[I] Water, Illustrated

Illustrated Index of Editor Water Parameters

relevant information? perhaps.

0. Table of Contents

I. Introduction

So, one of the more mysterious and undocumented facets of the SC2 Galaxy Editor is the water editor, there are about a dozen parameters with fairly non-descriptive names and sometimes subtle effects. There are many guides online on the basics of water, but little to nothing on the more esoteric parameters. Questions about water come up once in a while in the Simple Questions thread, even IronManSC said on a recent Mappers Show that figuring out what all of the water attributes do is difficult.

Thus, I present to you Namrufus' Illustrated Index to the SC2 Editor Water Parameters. The purpose of this guide is not to give a basic overview of how to use water (These are easily searchable through google), but to completely explain the effects of each of the parameters used to control the appearance of water within the SC2 Engine.

II. How to use this index

About the parameter list
below is a list of parameters found in the SC2 galaxy Editor that directly effect the appearance of water. There are 5 main locations where these parameters may be found:

water editor: usually visible near the bottom of the edit water window.
Basic: in the basic tab of the edit water window
Texture: in the texture tab of the edit water window
Reflection: in the reflection tab of the edit water window
Data: in the water attribute page in the Data editor, + Show Spoiler +
navigate here by entering the data editor (click on the marine button), clicking on Data->Edit Terrain Data->Water, and then selecting which water type you would like to edit
, note that all attributes, including those listed as water editor, basic, texture, and reflection, may be edited through the data editor.

The location of the parameter and the minimum required graphics level for the parameter to have an effect are listed.
for example, the parameter:

Color Fall Off
Texture
High

Only effects the appearance of water at graphics levels high or greater and is found under the texture tab.

III. The Index!

Type
Water Editor (visible with basic tab only)
Low

Specifiable to be water or lava. Lava uses the model specified by the CWater Lava Model parameter.

Receive Shadows
Water Editor
High

+ Show Spoiler [Without Shadows] +

+ Show Spoiler [With Shadows] +

Determines if the surface of the water is shadowed by other terrain or units. shadows can look weird for very clear water, and no shadows can look weird in water with high reflectivity.

CWater Lava Model
Data
Low

+ Show Spoiler [defaultLava] +

+ Show Spoiler [DefaultLavaLow] +

+ Show Spoiler [LavaSilver] +

Controls the model used for lava. There are three usable models for this that I know of: DefaultLava, DefaultLavaLow (low quality), and LavaSilver (fairly low quality but frigging awesome after you get rid of the mismatched Shoreline Models, change the Color to make the minimap color match and maybe add a white fog)

Color
Basic
Low

+ Show Spoiler [purple water] +

Sets the color of the water in RGB format (or click on the colored square for a standard color picker). Take note that this color also specifies the color of the water on the mini-map, so if you make the water pure red, green or blue, it may make units hard to distinguish on the mini-map.

In my opinion, color changes should be subtle, and blend into the surrounding environment. generally it should be a non-pure blue to green-blue color. You can have lurid pink water, but make sure that it makes sense for the environment you are trying to create (for example Port Zion's polluted green water and Mar Sara's black tar-like water) and/or complements the other colors in the map.

Alpha
Basic
Low

+ Show Spoiler [zero alpha] +

+ Show Spoiler [1 alpha] +

alpha specifies the transparency of the color of the surface of the water. The abrupt transition created by a high alpha is fairly bad looking imo, except for darker colored waters, If you want hazy looking water, I think it is better to use the Color Fall Off parameter instead. Note that at low/medium graphics the surface of the water is much more opaque.

Height
Basic
Low

+ Show Spoiler [low water] +

Sets the height of the water. In my opinion, water should not be riiight at the edge of the cliff level change like this + Show Spoiler +

It just looks unnatural, take a cue from the water levels in BW, even the water in the ice tileset had a little bit of cliff showing [this is all imo of course].

