Water Settings
The Global Water Manager stores all base parameters of the water system. These settings are shared between the Ocean and all Dynamic Simulation Zones, unless overridden by local modules.
Color Settings
Controls water transparency depth. Defines how deep objects remain visible under the surface.
Defines the base color of the water itself. Think of it as the color of dissolved substances in the water.
Example: cola has a brownish tint, tropical seas often have a blue-green tint due to dissolved minerals.
Defines the color of suspended matter that makes water look cloudy or milky.
Example: particles, plankton, bubbles, or sediments. Imagine the whiteness of milk added to the water, reducing clarity and giving it a hazy look.
Reflection
Reflections in KWS are additive. Screen Space Reflection is rendered first, and where it cannot reflect geometry (off-screen objects, behind water, etc.), the result is complemented by Planar Reflection (if used). This allows combining both methods for a balance of quality and performance.
Screen Space Reflection (SSR) – fastest reflection method, even faster than Unity’s native SSR. Works as a screen-space effect, so it only reflects objects visible on the screen. Very efficient but can produce artifacts when geometry is off-screen. ⚠️Tip: ideal for reflecting small details (rocks, grass, props) without extra rendering cost.
Planar Reflection – highly accurate but very expensive. Renders the scene a second time from the water surface point of view. Works only for flat water surfaces at a single height (the height of the Water Manager or Ocean). On surfaces with varying height (rivers, waterfalls), planar reflections will not appear correctly. ⚠️Tip: use selectively via layers – e.g. reflect mountains and large objects, but exclude small props to save performance.
Anisotropic Reflections – simulates natural blurring of reflections at long distances. In reality, a single pixel far away covers thousands of tiny wave facets, each with its own normal and reflection direction. This effect approximates that phenomenon by blending reflections together, giving a smoother, more realistic look in the distance.
Additional Controls – adjust sky override, enable sunlight reflection, control sun cloudiness and reflection strength.
Refraction (View Through Water)
Chromatic aberration of refraction. In practice, it makes shallow areas and wave crests show subtle rainbow-like edges. This effect is not physically based, It works best in clear water (high transparency). If the water is very turbid, dispersion will be less visible. It increases rendering cost slightly, since multiple wavelengths are sampled.
Dispersion Toggle – can be set to Use Quality Settings (inherits global quality settings) or Off (locally disables the effect for the current scene). ⚠️Tip: Use dispersion sparingly – too high values may look stylized or unrealistic. It’s best for tropical seas, pools, and fantasy effects.
Dispersion Strength – intensity of dispersion color splitting.
Wet Effect
Wet Effect darkens and adds subtle gloss to surfaces near the waterline so the water blends naturally with terrain and objects.
How it works – A wetness mask is generated around the water surface and applied to nearby geometry. – Areas in contact with water get stronger darkening and specular highlights, then fade out with height/distance using G-buffer in Built-in or Decal buffer in URP/HDRP.
In all pipelines the pass is screen‑space, so large on‑screen water areas and many overlapping zones increase bandwidth and fill‑rate.
Wet Effect Toggle – can be set to Use Quality Settings (inherits global quality settings) or Off (locally disables the effect for the current scene).
Wet Strength – intensity of darkening/wetness.
Wet Height Above Water – vertical range above water line where wetness appears.
Volumetric Lighting
Volumetric lighting simulates light scattering inside the water volume – visible beams/shafts, sense of depth below the surface. Most noticeable in clear water under strong sunlight or spotlights.
Volumetric Lighting Toggle – can be set to Use Quality Settings (inherits global quality settings) or Off (locally disables the effect for the current scene).
Temporal Accumulation Factor – to reduce noise without drastically increasing sample count, volumetric lighting uses temporal accumulation. Each frame contributes a few samples which are blended over time, producing a smoother image. This greatly improves visual quality at low sample counts. However, fast-moving cameras or water surfaces may cause smearing or ghosting.
Blur – adds a simple blur pass on top of volumetric lighting to soften visible sampling noise. This makes light beams appear smoother and less grainy. Improves visual quality at low sample counts. Increases performance cost slightly. May cause subtle halos around high-contrast edges (a typical Gaussian blur artifact).
Additional Lights Caustic – allows caustic effects from point and spot lights.
Caustic (Light Patterns on Surfaces)
Caustics simulate light patterns projected onto surfaces under the water – moving bright highlights created when sunlight (or other lights) refracts through waves. This effect is most visible in shallow areas, rivers, and nearshore water, and adds a lot of realism.
For large-scale oceans, caustics are generated directly from FFT wave data in real-time. For dynamic wave zones, caustics are used from pre-baked textures. Pre-baked textures significantly reduce GPU cost compared to realtime FFT caustics. When both ocean and dynamic zones are present, KWS blends the two types of caustics seamlessly.
Caustic Effect Toggle – can be set to Use Quality Settings (inherits global quality settings) or Off (locally disables the effect for the current scene).
Caustic Strength – brightness of caustic.
Underwater Effect
Uses a fullscreen post-processing pass when the camera is below the water surface using distortion, color absorption, refraction, volumetric lighting, caustic, etc.
Underwater Effect – can be set to Use Quality Settings (inherits global quality settings) or Off (locally disables the effect for the current scene).
Internal Reflection Mode – controls how reflections on the water surface are rendered when viewed from underwater. Based on the Fresnel formula, which simulates the physically correct Snell’s Window effect (a circular view of the world above water). If Screen Space Reflection (SSR) is enabled – adds scene reflections into the Snell’s Window. If SSR is disabled – uses only the base water color for reflections.
Use Half Line Tension Effect – enables the tension/warping line visible near the water surface. Simulates light bending at the air-water boundary.
Tension Scale – controls the strength of the half-line tension size.
Use Water Drops Effect – adds droplets and streaks on the camera lens when exiting the water.
Rendering Settings
Time Scale – global water time multiplier. Affects ocean waves and every dynamic simulation zone.
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