Unreal Engine 5 Tutorial - Water & Caustics - Creating Water Surfaces

In this video we will take a look at how to create Oceans and Water Surfaces in Unreal with Caustics and a Underwater Effect.
This is suitable for games and large bodies of water, and is a effect that is much less expensive than Niagara Fluids Simulations.
Tip: If you need a very customized shape, select your WaterBodyCustom. In details tab, search "Mesh" or go to Rendering, Watermesh Override and in that slot put in your custom geo that you want the shape of the water to be.
Patreon:
patreon.com/renderBucket
Discord:
discord.gg/BxsersBPQc

[renderBucket]

Tip: If you need a very customized shape, select your WaterBodyCustom. In details tab, search "Mesh" or go to Rendering, Watermesh Override and in that slot put in your custom geo that you want the shape of the water to be.

[Dominik Gomółka]

Hi, I followed your tutorial and added some of my own ideas too - I figured out to make caustics above the water with spotlights that use caustics animation flipbook inside of their light function material - also not really simulated and not physically accurate - but it does the job ;)

[MEME productions]

awesome video!would it be possible to also project those caustics effects on the walls nearby the pool as well?like a real indoors swimming pool

[NL games]

i want to know this tooooo

[lucas rivera]

this is great and super useful. thank you!

[zeo L]

Awesome tutorial didn't even know you could make a custom water shape with the built-in water system.

[Knuckles]

Its the main feature out of the box, also the most advertised feature when it comes to water in unreal. I don't think you ever created a project bro :))

[HixxyDubz]

dude your video is a godsend!! so many tutorials focus on islands but i just wanted a custom water source for my city :D

[MushoFutbol]

Hey, thanks for this water videos! Are amazing!

[Dominik Gomółka]

I've got a question though - how do you make the underwater post process override the camera settings or just add on top of them? When I pilot my animation camera the underwater post process stops working? Ideas anyone? ;)

[musashidanmcgrath]

Very useful, but I cant work out how to edit the spline points of the water body custom. I need to turn the default square shape to an octagon to fit into a fountain.

[renderBucket]

Alright, so try this select your WaterBodyCustom. In details tab, search "Mesh" or go to Rendering -> Watermesh Override and in that slot put in your custom geo that you want the shape of the water to be.

[musashidanmcgrath]

@renderBucket Brilliant! That's it. Thanks. 👍

[LeFanDePoireau]

Just one question, do you know how to transform the body of water into a mesh?

Can this be used instead of the water body ocean to fill up a landscape and not have the annoying island created in the middle?

[ItsDw232]

This is super helpful

[Big Journey TV]

how do you change the shape of the custom body? I cant seem to manipulate it

[BlueSpawn]

What if you wish to create this as a 3D volume/shape instead of just a 2D surface?

[renderBucket]

Check the "Tip" in the Description.

[Riley]

is there any way to change the speed of the waves/caustics? cant for the life of me figure out how to slow them down

[흠냐흠냐]

정말 감사합니다 좋은 동영상입니다 하트

[Rogue Gamer]

very useful vid....tks!

[Loganasaurus Rex]

Is there any way to add caustics under the water as well?

[renderBucket]

You could use a spot light with a light function material to project/display a animated texture of caustics and then turn off the caustic effect in the water shader so they don't double up. I think the shader approach works good for oceans or shallow water. Since by the time its deep enough to go under the water surface the caustics would no longer be visible. But for things like clear pools and stuff that you may have to jump into and explore, the light with material function approach works well.

[Loganasaurus Rex]

@renderBucket ok, I’ll do some more research into that, I’m kind of new to unreal, thanks!

[krevesst creps]

thx bro finnally a good tutorial

[JACK VONAKARAT]

What do i do if the post process applies to the entire level, is not constrained by the box?

[renderBucket]

Make sure in the post-process volume the "Unbound" option is OFF. That way it only applies the effect within the box.

[JACK VONAKARAT]

@renderBucket THANKS!!! IT FIXED IT.

[Elena Dmpl]

hey great tutorial amazing job! i f i want to put a character nside and swim how can i do that? thank you for your wok

[Braden Nichols]

Create a physics volume, size its shape and depth. Set the collision of the plane to no collision. Enable water body in details of physics volume.

[monke stev]

how wouls you fill an imported mesh with water?, and would it be possible to use this for an aquarium type of mesh, with see through glass?

[renderBucket]

You wouldn't do this with a sim but instead a material. I'll do a tutorial on this soon. But really it's just using a shape with a transparent material with some color would work. If you need detailed water interactions then that will get a lot more complicated. So depends on what your needing.

[monke stev]

@renderBucket thank you so much for answering, i dont need any interaction with the player, and the camera isn't necessary per se, i would like caustics though, and depth, i dont know if that makes things more difficult, but cant wait for the tutorial and thank you. (:

[PaPaJ0Ke]

@renderBucket I'd also be very interested in this. Making a pool in my current scene and would love to make some nice water with caustics for it.

[monke stev]

@renderBucket hey, any update on the video, i still cant find any information about it but am still waiting to make some aquariums or pools. i also had another question lol. is it possible to make an big ocean without an island, for a thalasmaphobia game where you are stranded on a boat in the middle of the ocean at night? thanks!

[Tom Tomkowski]

You could wait for shaders to compile because we only saw a 1 frame of this material and nothing what you were talking about at this point :/

[Hatsune Miku Channel The Famous Youtuber]

8:50: Like, for example, "-960" ? 🤔🤔😯😯🤗🤗

[neighbor lee]

THERE IS no add here in 5.3

[Mahesh Belekar]

Make substance designer beginner tutorial from basic

[renderBucket]

I have some substance designer tutorials here, kzbin.info/www/bejne/qnyrfJqopK5giJY

[Jinx Gaming SA]

so much lagging omn your pc, I couldnt follow what you doing

[renderBucket]

Apologies, I kinda messed up my recording settings for this video. All the other videos should be fine. And you should still be able to follow this one. Let me know if you run into issues with any of the steps.

[Kaplan Akıncılar]

@renderBucket I am a beginner and am still getting used to unreal. For me personally I'm having a difficult time figuring out how to open the window for custom water to change the parameters (around 3:42). It lagged and I couldn't see how you opened it. I'm sure its super easy!

[Kaplan Akıncılar]

Of course, i figured it out a couple of minutes later. The give away was when you said "scroll all the way down" and then I saw that the "rendering" tab was open and boom, there's the water material.