Smartwater 3D version 2

Welcome to Smart Water 3D

New: version 1.1 is released with real time GPU waves support for both Unity free and Pro.
New: it is released here: http://www.smartwater3d.com

Here are 2 quick examples of what Smart Water 3D can do:







Video of the Mobile version Open GL ES 2, which is the core of Smartwater, all shaders have the same core features explained here :

Video of the PRO version. Pro version supports all the features of the Mobile version like flow map emulation, but adds better refraction, sun reflection and a grabpass to get an underwater distortion see-through. It is still very cheap and should work on most OPENGL ES3 devices as well This video shows some practical examples but not all features:

SmartWater Cartoon add-on pictures published on Facebook:



I am working on this asset in my spare time for 2 years now...
The date where I will finally release this asset is close... but I am still working on it, and I want to share with you the results I get, answer to your questions and get some feedback before I finally release it.

Some information for the ones who do not remember what Smart Water is.
- Smart Water is a procedural water material that was first released 4 years ago. It is still for sale at http://www.funpoint.com, even if it is quite old now, it is working on most mobile and on all desktop version of Unity.

Now about Smartwater 3D version 2:
Smart Water is a highly optimized set of shaders plus a set of add-ons.
Each of the water shaders are sharing the same parameters so that it is possible to switch from one water to another, in editor or in game, and keep the same water look. The water also adapts to the lightning from your directional light. The water support caustics, turbidity, foam, underwater and more effects.
Attention to detail is the main idea about this shaders and that's why it took so much time to finally be close to the release date.
Smart Water 3D can be seen as a water material that can be applied on any surface, even on animated mesh or characters!

I have setup a Facebook page so that I can post many news and pictures: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Smartwater3d/1495826053962825

A website is under development. This asset will not be sold on the Asset Store but on the smartwater3d.com website only.

Feel free to ask questions, I will try to answer the best I can. Don't be worried if I do not respond right away, I am very busy and I am not checking every day, question can be asked on the FB page as well.

Mobile shader (Open GL ES 2 & 3), 1 draw call 1 pass.

 

Wow, this looks fantastic. The performance is also incredible, 1 draw call is pretty amazing for what I can see. I take my hat off to you good sir
Having buoyancy included is also pretty neat. Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks tweedie , I forgot to publish the specs:

- supports linear and gamma lightning (where supported by Unity)
- supports deferred and forward rendering.
- all shaders no using grabpass are compatible with Unity basic.

Is not compatible DX-11 (yet)

 

Looks really amazing, out of all the water assets I've seen on Unity, this takes the cake! I also messaged you on fb. Hope to see this finished!

 

I have added the official video for the mobile version. This part of the project is finished, and I move on polishing the GL3 and PRO versions.

 

Bingo, I have finished the PRO version shaders (4 shaders total)

 

Question about the mobile version. Does it do reflection, foams and all that on mobile too if we have unity pro? I have unity pro but most my dev time is on mobile. One important thing is that I can see reflection or shadow on the water so that when I look down the water I see myself and my shadow if the sun is behind me

 

The mobile shader is demonstrated in the video (pirate Island) with all its features foam etc...

Mirror reflections on the water means you need to render the geometry at least 2 times (instead of 1) (4 times on the Water 4 from Unity) and it is not realistic. Most real picture of water will not get any visible reflections unless the water is perfectly flat like ... a mirror.
.
Do you really want to divide your FPS by 2 just because you want to see yourself on the water like in a mirror?

Reflection on the water is an add-on, it is available but it is not advised to use it on Mobile, or your game will be too slow. It is advised to pre-calculate the reflections in a Cube Map which Smart Water Mobile supports. It is up to you to use reflections if you wish, but I will not advertise it, or I will have to remove the "Smart" word from the Smart Water name

Also if you go in the water yourself, you will not see your shadow on the water, because it is transparent. Basic property of the water.



Here is something I just googled... first you can see that the shadow of the boat is not on the top of the water, but on the ground and you see it thought the water and there are not mirror reflection on the top of the water



Here is another picture of real water. The shadow is on the ground, not on the surface. And the reflections are barely visible... not worth rendering your game x2 time for it or even 4 time if you want to have a perfect mirror with no artifacts on the side as Water 4 from Unity does.

Again the script is here and you can drag and drop it.

Another one...


Now there are specific situations where the water offers mirror reflections like this and it is quite rare and beautiful.The default Water 4 from Unity is doing it very well, so that was no need to work on a specific water to re-create the wheel. The reflection script is in the package, but it will suck your FPS like crazy. On desktop it is ok, but on Mobile it is not advised. And yes you need Unity PRO to do that. Smart water is better at doing water like the ones above. The one below can be done with a simple plane and a mirror reflection on it.

