Wave Creator - Real Waves in Unity!

Wow this looks great, will waves 2 be a free update from current version?
Also will the in development buoyancy allow proper rolling of boats/ships on the waves relevant to size/mass of vessel.
One last question what is the max size that water plane can be, can you use for a ocean?

 

An enthusiastic +1 on that. BTW, URU, Ages Beyond Myst, from which the example picture on the Gerstner link you provided was taken, was one of my inspirations for getting into game design, and learning to use Unity in the first place. Nice to see things coming full circle.

I'm using planes 5km by 5km right now without any problems. I haven't tried larger yet, since this is big enough to disappear nicely in the horizon fog, but don't see a problem, as long as you have speed/frequency adjustments. I'm not sure you'd want to take it to a planetary scale though.

Having Gerstner displacement without needing to get Unity Pro will be a big draw for a lot of Indie users. I'll add one more thing to John G's list of questions. Will you come up with a simpler way to control the Gerstner waves than Unity's Water4 uses? One reason I'm using Wave Creator instead is that Water4 has dozens of tweakable parameters to control the waves, but NO guidelines or documentation on how to change them if the default options don't work for you. This leads to lots of trial and error getting the water to look right, whenever you change the scale for instance. For those that don't have Pro, here's what I mean:



What I like about Wave Creator is the ease of use. You have a few easily understood parameters, and you explain what each one does in the accompanying tutorials. While I expect Gerstner Waves will have a few more options, don't lose the simple setup, that I consider one of your strengths, in the process.

 

hi,
did you add shores/foams already? it would be great otherwise the shore looks too simple since it goes from completely dry to wave blue

 

Picked it up, look forward to seeing where it goes.

 

Hi SP0KK0

Just bought your pakage and sent you a private email with some ideas. Please let me know if you received.

Regards Joni

 

Hey

Thanks for the comments guys

I'm currently undecided on the price of Wave Creator 2, as I have made some significant improvements. If you have bought Wave Creator for $10 already you won't need to pay any extra to get the update though.

I'm not going to make any promises in this department as I have not scripted physics support yet.

Yes. It will have many less parameters than Water4, whilst hopefully creating an equally good effect.

I'm planning having shoreline effects in Wave Creator 2. I know the shorelines look simple at the moment.

I received your email on Friday, I sent a reply to your Skype.

Thanks for the comments guys. All are appreciated

 

Yay! You're now officially my hero.

Awesome. I'm looking forward to it more every day.

OK, my jaw is now on the floor. Let us know how it's coming along. The anticipation is killing me. And if you need a beta tester...

 

This looks just great! I just bought it and will try it for our game!

 

Hey there

Wave Creator 1.3 has been released this means that no wave motion is calculated under the terrain as shown in the screenshot below:



Unfortunately because Unity no longer allows custom tabs the top menu I've had to rearrange the menus a bit in this update, this means that the Walkthrough which comes with Wave Creator is now incorrect. Here is where you can find everything:

• To create waves go to GameObject (top bar) / Create Other / Waves
• To open the example scene open the file which is located in Wave Creator / Example Scene / Stormy Beach
• To add flotation go to Component (top bar) / Scripts / Float
• To add submerged effect go to Component (top bar) / Scripts / Submerged Effect

I've also been working on Wave Creator 2, I have programmed the Wave Animation in shader now, this means I can do some nice foam effects. Here is a screenshot of what is to come:



Thanks

 

Wow, looking forward to WC2 if waves are now done in shaders.. using a simple Gerstner heightmap texel-fetch instead of intricate formulas perhaps even?

 

Thanks for the comment

It is using the Gerstner Waves formula to calculate the heights, It's not as complex as it looks.

Thanks

 

OK I'll be happy to give this a try

 

Any idea when you'll be releasing this? Love the foamy water...

 

Thanks for the comments

I don't want to set a date for it just yet because I still have a lot to code such lighting effects for the shader, but It shouldn't be too long. I'm glad you like the effect.

Thanks. All comments welcome.

 

Hello i wanted to ask about the interactivity of the water. What about the splashes? Do i need to add custom effects?

In the version 2:

Splash FX
Physics
Maelstorm

which of these will be included? The image with the shader you uploaded charmed me. Its simply awesome.

 

i've just read over all pages again since months ago it was said to be tested on mobile. Nobody seems to have any numbers on it so far... any input on the fps for mobile on this asset?

 

btw, any updates coming soon? i've just tried it on 4.3 and it doesn't work very well as explained before

 

Hey guys

Thanks for the comments:

Unfortunately none of these things will be included, Splash FX and Physics are long term goals for me, The inclusion of a Maelstroms would complicate the code and not be needed by most people. That said once WC2 (Wave Creator 2) is out I may write some code which people can use that will create Maelstroms for the people who want them.

