At ROBLOX we are constantly looking to improve our tools and technology so you can make better games and experiences. A big part of our development process is iteration: constantly making updates and additions to features already implemented. Last year we released Smooth Terrain (https://blog.roblox.com/2015/06/create-all-new-worlds-with-smooth-terrain/) which brought ROBLOX into a new era of environmental design. Recently Stickmasterluke announced some major improvements to the smooth terrain tool kit (https://blog.roblox.com/2015/12/smooth-terrain-and-new-horizons/) bringing even more power and potential to the creations on ROBLOX. Yet, there is still another important feature we want everyone to know about: Water Properties!

You can now configure the color of water as well as the magnitude and frequency of waves in the water. Need green water for your alien planet? Want a dark, stormy bay with choppy water? A serene pond? All of this and more is now possible!

Playing around with the new properties is very easy in Studio. Select the Terrain instance inside of Workspace and look at the following properties:

WaterColor

Sets the shade of the water. You can set a custom RGB value, or you can click on the square in the value to choose a color from the color picker. Remember, water will still reflect the skybox and other parts. Keep this in mind when changing the color and experiment to see what looks best in your game!

WaterTransparency

Sets how see-through the water is. This can be any number between 0 and 1. If you set it close to 1 then you’ll be able to see all the way through the water to whatever lies beyond. Set it close to 0 and you won’t be able to see very far at all (Protip: Setting to 0 causes a cool neon-like effect).

WaterWaveSize

Sets the size of the waves in the water. Can be set anywhere between 0 and 1. Setting this value to 0 makes the water still with no waves, and setting to 1 creates the largest waves the engine currently supports.

WaterWaveSpeed

Sets how fast the waves move in water. You can pick any value between 0 and 100. The higher the number, the faster the waves. Setting this property to 0 stops the waves in place (ice-nine anyone?).

 

This feature has been live for a little while and already we are seeing some super cool applications! So hop into Studio and try it out for yourself, we can’t wait to see what you can make! In addition, this new feature is currently being discussed on the Developer Forum. The thread has more details on how it works and how you can use it. Please feel free to check it out: http://devforum.roblox.com/t/new-water-properties/20309

–L aker “UristMcSparks” Sparks