Underwater Transparency - Change in Visibility Behavior

Hey developers,

We are excited to release the new and improved WaterTransparency effect to give you extended range of visibility under the water! First, I just want to say thank you again to everyone that participated in our beta, provided feedback, and helped us prepare this for release.

We hope that you enjoy the new range of control for underwater fog.

WaterTransparency Changes

We have changed the visibility values for underwater fog range [0-1] using our WaterTransparency API. This change will affect all places in a non-destructive way.

Previously, setting the value to 1 meant a limit of visibility at around 200 studs. With today’s update, setting the transparency to 1 will have a limit of visibility increased to 2000 studs. For a simple approximate rule of thumb, underwater fog is modified 10x in distance further than it was before and we expect that will be a useful range for all experiences that take place underwater going forward.

Note: changing WaterTransparency with the new range has some affect on above water appearance

It’s also important to note that if you have an underwater place, we recommend that you update your WaterTransparency parameters by simply dividing the current value by 10, or making fine tuned manual adjustments where more visibility is desired. Keep in mind the performance implications of longer visibility ranges.


We will be sharing further improvements to accurate underwater and above water appearance in future releases. Thank you.

205 Likes

I always see like the same type of water underneath for the longest time now and it’s cool that things been updated! This will give a lot of opportunities like making things more easier to find under the ocean for example so yeah another successful Roblox developer update. Love to see how people use it!

7 Likes

It looks very cool! You can really see better under the water with WaterTransparency. :ocean:

6 Likes

Some of the edges of the water in the showcase of how WaterTransparency looks are odd. It could just be how the water was made, but I feel as if it’s a bug. Some of the ground looks weird too in the corner.

Screenshot_409

The rendering of the terrain isn’t how it’s supposed to be from far away.

17 Likes

I was exactly thinking about this and then the topic showed up :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:
It looks swell, but i think there should be another property for how abrupt is the change in transparency

6 Likes

Awesome! Can’t wait to see what I will be able to create with this.

5 Likes

This is a very nice update! It’s just sometimes I wanna see clear water when you look at it, but foggy water when your camera is in the water. Plus this would look very ugly for alot of shark survivals & ocean games. If you go and make a shark game, you’d expect people to look at the ocean to see what’s inside and where the shark is, but at the same time, when you’re in the ocean it’d be foggy, but this update matches the fog with the water transparency and it’s pretty frustrating.

21 Likes

As far as I’m concerned, you could get a mid point between being able to see and also still having fog. If you messed around with the settings, I bet it wouldn’t be much of a problem

9 Likes

From the standpoint of the person who owns the game SharkBite as you’ve mentioned, I was the one really pushing for this change. This update is brilliant news for us and opens up so many new opportunities our game and other games that I’ll mention in a later post on this thread today! :slight_smile:

21 Likes

Yes, finally it’s here! This will make using water fun again, especially for showcases that have underwater builds.

6 Likes

This is pretty cool I hope water could be added as a part tho.

5 Likes

For real! That’d be very nice. You could make rising terrain water, or if you can do that already you can do it easier with part water. Like we have cobblestone terrain & cobblestone parts, so why not water?

7 Likes

A good update that we’ve needed for a long time. That would be nice if you could do that with parts in the future as well.

3 Likes

Meh. Not a huge fan of this. Imo water surface transparency and underwater visibility should be controlled by two separate properties, and visibility should be determined by an actual distance, not a number from zero to one.

15 Likes

I personally think that underwater fog should be controlled by distance, like regular fog is, but this is great at least as a temporary solution. This change will really make underwater games a lot better!

8 Likes

This is a step in the right direction of water effects, however I would prefer the fog to work more like Lighting’s fog with a start and end. That would give developers better control over the visibility.

I agree with the sentiment regarding two fog values for both inside and outside of water. I wish I could say this behavior could easily be implemented but, from what I have seen, it is currently impossible to accurately detect when the camera is submerged underwater – which is the basis for creating such behavior.

1 Like

I do agree with everyone else in saying this would be a very nice thing to be broken into 2 properties. But that being said, I suppose if I REALLY need different transparency when under-water I can likely just use a local script anyways, right fellas?

2 Likes

Super happy that this is finally released. Players in my game will be really happy to finally be able to explore the oceans and actually see what they’re doing.
Would still like to see this property split in the future however into fog near and far distance and surface transparency.

6 Likes

I second this, 2 separate properties for surface transparency & visibility would be quite nice and make more sense.

4 Likes