Water shader colouring

[John_DeLeeuw]

This has been brought up many times in different places but never in the idea station I noticed. So now, the official idea; can we have an option to colour the caribbean water shader 

Then we can create these type of really nice Amsterdam canals:

[zhukoven.com]

It would be also great to be able to change water transparency.

[John_DeLeeuw]

@zhukoven.com, water transparency would only work when terrain sublayers become available in IW. At the moment we only have one master terrain layer 

[dcutter]

I'll settle for being able to change the color of the water for now. This must be coded somewhere that we can get to. The water has color now. Where is that controlled? Even if it fixed in a material, where is the material so I can make changes to it?

[srksphillips]

I would also like to see an overhaul of the built in water shader as the current one is very limited. You only have to look at the water shaders in game engines to see the potential. 

Options I would love:

• Colour 
• Transparency
• If transparency is available an option to darken or change the texture/colour of underlying terrain layers below the water
• Waves/Ripples for water bodies (to simulate sea, rivers, lakes, ponds etc e.g. height, speed, direction,
• Simulate water flowing along river alignment
• Shoreline Generation (waves interacting with terrain e.g. like waves breaking)
• Caustics effects

[ddschneider1972]

The only time I've ever seen rivers so blue was when the Cubs won the World Series....looks like we're going to need to wait until they win another before they change this. 

[srksphillips]

I discovered you can change the colour via the Model Explorer by Activating Highlighting. Change the colour by right-clicking the Water Areas and choosing  Set Highlighting Color...

It's a bit limiting and it can look odd if you get it wrong but hey, that's all I have as a workaround. Make sure you only use very dark colours or it will look like it contains nuclear waste! Note that the colour is also displayed when rendering.

Manipulating the water colour by highlighting it

[John_DeLeeuw]

@srksphillips , thanks for your post.

This helps indeed, there is only one drawback and that is that highlights are not being saved by IW. So you need to switch them on every time you open the model again. But, still, better something then nothing to alter the color 😉

[srksphillips]

@John_DeLeeuw 

Yes that is indeed correct, however it's reassuring to know that IW saves the colours. So as a workaround it is pretty easy to pop it back on. Also you can add a bunch of colours to your Custom Colors 

Seen as there are so many questions and requests regarding the water shader I was hoping this would have been addressed after 6 years! I am starting to look at using Unreal Engine instead due to the limitations of IW.

[ramesh_sridharan]

Hi @John_DeLeeuw @srksphillips @ddschneider1972 @dcutter @zhukoven.com,

I want to let you know that our team was checking on the watercolor shader in Infraworks and would be interested to show you the current prototype and get your feedback on your expectations. Please reach out to us (ramesh.sridharan@autodesk.com) if you are interested.

Thanks,

[srksphillips]

@ramesh_sridharan I would be happy to provide feedback on your water shader. I have just sent you an email.

Cheers,

Steve