 

Is there a release date ? Looks very sweet

 

I think this month, but will not be released in the Asset store . Only at http://www.funpoint.com, cost should be around $80, and add-ons about $10 to $20 (buoyancy, sounds prefabs, reflections) and I am working on a FFT / Phillips Spectrum waves like in the Free Ocean I made. People who already purchased Smart Water will have 50% off for the upgrade.

One more picture. The scene is 462 draw calls without water. Unity pro takes 2 FPS on my I7 with dual GTX 750 SLI. 8% of the game, just for the water. On mobile: forget it.

 

Great looking asset. However not on unity asset store

 

Yeah, I know it is not 'conventional' but the Asset store is really not adapted for doing my sales, believe me I was selling all the assets at http://www.funpoint.com before and they were in all in the asset store. I started selling from the very beginning.

I decided to pull out everything from the store because I was not able to manage my sales correctly.
On my store:

• I can have add-on to a product, manage my own promotions and sales. Sell several files for 1 products.
• I can release several versions (for Unity 3.5, 4.2, 4.5 etc...) for the ones who cannot upgrade for some reason.
• I can have extended description with previews for the music and video.
• I have the contact with the customers and can send newsletters
• I update immediately without having to wait 1 week or more to get my updates listed (for bug fixing it is priceless)
• I make 30% more per sales.

Of course I miss probably a lot of sales. But some products are still selling good after several years on my shop, like Earth 3D...

 

Finished the last PRO shader (with reflection)... This one is slow, because of the reflection which uses the same way from the Unity shaders... some people asked about real time reflection so here it is. It is also very complex because it merges all the techniques together (in one pass)... zoom on the picture to check how complex the rendering is.

 

Compare Smartwater and Water 4 from Unity in a realistic situation (plain sunshine / sunset) with a water that has the underground in neutral color. The color of the water is blue because of the reflection of the sky, but in the shadow, it should be like the ground, which is neutral. Here the Unity Water fails to be realistic, Smartwater does look like it should be in the reality.In the sunshine the Unity water has 2 problems, 1 it does not get the shadows of the borders of the pool, 2, where is the sun reflection? The sun is actually just behind the trees as you can see in the Smartwater version.
Unity 4 looks exactly the same un plain sunshine or in the shadow at sunset. Smartwater adapts itself automatically to the environment. It is more transparent in the shadow, and the sun reflections are realistic.

 

Cool!

 

This looks very good! The performance benefit looks great as well.

"One more picture. The scene is 462 draw calls without water. Unity pro takes 2 FPS on my I7 with dual GTX 750 SLI. 8% of the game, just for the water. On mobile: forget it."

How does the performance compare to Unity Pro? If Unity Pro takes 2FPS [8%], in the same scene what does Smartwater take?

All of the videos show small bodies of water - what about oceans?

 

This video

There is not a small body of water here. I have no problem to make huge bodies of water, or have several bodies at the same time like a pool+an ocean plus a bathroom plus a glass of water on a table.

About the performance, the mobile shader that is demonstrated in this video is about like 3 Bump mapping. Of course you have to avoid using full reflections if you want to really get maximum performance. I do not like to talk bad about the competition, but Smart Water achieve the best ratio performance / features on the market. I cannot imagine anyone doing better with Open GL 2 for example and its limitations of 64 arithmetic instructions. I have spent a tremendous time wrestling with all the possibilities, simplifications, pre-calculation on the CPU, in tables etc in order to get as many features in a single pass shader. I have worked instruction by instruction like on an Atari ST when we were counting the cycles to fit in a VBL (some may understand the challenge behind this statement) . Things are precalculated in order to get this result (specially the depth map).

The PRO shader Open GL 3 with all the features is still a one pass shader on Open GL3, but slower because of the reflections. You get a far better rendering (photorealistic) for about the same speed than the competition.

Some people might know that I am also the author of the free Ocean couple of years ago... so I will also make waves that will work as add-on to Smart Water, but that's more a experiment and is not a priority.

The priority is to get the best rendering and usable water possible for Unity. And that's why it must be fast (video games are about speed, always) and it must work in a lot of different cases. I will provide prefabs and scenes that are compatible with a lot of assets in the asset store like K4 Pirate Island, Resort, Top down city, OnQ cartoon pack, Mobile Environment pack, Destroyed city and more... for me it helps to test that the water can be drag and dropped on almost anything and will look good without having to change the code.

Here is a video I made 3 years ago... I will merge the wave system with Smart Water in the future.

 

I have finished the Mobile underwater: 2 draw calls. Fast of course, simple... next is the Underwater PRO that will have postprocessing.

