Waterfalls from the shallow-water simulation
Waterfalls come from the shallow-water simulation, so they ship wherever it does: Riverology 3 and Oceanology Pro. There is no separate waterfall generator, and Oceanology Lite does not include them.
Included in Oceanology Pro and Riverology 3.
In the new lineup a waterfall is not a separate feature with its own generator. It is produced by the shallow-water simulation, the same GPU solver that makes water flow downhill, pool behind obstacles and react to the terrain beneath it. That simulation ships in Riverology 3 and in Oceanology Pro, so both carry waterfalls. Oceanology Lite has no rivers and no shallow-water simulation, so it has no waterfalls. Nothing about waterfalls is exclusive to one product.
Where waterfalls are included
| Riverology 3 | Included, through the shallow-water simulation |
|---|---|
| Oceanology Pro | Included, through the same shallow-water simulation |
| Oceanology Lite | Not included: Lite has no rivers and no shallow-water simulation |
| Riverology 2 | A cascade shading effect on the river surface, described below |
What Riverology 2 ships today
Today the waterfall is a shading effect on the river surface, not a separate actor. A material function named MF Waterfall sits inside the river material and drives the cascade from the same flow machinery the rest of the river uses: a flow vector map, a direction function, and a fractional time input that ping-pongs the sample so the texture never visibly resets. Its inputs are Diffuse, Diffuse Alpha, Cascade Normals, Normal Map, Flow Vector Map, Speed, Flatness and Distortion. The white water is a separate texture pair on the Foam Generator with its own animation speed, tiling and mask threshold. Audio is a waterfall cue plus a set of splash wave assets. There is no Niagara system anywhere in the Riverology 2 plugin content.
What changes in Riverology 3
- Waterfalls come from the shallow-water simulation, the same one Oceanology Pro ships, rather than from a dedicated waterfall system.
- The simulation reads the level it runs over: static and stationary geometry is captured into its bottom contour, so the ground under the water is real geometry to the fluid rather than a bounding box.
- It is not exclusive. Oceanology Pro carries the same simulation, and with it the same waterfalls.
The core pieces it builds on
Effects you build around falling water can read the same data as the rest of the core. The Niagara water data interface answers GetWaterDataAtPoint and GetWaterSurfaceInfo, returning surface position, water depth, water velocity, the water plane position and normal, wave height, and whether the sample sits inside an exclusion volume. On the physics side, the shallow water simulation accepts impulses with a radius, a height impulse, a foam impulse, a relax rate, a swirl speed and an elliptical footprint controlled by a yaw angle and an axis ratio.
Riverology 2 today against Riverology 3 as planned
| Feature | Riverology 2 | Riverology 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Where the waterfall comes from | MF Waterfall, a material function inside the river material | The shallow-water simulation |
| Water data for effects | Read from river material parameters | Niagara water data interface: surface position, depth, velocity, wave height |
| Products that include it | Riverology 2 | Riverology 3 and Oceanology Pro; not Oceanology Lite |
Current waterfall values in Riverology 2
| Waterfall foam texture pair | T FoamParticle, with T FoamParticle Normals |
|---|---|
| Waterfall Fast (animation speed) | 0.25 |
| Waterfall Scale (tiling) | 1.0 |
| Masking (foam visibility threshold) | 1.28 |
| MF Waterfall inputs | Diffuse, Diffuse Alpha, Cascade Normals, Normal Map, Flow Vector Map, Speed, Flatness, Distortion |
| Audio assets | One waterfall cue plus splash touch and splash impact waves |
| Shallow water impulse controls in the core | Radius, height impulse, foam impulse, relax rate, swirl speed, footprint yaw, footprint axis ratio |