Let's Build the RPG! - 55 - Unreal Engine 5 Water Ocean and Island Tutorial

In this episode we set up a brand new island level surrounded by a UE5 water ocean body. I review all the common settings for customizing the land first, followed by the water. We cover how to set up water foam (even though it's not yet officially supported on 5.1) as well as caustics, and how to change the color of the water. Lastly we set up the island with a new height-based material, and I review the complete setup of that material building on what we set up in Episodes 7 and 8, respectively. This level is going to serve as our primary level for gameplay testing in the episodes to come.
Link to the spreadsheet that contains links to all assets used in this series (up to episode 55), including the free materials from Quixel Bridge used for our island:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
00:00 Intro
00:16 Today's Goals and Key Concepts
01:48 Creating a new level, landscape, and water body ocean
03:11 Prep steps for level: Postprocess volume, PlayerStart
03:52 Island land settings
08:13 Water material adjustments: water color, foam, caustics
14:16 Landscape material for island (builds on episodes 7 and 8)
18:48 Setting up footsteps based on material / elevation (builds on episode 19)
20:04 Sculpting island
21:44 Saving this level as our new default level for our project
22:09 Conclusion and preview of next episode
New episode released every Saturday morning!
References specific to this episode:
Unreal Engine 5 water system:
docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-...
Previous Episodes Referenced
Landscape Material (Episode 7):
• Let's Build the RPG! -...
Blending Objects with Landscape (Runtime Virtual Textures) (Episode 8):
• Let's Build the RPG! -...
Footstep Sounds (Episode 19):
• Let's Build the RPG! -...

[@NumenBrothers]

Quick note: If you're following along with this series and do what I did to get the water foam working, know that if/when you upgrade it will break your water material because it reverts it back to the standard version. I did this in case the water material fundamentally changes/improves in the future, it will be immediately evident. But just know if you upgrade you'll have to enable foam again the way I did in this video.

[@lucutes2936]

thx

[@playerworld2496]

the foam does not appear in my ocean :(

[@mamboroberts]

Great content as always - This series is amazing and I highly recommend starting from the top and working through the whole lot. Every episode contains great new content and learning but by investing the time into following this series as a whole fosters an understanding of the breadth of skills, talent, thinking and capabilities needed to create a really good product and experience for your player. Timewise, I'm catching ya @NumenBrothers yet you consistently drop new epic vids extending the challenge! Super appreciate the effort, professionalism and consistency in all you do. The sunnies and camp chair on the beach for the intro does require a special mention...well played :)

[@NumenBrothers]

Appreciate it as always. You're one of the few taking the time to go through the series 🙂

[@itsdw2323]

Awesome stuff - Iv been looking for a water tutorial like this.

[@ethanwasme4307]

If people are having issues with shore foam popping in due to the water tiles(?), just hook the wave effect up to a distance blending function. Either way in 5.4 this system is still broken even when following your guide... i haven't used it in previous versions so can't comment on the issue much

[@omidmehdipour4912]

man your tutorial helped me a lot making foam on my ocean, thank you

[@salvadorcabrera4941]

hi! no comments yet? ummm I haven't had to see it since yesterday, but this seems sacrilege to me!!! Very good tutorials, a pity I haven't had time to see all the sections, but I'm working on it, it's a lot of content, I'm very interested in creating open worlds and I'm busy with the layers and if it affects adding more than one landscape, ..etc, unfortunately most of the tutorials only touch scene, larger or smaller, but not thought for an open map of 50 or 100 km and the consequences of not configuring the space correctly, if one day you have time, I would greatly appreciate a tutorial with your explanation, I love your method, thanks again! (the part about the skills and the fall damage setup...just great)

[@NumenBrothers]

I think a lot of people are put off by my sunburn ;) I'm steering clear of large landmasses for awhile- aiming to create gameplay mechanics at a small scale and scale up from there. But if you would like to join the Discord there are several other people working on large landscape projects

[@salvadorcabrera4941]

@@NumenBrothers You touch all the hot topics, that's why the sunburn? haha, but seriously, very good tutorials, the AI ​​thing is brutal too.

[@lucutes2936]

thx

[@roundfourde]

I did exactly the same but for me in UE 5.3 the foam texture is just tiling across the whole ocean... no idea

[@PolluxX_]

Yeah me to can someone help us

[@dexmat3964]

this is godsend!! I'm on 5.2.1 and currently working on a personal project that desperately needs water foam cause its a coastal scene and the only good water packs with good water physics and foam that is available to me cost like 60$. Thanks again for this tutorial, appreciate it!

[@NervousBedbug]

Wait, how did it work for you, when I was making it, my foam wouldn’t appear, I’m also on 5.2.1 and don’t understand. Edit: for anyone who saw this and had the same problem, set your water’s Z location to 0

[@Twillie]

@@NervousBedbug Hey is there anything else you enabled or switched? I can't get the foam to work and it's killing me inside

[@NervousBedbug]

@@Twillie What exactly isn’t working?

