here I'm with you 100%.