 

Ok latest post in this thread, since the product is now in release state. Should be released within a week or so. I have to make 2 tutorials, the documentation and finish the website.

Latest integration with Toon Level Kit from Hedgehog Team posed some issues as the depth of the water was too small to calculate the depth map properly... I added an adjust parameter to scale the depth map and get the foam and other features working even in very small bodies of water.

In these pictures there is no reflections (well it is simulated with a grab pass), so 1 draw call and hyper fast on Open GL ES 3 cards and over.

As you can see in the last picture, Smart Water 3D is a single plane, but the depth map can change the way it looks dramatically, and you can have multiple island on just one instance of SW3D...a tutorial specific about how to adjust the depth map calculation is in the making.

 

"Smart Water 3D can be seen as a water material that can be applied on any surface, even on animated mesh or characters!"
do you ave any examples of this?
In the Island example are you using Flowmaps to control the shallow water?
I'm really looking forward to this!

 

Check out this video and see how I include the Water. I pretty much touch all the parameters.
I control the shallow water and the flowmap is automatically calculated from the depth map, the normal map and the direction x/y of the water.

 

Cool video!
I purchased Smart Water https://funpoint.com/
smartwaterbasic169.zip.part 145MB : 272.85MB
this file will not download, please advise.

 

Oups, this is the old version, the new version is not for sale yet! And I need to approve all purchases manually.
I will check funpoint.com, and will upgrade you with the new version when it is available (in a couple of days)...
The old version sure not have all the features listed in this "work in progress" thread.
Let's try to solve this at Funpoint's ticket system... I want to keep this thread only about the progress and improvement of this project.

 

You asked me if it can be applied on any mesh and here is your answer. The project will be included in the Final version of SM3D

 

Looks great, man!

 

Fun! Defiantly merge the wave system with SW3Dv2 pro!

 

Why the preview video in the 1st post starts with a top view camera? I almost stop the video if I didn't see the other preview images, your water is awesome, but in the video you should show one of the best view first, cos many people gonna skip the video if there's nothing interesting in first 5-10 seconds.

 

The waves will be merged, but the priority is to release this version first. Having Philips waves would be awesome but will be more of an experiment than something one can really use in a final multi-platform product. I like the challenge and I have the code so it will be, maybe using DirectX-11, it makes sense to have dynamic tessellation for large water meshes...

 

I would love to check if SM3D fits into our mobile project - but I cant find a link to purchase your product? Was it released at all already?

 

It is very close to be released. Like our facebook page and you can get the links to the PC/MAC Sandbox demo pictured in this video

 

Smart Water 3D is released here: http://www.smartwater3d.com

I will create another thread in the Asset Store section. I will probably not publish it in the Asset Store due to some technical problems. SM3D has a lot of upgrade paths, Add-Ons and versions, the Asset Store is very simple and cannot handle all of these.

 

Version 1.1 is released at http://www.smartwater3d.com and submitted to approval to the asset store.

1.1
- New GPU wave support for Basic and PRO.
- Shader PRO1 and PRO2, and shader BASIC1 and BASIC2 (flow and non flow) are merged together. A flow slider is added to most shaders in order to control the flow directions.
- New shaders with no diffuse mix.
- New shaders opaque that caches the shadows.
- The specular lightning has been changed in all the shader to support a more accurate Sun calculation.
- The refraction has been rewriten and is not mathematically correct for all shaders.
- New Distance from cam slider to have a transparency progressive fade.
- New Water mixer located in the Setup to easily mix the textures, color, refraction and underwater grabpass component.
- New error message system. The messages appears in read at the top of the editor script.
- All demos programs have been fixed to reflect the changes and new parameters.
- Grabpass underwater excessive deformation has been fixed.
- New home made textures for the foam
- New normal maps for the water surface look
- many bug fixes and small improvements.


1.0
- Initial release

 

Smartwater3D / Unity3dx / Nikko, What is being done for all the users who purchased Smartwater from your old website, and from the asset store before it was taken down? How will we be given access to the download? Also will you be decreasing the asset store price to match the listed price in your other store on funpoint.com and your own website?

 

You mentioned this could work on any mesh so I am guessing it would have no issues being used on a sphere to be used as an ocean for a planet?

 

Pardon my ignorance but will this shader work in DX11 and Linear Space?

 

Check here: http://smartwater3d.com/buy.php
and scroll down to upgrades. If you purchased Basic before the full package will be $60 instead of $200
If you purchase Basic and Mobile, it is $40.

