water node

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The Water texture is a parametric texture used to produce water effects. If used as a bump or displacement map, the result resembles water waves or ripples. Water waves consist of linear sine waves , whereas water ripples consist of concentric rings originating from a drop. You can control the number, size, and speed of both the linear waves and the concentric ripples.

Aside from the attributes listed here, Water inherits many other attributes from its parent node, Texture2d.

In the table below, important attributes have their names listed in bold in the description column. /

Node name	Parents	Classification	MFn type	Compatible function sets
water	texture2d	texture/2d	kWater	kBase kNamedObject kDependencyNode kTexture2d kWater

Attributes (29)

boxMax, boxMaxU, boxMaxV, boxMin, boxMinU, boxMinV, dropSize, fast, groupVelocity, numberOfWaves, phaseVelocity, reflectionBox, rippleAmplitude, rippleFrequency, rippleOrigin, rippleOriginU, rippleOriginV, rippleTime, smoothness, spreadRate, spreadStart, subWaveFrequency, waveAmplitude, waveFrequency, waveTime, waveVelocity, windU, windUV, windV

Long name (short name) Type Default Flags

numberOfWaves (nw) short 8

Number of Waves controls how many linear waves are generated, when this texture is animated. (See the Wave Time attribute below).

If you want this texture to show only concentric ripples, set Number of Waves to 0. If you want to combine linear waves and ripples, try values between 1 and 3.

waveTime (wt) float 0.0

Wave Time controls the motion of the waves. Set keyframes on this attribute in order to animate the motion of the linear waves. The faster this changes, the faster the waves will go.

waveVelocity (wv) float 1.0

Wave Velocity controls the speed of the linear waves, if you have animated them using the Wave Time attribute above.

This attribute is effectively just a multiplier on Wave Time.

waveAmplitude (wa) float 0.05

Wave Amplitude controls the height of the waves. Increase this to make the waves higher.

waveFrequency (wf) float 4.0

Wave Frequency controls the frequency of the waves, and therefore their width. As you increase Wave Frequency, the waves get narrower and closer together. Their height does not change.

subWaveFrequency (swf) float 0.125

Sub Wave Frequency controls the frequency (and therefore the width) of any secondary waves that ride on top of the primary waves (white caps, for example).

smoothness (s) float 2.0

Smoothness controls the intensity of any secondary waves present. Increase smoothness to make the secondary waves less pronounced.

windUV (wi) float2 1.0, 0.0

Wind UV controls the (average) direction that the linear waves will travel, simulating the effect of wind. This is expressed as U and V values, in the UV texture space.

windU (wiu) float 0.0

The U component of the wind direction

windV (wiv) float 0.0

The V component of the wind direction

rippleTime (rt) float 0.0

Ripple Time controls the motion of the ripples. Set keyframes on this attribute in order to animate the motion of the ripples. The faster this changes, the faster the waves will go.

If you do not want to see any ripples, set Ripple Time to 0 and do not animate it.

When Ripple Time is 0, there are no ripples; the droplet has not yet touched the surface of the water. As Ripple Time increases, the ripples begin at a point and spread outwards.

rippleFrequency (rf) float 25.0

Ripple Frequency controls the frequency at which ripples are created, and therefore their width. As the frequency increases, the ripples become narrower and closer together. Their height is not affected

rippleAmplitude (ra) float 0.05

Ripple Amplitude controls the height of the ripples. Increase this to make the ripples bigger, as though a heavier object had created them.

dropSize (ds) float 0.3

Drop Size controls the size of the drop that starts the ripple wave effect

rippleOrigin (rc) float2 0.5, 0.5

Ripple Origin controls the location where the the ripples start. This is in UV Texture space.

rippleOriginU (rcu) float 0.0

The U component of the ripple origin position

rippleOriginV (rcv) float 0.0

The V component of the ripple origin position

groupVelocity (gv) float 1.0

Group Velocity controls the size and speed of the primary ripple. Increase this to make the ripple move faster.

phaseVelocity (pv) float 2.5

Phase Velocity controls the size and speed of the sub-wavelets. Increase this to make them move faster.

spreadStart (ss) float 0.005

Spread Start controls the size of the initial impact of the drop at time zero. Increase Spread Start to make the size of the initial disturbance increase.

spreadRate (sr) float 0.3

Spread Rate controls the speed at which an outward-expanding ripple breaks up into sub-wavelets. Increase this to make the ripples break up more quickly.

reflectionBox (rb) bool false

Reflection Box. Turn on this attribute to create the effect of ripples hitting the edges of a box and being reflected back. This can create some wonderful natural-looking interference patterns in the ripples. The box is defined as upper and lower limits in UV texture space.

Note: When Reflection Box is turned on, calculating the water shader slows down significantly.

boxMin (bmn) float2 0.0, 0.0

Box Min is UV position of the lower left corner of the reflection bounding box.

This attribute is only used if Reflection Box is turned on.

boxMinU (bu1) float 0.0

The lower U value

boxMinV (bv1) float 0.0

The lower V value

boxMax (bmx) float2 1.0, 1.0

Box Max is the UV position of the upper right corner of the reflection bounding box.

This attribute is only used if Reflection Box is turned on.

boxMaxU (bu2) float 0.0

The upper U value

boxMaxV (bv2) float 0.0

The upper V value

fast (fa) bool true

Fast is an optimization in the Water texture. When it is turned on, the color tables are computed once per frame. When it is off, the color tables are computed for every sample.

The only time you might turn this off is if the water will be seen very close up in the final scene.