Despite these features not being included in WC2, these features will be.

• More advanced Wave patterns based on real models
• Shoreline and Wave foam effects
• The mesh displacement will be done via a shader to dramatically increase performance

I have finished coding the shader and am working on the float and submerged effect scripts. It shouldn't be too long till its released now. I'd love to give you some screenshots but I need to clarify the copyright on a texture and wouldn't like to show you anything other than the final product.

tripknotix said this a while back;

However I accept there is are no numbers here so I will be buying the ios developer kit and properly testing WC2.

I believe you mean the lack of a waves tab. Sorry about that. I mentioned it a while back, here is the locations of everything:

I think this happened because Unity doesn't allow top-menu tabs in 4.2 and later. I therefore had to rearrange the positions of everything. Wave Creator 1.4 addresses this problem by updating the read-me file etc...

Thanks for the comments, all welcome.

 

Hello, so the floating barrels on the demo don't use some kind of physics? Sorry for i already have asked that, but what do i do if i want to move a ship?

 

From looking at the current script, all it does is match the floating object's vertical position with the water height at its location. It also adds a height offset, to control how high the object rides in the water, and random rotation to simulate the rocking that would normally occur. It doesn't take the actual shape, mass, cg, or buoyancy of the object into account at all. It still looks pretty good for a non-physics solution, and has the added advantage of being super simple to set up. I can't say if any big changes to this behavior will make it into version 2, but it looks, from SP0KK0's post, like proper physics might be a long term goal.

 

Hey

FargleBargle is absolutely correct Azaroth. The float script simply raises the y coordinate of the object to the water height with no physics involved. If you want to power a ship, like in the yacht demo, you would simply have a script which adjusts the x, z positions and the rotation variables of the object. You would then attach the float script to that object and that would make the boat float. I know that physics would be preferable to this but I decided to improve the aesthetics and performance for WC2 instead of concentrating on Physics. I still plan to add physics support but at a later date.

In the meantime I have just released WC1.4 which simply adds a button to toggle whether waves are generated under the terrain. I've also got rid of the walkthrough because it was confusing and complicated to maintain. I will post a new video on setup shortly.

Thanks, all comments welcome.

 

This C# or just a shader?

 

Thank you guys, if i give force via rigidbody to the ship will the float script still work?

 

Hey

The current WC is programmed in JavaScript. WC2 will be programmed in C# and Shader.

It should do.

Thanks for the comments, all appreciated.

 

any ETA for when 2.0 will be out? I was hoping to use this for Christmas project

 

Hey

I have finished all the coding, at the moment I am creating webplayer demo's, setup videos, getting screenshots and last minute testing. I should have that all that done in a week, so then it's down to how long Unity takes to accept it, usually about a week. So hopefully it will be out before the end of December.

 

Hi,

I am looking into picking up Wave Creator but I had one question first. Does the package support control of generating a single wave rather than at a constant frequency I've seen in the demos?

I'm happy to hack at the scripts in order to achieve this but I was curious as to whether it would take much effort.
Thanks for any help you can provide, the package looks great and I will probably be picking it up regardless.

 

As far as I can tell from using it, it's designed to provide a continuous evenly displaced water surface, such as an ocean or lake, and the included scripts really only support this. That said, it would be pretty simple to modify the wave script, or use an external script to access the wave height variable and crank it up momentarily based on whatever trigger criteria you choose. You can also adjust wave speed and frequency. And since version 2 is just around the corner, with Gerstner wave displacement, there may be additional tricks you can apply as well in the near future.

 

Hey guys

FargleBargle is correct. WC doesn't really support singular waves because it's equations for generating waves are based on sine waves which endlessly repeat. This means that a different type of script would be required to create this effect. So although i'd love to help, at present WC doesn't support this.

Nevertheless thanks for the question all appreciated.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I think there might still be a way I can adapt it to suit my needs and regardless I feel it is a great package that I might use in the future. I look forward to purchasing it when I start my project in the new year.

 

and... January is here, any updates on 2.0? I really want to give it a test to see how it performs on my galaxy s2. I have to decide a water package real soon (like less than a week) so... it would be great to see 2.0

 

Thanks for the enthusiasm. I have submitted Wave Creator 2 for review, so with any luck, it will be up this week .

 

awesome!
do you have the video demo up? or a unity demo scene?

 

I've sent you a private message creat327. I will be posting up videos, demo scenes etc... when Wave Creator is released just in case there are any problems with it's submission to the store.

 

Hello, is there a problem with the store, for i remember release for before the end of december. Do you have any info on the date?

 

Hi

I thought it would hopefully be out before the end of December but I had to fix some issues regarding Mobile, so it took slightly longer than planned. I sent Wave Creator off for review a few days ago so hopefully it will be up soon but the time it takes from submission to release can vary so I cant give an exact date.