No, it works in gamma space and Opengl 2, 3 or Direct X 9.
I will release shaders in Linear space, the first shaders I did were in Linear space and I found that the transparency and shore calculation were way more precise and better looking. So keep track of what is happening, the Linear Space add-on will probably be impressive.
About Direct X 11, it is just a matter of time so that I fix the DX11 compatibility errors. Probably 1 or 2 months. I have to release the particle add-on before. I want splashes and bobbles ASAP!

Yes of course...if you use a satellite depth map the result will be awesome. I want to see that.

 

And btw I have just pushed the update 1.1e that adds GPU waves for Mobile, compatible OPEN GLES 2!
I was not convinced when I started working on that, but the result exceeded my expectation. I hope it will for you too.

 

I was trying to see how to get this asset, until I realized you are not on the asset store. Shame as I was quite interested in the product.

 

I am in the asset store, https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/publisher/8761
You can also check my signature.

 

Ah, I read on your first post that it was not planned to be released on the asset store, perhaps that is a different version?

Is your pricing settled? As before on your page it said 150 but if you clicked it to purchase the price jumped up to 180 i think. That is changed now, but the price on the asset store is still 200 rather than 150.

Also what advantages does this have over SUIMINO http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/suimono-water-system-2-0-beta-announcement.211653/
which is only 65USD?

 

The price is settled, it is $150 on my store and $200 in the asset store for the full 1.7 gb package that includes sounds, underwater, mobile, pro, basic and buoyancy (and the upcoming particle add-on).

The basic version is $60 in the Asset Store and $40 on my store, you see I am cheaper than Suimino.

I will not extrapolate or compare with another asset. I clearly see the difference, I own both. Smart Water is of course better in my opinion, specially about how it is build and optimized.

Check the videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/nikkoid/videos
or our website here: http://www.smartwater3d.com

I have changed the web demo here: http://www.smartwater3d.com/demo.php

 

Hi Nikko

Will the Linear space addon, and DX11 support be included in your Full $150 package? Generally will all new addons released for Smartwater be included in the full package?

On a separate note, I was wondering how your 3D waves are handled on lets say an island. Do the waves use the terrain height map and slope to figure out the wave direction of movement i.e. on the eastern side of the island coastline, the waves come in from the east to west, and on the western side of the coastline waves move in from the west to east. I understand this is not a ocean simulation package.

 

1- The full package has everything. For example all additional add-on will be automatically included in the Full Package. Plus it has things that cannot be included in the other packages because it uses all the packages at a time, like the Sandbox demo project files. However, I cannot guarantee that the price of the Full Package will stay the same if I add too many things inside.

2- The waves are not handled the same in the Mobile version and the Basic and Pro version. Mobile is pretty simple, and you can rotate the direction of the waves so that it matches the direction of the wind. That will look unrealistic on one side of your island, depending how you setup your wave pattern. If you check CRyEngine 3 for example, the default values are making the waves going nowhere, they just move and stay at the same place. You can do the same with Smart Water, but in the videos I wanted to make the waves moving in one direction.

Now in Basic and PRO the waves are more complex and they adapts themselves to the shoreline so that the water does not move too much at the borders. It will flatten when arrive to the shoreline in anotherword. Like in reality you can get big waves where the water is deep, and the waves get flat at the shoreline with the foam. The PRO and Basic are also flexible to the direction you want them to go, you can decide to make them standstill. You can try the web demo at http://www.smartwater3d.com and turn around the island to see the result, but in the demo you cannot change the waves direction. Check with the 2 last shaders in the list for example and see what is happening on the beach, or on the small island in the distance.

 

Played with Smart Water on a Sphere today

 

Smart Water Particles add-on close to be finished, working on the example scene.

 

and here is the video about the Particle Add-on

 

New Update version 1.3 available on http:www.smartwater3d.com (Asset store users will have to wait the Unity's Approval.

Updates are for Basic, PRO and Underwater.

1.3
- Addition of the Border Wave Adjust in the wave tab
- Sun calculation cosmetic improvement.
- new assets and upgrade to support the new features of the Underwater package
- new assets and upgrade to support the Particle add-on.
- added a simple version checker to display a warning when a new version is released, so that you do not miss it.
- changed the mobile and pro scripts to better support multi water with different materials
- upgraded the 2 balls demos to show up the new scripts features
- added a full screen opengl2 shader (post processing) to display water on the camera
- new script Water On Cam to support the new shader
- new water drop assets.

 

Underwater 1.3 new features:

 

Particles add-on 1.3 and new demo:

 

Apparently my account has been disabled without notice, I have lost the money on it.
I have not explanation of it, and will edit this message if I can when this will be resolved.
You can reach http://www.smartwater3d.com where I will continue to develop this product.
I hope I will get some answers from Unity about this, I am devastated, this asked a lot of work spread on several years.