Color Fall Off
Texture
High

+ Show Spoiler [no color fall off] +

+ Show Spoiler [high color fall off] +

Color Fall Off controls the thickness of a 'fog' under the water. This fog is the color specified by the Color parameter. small values look crystal clear (though I suggest a slightly nonzero value to give a hint of the color (even pure water irl absorbs light if you have enough of it)), while large values give a 'milky' look. I think a good compromise for many situations is a value that obscures the bottom of the water(making the water seem deeper than it really is), while having a slight haze near the top, maybe near 0.85.

Texture Roughness and Mesh Roughness
Texture
High

+ Show Spoiler [texture roughness] +

+ Show Spoiler [mesh roughness] +

'waves' on the surface of the water comes from two effects: the first: a 'bump map' texture that gives a small ripple effect, as well as a mesh that actually deforms the surface of the water (similar to the deformation of the terrain mesh) in large waves that move to the south east. A mix of these tends to look natural, as the mesh roughness breaks up the repitition in the texture roughness wave pattern. Super large mesh roughness tends to look unnatural

*please please please* if nothing else consider carefully when you set texture and mesh roughness both to zero, it negates many of the effects (reflection and refraction) that make water look cool for graphics levels high and above and rarely looks realistic.

UVrotate, Flow Direction, Flow Rate
Texture
Low

these parameters transform the bump-map texture (intensity controlled by Texture Roughness). UV rotate rotates the texture, changing this doesn't have that much of an effect visually. Flow Direction and Flow Rate give a flowing motion to the surface of the water. However, large values for these rarely looks natural unless the body of water is a long, straight canal. CWater Scroll Vectors give a finer control over the motion of the texture roughness pattern.

Specularity and Specular Scale
Reflection
High

+ Show Spoiler [Large Specular Scale] +

+ Show Spoiler [Small Specular Scale] +

this picture looks a little different, but what you should notice is that there are no specular reflections as the specular scale parameter has been set to zero

+ Show Spoiler [Small Specularity] +

+ Show Spoiler [Large Specularity] +

These parameters control the nature of specular reflections from the surface of the water. Note that the color and direction of the specular reflections is parametrized by the Key Specular Color and Key Direction parameters of the current lighting set.

Specularity controls the amount of surface area of the water that reflects light. Small values will produce large patches of brightness, while large specularities will have small, intense spots (or depending on the roughness of your mesh and the angle of the light, perhaps no specular reflection at all.

Texture Roughness and Mesh Roughness modulate the appearance of specular reflections (the light is reflected off of the waves)

Specular scale controls the brightness of the specular reflections.

Minimum Reflection and Reflectivity Power
Reflection
Ultra

+ Show Spoiler [intense reflection] +

These parameters control the strength of reflections of other terrain and units on the water's surface. These appear to do basically the same thing: at 100% minimum reflection and/or 0% reflectivity power the surface of the water becomes entirely mirror-like. be sure to make sure your tile-set has a working sky-box, or portions of the reflection will be perfectly black.

Reflection Distortion
Reflection
Ultra

+ Show Spoiler [zero reflection distortion] +

+ Show Spoiler [large reflection distortion] +

The amount by which the reflections are distorted by texture roughness and mesh roughness.

Refraction Distortion
Reflection
High

+ Show Spoiler [low refraction distortion] +

+ Show Spoiler [high refraction distortion] +

One of the most important parameters for realistic water. Refraction is responsible for the bending effect of light when it travels through the surface of to substances with different indices of refraction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction, the larger the difference between the two indices of refraction, the larger the angle the light will be bent.

A refraction distortion of 0.0 simulates a surface with the same index of refraction as air (no bending of light), while a refraction distortion at 100% (0.2) is similar to that of a crystal (images of objects beneath the surface of the water will often be distorted beyond recognition).

The amount of refraction also depends on the strength of texture roughness and mesh roughness setting both of these values to zero effectively give your water the refractive index of air (not physically correct, which is why water like this looks weird). The exception to this is when the water is very shallow compared to the viewing distance; in this case (irl) there is less apparent distortion due to refraction, so shallow water looks more natural without refraction effects.