Thanks. All comments welcome

 

I bought this today and have started to poke around. It looks great, thanks very much.
I'm looking forward to all the updates in WC2, good luck with it.

 

Looks great! I can't wait to purchase this. If I buy Wave Creator 1 right now, will I be updated to Wave Creator 2 when it's out?

Also, I know you haven't implemented physics yet, but based on how it's coded, do you think it would be difficult to do so?

Thanks

EDIT: One more question. If I wanted to have a boat travel far distances on the water, is there a way for me to make it so that the water sort of moves with the boat in a realistic fashion without making a very large water mesh? I imagine simply translating the water object with the boat object wouldn't exactly work.

 

still not approved?

 

Hi

Well sort of. While the package itself is fine I have a really nasty glitch with Asset Store Tools. Click here to read about it. I have contacted Unity and we are trying to come up with a solution but so far I've had no luck. If anyone else knows a fix I would be increadibly grateful.

You should be. Although at the moment I'm not sure how big the problem I have mentioned above is or how to fix it, I really hope it won't affect the people who have already bought it.

It shouldn't be to complex, it's simple enough to find the height of the Water Body at a point and from there you can work out how deep you are for pressure calculations etc... Although when WC2 comes out this will change slightly.

This is a really good question, I will get back to you on this, it will mean modifying the code a little.

Thanks for the comments, all welcome.

 

Thanks for all the answers!

Okay, thank you. I have seen it done before with the community ocean project where the piece of water was broken down into a bunch of tiles and as you moved away from certain ocean tiles, they disappeared, and more appeared closer to where you moved to. A little difficult to explain, but I'm sure you have your own idea of how to do it!

Thanks again!

 

Tiling is also used with Water4 in Unity Pro I believe. It's a bit tricky though, since you can often see tiling artifacts at the edges of the tiles. It might be better to have the water surface mesh move horizontally with the main camera, and offset the apparent wave position and motion in the shader/displacement calculations to compensate for the mesh/camera's movements. Not sure what system would be the best fit for the existing WC2 methods. This would still be a great feature for creating really large water areas.

 

I have now fixed the problem with Asset Store Tools and submitted WC2 last Friday so it should be up this week. I can release that the WC2 will be $30 but if you have already bought it you will be able to update with no extra cost. WC2 is a large update and you will have to resetup the water in all your scenes which are using WC at the moment.

I will look into tiling water bodies for a future update however I know this will be complicated to implement.

Thanks.

 

Hey

I'm very happy to annouce that WC2 has been launched. I have updated the first post of this thread accordingly. WC is now located under 'Shaders/Other' as the effects are now generated in the Shader. If you have already bought this you will need to set it up in your scenes again as WC2 works in a completely different way. To see videos on how to set it up as well as webplayers etc... go to the first page of this thread.

I hope you will all be happy with WC2. I appreciate this can be confusing to setup, updates will be coming shortly to simplify the setup process.

Thanks for all the support, all questions are welcome.

 

Holy smokes! This is incredible! I almost got seasick floating there right above/under the waves. WC1 is the best $10 I ever spent.

 

The update looks incredible!

Great job man, now I just need to figure out how to make an ocean viable.

 

I'm looking at the update, and so far I'm really impressed. It's looking more and more like a complete water solution, rather than just a "wave creator". The waves themselves look better, and the texture and shader components that I had to find elsewhere before are now included, so no need for Unity's or anyone else's additional water assets. It looks great right out of the box, and even without your setup video, I had no problems figuring out how to tweak it to my liking.

My only suggestion for a future update would be to add shoreline transparency blending, so the water doesn't cut off so sharply where it hits the shore. Since you're already mapping the underlying terrain height for foam generation, I'm hoping you already have most of the data needed to implement such a feature, should you decide to. Otherwise, I'm ready to toss most of my other water solutions out at this point, because WC2 looks like a winner.

 

Thanks for all the great feedback guys.

Yeah, I'll look into this more in future. I experimented with this effect a little but I found it hard to make it look natural with the waves, occasionally you could see the sea floor. But i think i can make it work with more time.

I've also fixed the videos, I don't know what caused the problem but I have just reuploaded the videos and it seems to work. The links on the asset store won't link to the videos for a few days though until Unity updates the links.

Thanks

 

I am very interested in this as well.

 

Gotcha. I guess if you make it too transparent you'll be able to see underneath the water surface when you shouldn't. I suppose it all depends on how precise the height data is for both the water surface and the underlying terrain. I'm not sure how Water4 does it, but they provide a slider so the user can control how much or how little of the effect they get. Maybe instead of transparency, it does a blend with the underlying terrain texture? Just guessing, but that might eliminate problems caused by actual transparency.