Will the water ever move?

Water weather effects should be the last part of the next water iteration. Right now all the water in the game is treated the same, there's still saltwater / fresh water, lakes, ponds, streams, waterfalls (if possible), irrigation, etc. things like that that Red has to implement first. Otherwise implementing the water weather effects before all of that is done would give you ocean sized waves in a well for example.

yeah flowing water is something red wants to add at some point, but it's probably rather complicated and not high on the priority list.

ATM we could make a type of spring that users could place and have flowing water - using the API but that could cause problems with lots of people placing them everywhere so im not that keen on coding it. a more less resourceful meathed needs to be added, so till then its not that practical.

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Does it flow through pipes?

Water currently doesn't detect construction blocks, so no it won't.

What kind of movement/flow are you looking for specifically? Do you refer to ocean waves?

Ocean waves are actually planned But unfortunately we have no ETA for that yet... it will happen after replacing the Java version with the new version.

If you're looking for flowing water, the new version already has flowing water, but it only takes terrain into account for collision for now. The only change that's planned is that water will also detect construction elements in the future (at least construction elements with a minimum size).

Water has a fixed resolution (one water cell has the size of a block), unfortunately it's not possible to have more detailed water (i.e. consisting of much smaller cells/blobs) in a performance-friendly way...

Having detailed flowing water on a large scale isn't possible (yet) from a technical point of view unfortunately. If a single water drop would have the size of 1 cm (which is still a big water drop), a tiny 4x4 pond would already consist of millions of water drops. While modern GPUs can actually handle this on a small scale in realtime, this is far from being usable in a game like RW. On the one hand, the game needs this on a larger scale (what if the player wants to have more than just a tiny pond of physically accurate water?), on the other hand, this data needs to be accessible by the CPU (because the game has to sync the water state between clients in multiplayer, and it also has to store the water state on the hard drive, so it doesn't get reset everytime you restart the game/server).

Quote from red51

What kind of movement/flow are you looking for specifically? Do you refer to ocean waves?

Ocean waves are actually planned But unfortunately we have no ETA for that yet... it will happen after replacing the Java version with the new version.

If you're looking for flowing water, the new version already has flowing water, but it only takes terrain into account for collision for now. The only change that's planned is that water will also detect construction elements in the future (at least construction elements with a minimum size).

Water has a fixed resolution (one water cell has the size of a block), unfortunately it's not possible to have more detailed water (i.e. consisting of much smaller cells/blobs) in a performance-friendly way...

Having detailed flowing water on a large scale isn't possible (yet) from a technical point of view unfortunately. If a single water drop would have the size of 1 cm (which is still a big water drop), a tiny 4x4 pond would already consist of millions of water drops. While modern GPUs can actually handle this on a small scale in realtime, this is far from being usable in a game like RW. On the one hand, the game needs this on a larger scale (what if the player wants to have more than just a tiny pond of physically accurate water?), on the other hand, this data needs to be accessible by the CPU (because the game has to sync the water state between clients in multiplayer, and it also has to store the water state on the hard drive, so it doesn't get reset everytime you restart the game/server).

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Personally I think the big thing people are wanting would be particle effects to make fountains, running faucets, splashing water, etc. things like that to go along with the water blocks you had mentioned about adding beforehand. I could be totally wrong but it seems a common thing for people to call that "flowing water", not knowing it's just particle effects.

Quote from angriff

So the question originally is in regards to the ocean and somewhat on ponds. I look out in a storm and notice the large body of water just sits there reducing immersion. The trees sway and even the grass sways. In a small pond the plants (Lilies) just sit there when the wind blows and as such detract from immersion. This game wows, friends of mine stop in awe at sundown colors or the sky at night that 'devil is in the details' you have already enfixed to the game .

As a wish list on flowing waters, I would like to direct water from the hilltops through hollow cylindrical building pieces and channels of blocks simulating aqueducts.

I am looking forward to such effects as they are important to the finished look of flowing waters. You are correct that these are effects that a visual and needed as in a sprinkler system providing water to plants or a beautiful water fountain in a city center. Hopefully this is put in in a form of technologies like electricity and wire where click and run pipes can be installed from a water source and provide such displays as sprinklers that add to the growing and farming techniques as well.