CWater ScrollVectors
Data
High

[warning: I can't prove this, but I'm almost 100% certain that it is true: there are two water bump maps, x and y control the translation speed of one bump map, while z and w control the translation speed of the other bump map, the bump maps are combined and translated and rotated again at a speed given by UVRotate Flow Direction and Flow Speed. This effect looks good because the two water textures are moving in opposite directions, giving a chaotic look]

It is safest to keep the values of the scroll vectors at constant proportionality, or else the water will begin to seem to flow. increasing or decreasing the value in tandem increases or decreases the speed at which the 'ripples' on the water occur (very fast speeds tend to look fake however). With these parameters set to zero, the water 'freezes' in place and looks quite a bit like ice (This effect is actually really cool); be sure to set Flow Speed and Mesh Roughness to zero, as well as remove any Shoreline Models or Water Doodads.

CWater Tilingfreq
Data
Low

+ Show Spoiler [standard tiling frequency] +

+ Show Spoiler [reduced tiling frequency] +

very reduced for effect, it usually won't be this extreme

This attribute can either compress or expand the wave pattern on the surface of the water. The value inputted if the tiling frequency which will be inversely proportional to the size of features on the water (waves get bigger when this value gets smaller and vice-versa) don't make waves too small (large tiling frequency) as it will be possible to tell that the waves form a repeating pattern, ruining the effect. The tiling frequency is specifiable in both x and y directions for both water textures (it looks really weird if all values are not the same however). This attribute only effects the bump map, not the mesh distortion (i.e. the effect controlled by the parameter Mesh Roughness not Texture Roughness).

CWater Beach Shoreline and CWater Cliff Shoreline
Data
Medium

+ Show Spoiler [shoreline models] +

These specify the models used for edges of water where it intersects with normal terrain (e.g. for pathable water) and cliffs respectively, these look like waves (or sparks for lava). You can remove these (by selecting the first, empty entry in the drop-down menu) for when it makes sense to have a calm waters edge (like for a small puddle). note that for pathable water, the slope of the terrain leading into the water effects which model is used, steep slopes will use the cliff shoreline model while gentle slopes will use the Beach shoreline model.

Caustics Fall Off
Reflection
Ultra

+ Show Spoiler [caustics effect] +

this effects the strength of the caustic optical effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caustic_(optics) in the water, similar to the patterns of light you might see in the bottom of a swimming pool.

The effect is really quite cool. I think it is best to use this effect when it makes the most sense, for example: clear, shallow water, with a weak mesh roughness (as the wave pattern of the mesh roughness effect does not match the pattern created by the caustics effect).

remember that most players won't actually be able to see this, as it requires ultra graphics mode.

CWater Caustics FPS
Data
Ultra

Controls the update rate of the caustics effect I guess, has no visual effect when changed. I would leave it at the default for performance reasons.

CWater Caustics Tiling Freq
Data
Ultra

+ Show Spoiler [normal caustics effect] +

+ Show Spoiler [scaled down caustics effect (increased…] +

Controls the scale of the caustics effect in both the x and y directions. Scale of the effect is inversely proportional to the tiling frequency. don't make the scale too small (frequency too large) as the repeat pattern will become obvious, ruining the effect.

CWater Doodads
Data
Low

+ Show Spoiler [Water doodads!] +

These allow you to add "floating" objects to water. This is used to implement the lily-pads in the bel'shir type water. The sub-parameters are mostly self-explanatory, so I won't go into them. The easiest method to create your own floating doodad type is to simply copy and past the bel'shir lily-pad entry so as to start with a reasonable framework. Note that most models don't work correctly with this and only appear as the default checkered sphere (I believe that these are models with multiple "variations" but I have not checked this, so you might be able to get around this by creating the desired model with only one variation (again, I haven't checked this)).

[I] Water, Illustrated

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