[@Twillie]

@@NervousBedbug OMG you replied! I was having the same problem where the foam just isn't showing up at all. I tried the Z location to 0 but it did not work.

[@NervousBedbug]

@@Twillie that’s odd, did you use all the setting he did in the video, you might’ve also accidentally set the opacity to 0.

[@acsomiT]

Thank you for a good tutorial. Is there any way to get reed of repetitive water paterns and foam?

[@RoryMcC42]

Nice... Alright Alright Alright...

[@studiobaxter1242]

Thanks. Am using 5.2 and your system works ok, but I'm wondering about fps lag from it. Also I think it helps to bump up the foam macro scale, as the repetition is pretty bad from above. I guess it depends if you will ever see it from higher up.

[@meskalation]

Tried to fix the foam, because it's stoll not working at all with 5.3. The Engine crashed the moment i changed the first node :/ Edit - Try to do it in a different level in the project, than it works when reloading.

[@yungsofa8084]

im having an issue where the water doesnt conform to my islands. there are empty spaces where the island should meet the ocean.

[@versex2201]

What is your Discord Channel link? I followed all steps of connecting the nodes to the Transition, and the scattering to Multiply. I have also played with all the Parameter settings but do not see any foam? Is there one more small step needed? Thank you in advanced!

[@NumenBrothers]

Try setting the Z value of the ocean to 0. Check the height level of your ocean. That's most likely the issue. If you go to the overall channel there's a link to the Discord.

[@jc81277]

@@NumenBrothers Not sure if it's been removed but there isn't a Discord link on the channel page

[@markjones6894]

Just wanted to ask, will there be combat implemented anytime soon ? Thank you

[@NumenBrothers]

We are slowly heading that way. Will be there in about 4 months.

[@markjones6894]

@@NumenBrothersawesome! Will the combat only be with the spells or will you implement weapons like swords and hand to hand combat?

[@invisibleartist1843]

very usefull

[@yujack5910]

Hello blogger, I followed your method to enable foam in the Water Material, but now it's not working. It prompts me "[SM6] (Node SceneDepthWithoutWater) Can only read scene depth below water when material Shading Model is Single Layer Water or when material Domain is PostProcess." My version is UE5.3. I wanted to ask if you have encountered such a situation?😔

[@ethanwasme4307]

don't worry about errors in functions... it's not a material so it has no shading model... it only matters which materials it gets used in... in this case the ocean material which IS using the single layer shading model. alternatively if you don't want the error bothering you, replace the scene depth node with a function input and then put the depth node in the water material

[@arturnilin359]

I dont know, how to make collision/// I follow Your steps, but no any interaction with Water((( Do someone has a project on google drive with working water foam and interaction?(

[@NumenBrothers]

Try setting your water and the landscape both to location Z = 0. Others ran into the same issue and that fixed it. The interaction is more complicated- we're building on setup from previous episodes. But basically I have 'fake' collision planes that line traces are hitting.

[@masya6234]

@@NumenBrothers I have the same problem I tried it on your advice it doesn't work(

[@NumenBrothers]

@@masya6234 I ended up putting down my own (selected 'hidden in game') collision meshes so that traces downward would appropriately hit water.

[@Gnda3e]

could you share the material?

[@electronicinfection]

The plugin seems abandoned. Strange.

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

the anisotophrophy aint working for me either..it doesnt darken the lake enough

[@NumenBrothers]

You'll have to change the tint of the water then in the child material (like when I show how to make a blood ocean)

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

@@NumenBrothers I'll try fiddle around with it more today then If itndoesnt work theb ill just jabe to get a different method to create lakes for my project

[@EpicGamer-vu1rm]

When I turn on the foam, it covers my entire water body

[@NumenBrothers]

So what you're saying is, it's a foamy tutorial? I tease- there's a couple parameters on the child material you can play with, it should help adjust the foam to just the shoreline. I cover this a little bit later in the tutorial.

[@EpicGamer-vu1rm]

I discovered the issue, the scene depth node without water gives this issue: [SM6] (Node SceneDepthWithoutWater) Can only read scene depth below water when material Shading Model is Single Layer Water or when material Domain is PostProcess. This is probbly causing my issue but I don't know how to fix it as my shading model is already Single Layer Water@@NumenBrothers

[@ethanwasme4307]

@@EpicGamer-vu1rm don't worry about errors in functions... it's not a material so it has no shading model... it only matters which materials it gets used in... in this case the ocean material which IS using the single layer shading model. you can see what I mean if you were to copy and paste the code from the function into the material itself

[@davidlove8098]

Would be great if any of that worked but Unreal is buggy garbage. Splines to resize island don't show, option items either moved or just missing in 5.2. No idea why they do updates knowing it will break their own software.

[@markrennie86]

okey so what if I wanty variations of depth....maybe one part is like a beach that gradually gets deeper the more you go out to sea, but another part I maybe want to get deeper much quicker/immediately from the shore... Is this even possible? do you have to use two water oceans and somehow lerp them? Water in game dev is the bane of my fucking life.