Unity has Weather effects for water that would create waves, etc. during storms, but like I said in my original post about it Red has to fully implement the water system so it knows what's saltwater, freshwater, ocean, pond, river, etc. otherwise you'll end up with ocean sized waves in a stream.

Red has said previously that he was going to be adding water blocks, so you'd have to use those to simulate aqueducts, etc. The water in minecraft is the same way, it's just made up of blocks with an animated texture on it. When you pour a bucket of water in minecraft it's just telling the game to create x water blocks at x, y, z heights to give the effect of flowing water. I'm assuming the water blocks Red is talking about will do pretty much the same thing.

I don't think we have to have "flowing water". It's just an illusion after all. Some little special effects animation devices are really all we need. See: Planet Zoo or Coaster for what I mean. The special effects devices produce the illusions of fountains, water flowing on the surface of "static water", jets, waterfalls, bubbles, etc. We did have a "procedural smoke" effect in Java that we could place. So I think this could be done and I'm guessing would be a lot easier than flowing water that likely takes up more processing resources? That way we can be judicious about how much of that animation we put in. Just my 2 cents, and I don't know what I am talking about ....

Quote from MommaT

I don't think we have to have "flowing water". It's just an illusion after all. Some little special effects animation devices are really all we need. See: Planet Zoo or Coaster for what I mean. The special effects devices produce the illusions of fountains, water flowing on the surface of "static water", jets, waterfalls, bubbles, etc. We did have a "procedural smoke" effect in Java that we could place. So I think this could be done and I'm guessing would be a lot easier than flowing water that likely takes up more processing resources? That way we can be judicious about how much of that animation we put in. Just my 2 cents, and I don't know what I am talking about ....

yeah i like that idea, maybe a prefab effect could be possible already

Quote from yahgiggle

yeah i like that idea, maybe a prefab effect could be possible already

it is lol

Quote from CursedXistence

Personally I think the big thing people are wanting would be particle effects to make fountains, running faucets, splashing water, etc. things like that to go along with the water blocks you had mentioned about adding beforehand. I could be totally wrong but it seems a common thing for people to call that "flowing water", not knowing it's just particle effects.

That's a different story of course Various configurable particle effects are actually planned

Quote from angriff

So the question originally is in regards to the ocean and somewhat on ponds. I look out in a storm and notice the large body of water just sits there reducing immersion. The trees sway and even the grass sways. In a small pond the plants (Lilies) just sit there when the wind blows and as such detract from immersion

Yeah, ocean waves are definitely still missing, but they're on our to-do list

Quote from angriff

As a wish list on flowing waters, I would like to direct water from the hilltops through hollow cylindrical building pieces and channels of blocks simulating aqueducts.

Unfortunately this couldn't be achieved with flowing water... but if it's just about building, there will be water blocks in the future, as mentioned by CursedXistence They will be fully static of course, but the game will recognize them as water. Like any other block, they will be fully resizable and could be freely placed, allowing you to create very detailed bodies of water.

A river system just needs the illusion of moving water is absolutly enough and this is how it works in most of the games. Just one interaction is important: If you are in a river, you move with the river and the moving is indicated with some visible effects at the river rim.

Varying water is really important for the game:

The river starts at a spring on a mountain, which could comes from a cave or from a small gap in some rocks and starts as small creek and gets bigger and bigger. Water from the river you can drink. The river bed is made of round stones(gravel)

There could be also greenish ponds in the moderate bioms with reed, water lilies, dragonflies and frogs. You cannot drink from ponds without boiling the water at a fire.

In the savana are brown water holes. Also boil it before drinking it.

In the snowy areas are frozen lakes and there could be water below the ice which you can also drink directly.

ozean water is not drinkable and increases thirst.

How is the river changing if you terraform? In the same way as water ponds: There is just a particel effect of spray&foam if the movement goes to a death end.

The steepness of the riverbed changes the speed of the river and the animation of the river movement from slow moving water to a waterfall.

Changes to the river through terraforming are detailed in an in-depth article on a website https://theukrainianreview.com/ I came across. If terraformed, the river undergoes significant alterations in its character. For instance, adjusting the steepness of the riverbed affects the water flow speed and the animation of the river's movement. Altering the steepness can lead to changes in water speed ranging from a slow current to the formation of a waterfall. Additionally, when the river's flow encounters an obstacle or a dead-end, it results in only a partial effect of splashes and foam, which could drastically modify its appearance and interaction with surrounding objects.