Playway Water system is great for a huge Ocean but it does not work so well on small bodies of Water.
Introducing FastOcean from bearWorks. This asset has many issues that I need to fix, but it catch my attention with some unique features.
It is fast. Someway they managed to get the reflections faster than the classic planar reflection that is so slow with Aqua, Water4 or Smartwater.
I love the Glare effect, it is visually amazing.
The code is easy to understand and modify.
But there are several serious issues that I need to fix:
the shoreline is not working great on my project (linear mode plus too much light in the day, the result is just white or invisible in the night).
the ocean does not respond to Global Illumination, in the night it the same as in the day light.
i don’t like the way the transparency is done… there is no distance fade.
no sound effects under the water.
Having fixed all these problems, now I have something that is working good for my use, I can change easily the water from calm to choppy, check if I am inside the water or out for the character, and the underwater is yet not perfect, I will polish it later, but it is working enough for now. For some reason my changes have corrupted the underwater transition, this is something that I will deal later.
I have added a check for underwater and turn on a hipass filter to get the sounds more low. I will add a specific underwater sound when doing the main character.
I have also managed to add the underwater vegetation, which is surprisingly not slowing down the game even if it is quite dense, I am using Yughues Underwater Plants v.2 which is I think the best in that category.
Here is the modified FastOcean shader with its glare effect, improved automatic shoreline, day and night cycle compatible and with a corrected transparency that fades with the distance.
