New Features in 2024 version:

- New dynamic water ripples and caustics module and controller for its adaptation to the Ocean shader.

- New water air separation line mode and controller

- Support for Unity 2022 LTS and Unity 6 URP Render Graph, all image effects re-written for the new framework.

Features:

- Ocean system using two types of wave systems for cutting edge wave motion, simulating thousands of waves at each time on GPU.

- Advanced water shading with two modules in combination, one ultra realistic with fuzzy sky reflections and atmospheric scattering and one stylistic. The two can be combined with weights.

- Caustics rendering below and above water

- Floaters and boat systems samples for ready to use gameplay situations

- Wave sampling for gameplay use, optimized for massive number of floaters

- Advanced unique shore handling system for differentiation of deep ocean and shallow water dynamics with seamless transition

- Optimized shore line handling for ultimate performance

- Rain drops system integration in the water shader

- Advanced foam renderer with true dynamic simulation for dynamic effects on shores lines

- Volumetric lighting and fog for underwater, support for all light types (Sun, Point, Spot)

- Dynamic realistic bubbles system

- Fish flocking module

- Underwater depth based fading and distortion

- Underwater screen space sun shafts for performance and adaptation to water waves

- Advanced depth based details near shorelines

- Working with InfiniRIVER asset for adding dynamic 2D liquid simulation in the ocean water

- Working with Sky Master ULTIMATE asset for direct water reflections of the volumetric clouds and lighting of the Sky Master weather suit.

- Local light support for illumination of water surface by point lights. In this version a single point light is supported and will be extended with an array in next versions.

- Open source project, all source code is included.

Roadmap:

- Streamline the shoreline controls and handling for exposing all options in the configuration manager

- Streamline the vortex creation and controls of radius and vorticity power

- Finalize the localized water bodies module and add configurator automation to create the bodies

- Finalize the localized water bodies underwater rendering, a sample of underwater in local body of water (pool) is included and mainly needs to stop the water mask from rotating with the camera.

- Finalize the 3D particles system on wave edge that emulates foam particles leaving the wave due to strong wind, a first versions is included in one of the demo scenes, and need more refinement to perfect the effect.

- Add GPU fish flock option to follow and react to the waves heights

- Further integrations with Sky Master ULTIMATE for lightning illumination on water

- Further integrations with InfiniRIVER for river connection to the sea bodies

- Add support for more than one local lights illuminating the water surface

Technical details:

The system uses the project grid method to project an optimized mesh in front of the camera at all times, for an endless ocean. This method has the limitation that the land cannot be lower than the water surface, as the water is rendered everywhere on the map and all land below the water level will be covered by the water.

The system also supports local water bodies by turning off the projected grid in the material, a sample is provided using the water in a pool. The limitation currently with this localized water mode is that the underwater rendering of effects is not yet finalized, a sample is provided in the pool demo where the water mask plane is moving with the camera, thus is correct only when the camera looks straight or at small angles to horizon. This will be finalized in the next version where the mask plane will be regulated independently of the camera so it does not rotate with it.

The system is fully compatible with Sky Master ULTIMATE for reflecting the volumetric clouds in the water. Sky Master ULTIMATE URP uses a Forward Renderer with the clouds effect having the "isForReflections" checkbox enabled, in order to enable the reflection mode. This forward renderer ID (its number in the pipeline Forward renderers list) must be inserted to the Oceanis reflection camera ID property (mentioned in the tutorial video as well, when creating the ocean step by step), so the created reflection camera will use that renderer to handle cloud reflections properly.

Oceanis 2024 Pro URP Water Framework