Coastal ocean

GeoVeyra X V1 includes its own coast-aware ocean actor. It does not require the Unreal Water plugin or a third-party water plugin.

Create an ocean

1. Generate a coastal landscape with sea-level water enabled. Advanced ocean is enabled by default for new sea surfaces; disable it to use simple sea water.
2. For an existing GeoVeyra landscape, select it and use Features > Water > Water options > Build ocean on selected landscape.
3. Load every landscape tile first. Ocean generation supports square, unrotated landscapes with equal XY scale, up to 8129 vertices per side. Coast data is sampled at up to 2049 vertices.
4. Select GeoVeyra Ocean in the Outliner to adjust the ocean. Save the map and generated assets.

Appearance and material instances

New oceans start with the Porto Santo example appearance: refractive water, 0.35 m wave amplitude, 12 m foam width, and the example material colours, surface detail and foam settings. Material instances control appearance by default. Each location receives its own coastline and depth data; lighting and terrain still influence the result. Existing customized instances are preserved.

In Ocean > Materials, assign Ocean Material (Balanced) and Refractive Material. High Quality Refraction chooses the refractive surface; Balanced costs less. Turn Override Material Appearance OFF to use your material instance values. Duplicate an instance before changing it, assign your copy, then click Refresh Ocean.

The example instances are under GeoVeyraX/Examples/PortoSanto/Ocean/Instances. Generated oceans store their assets in your project's GeoVeyraX/Ocean folder. Relevant parameters are ShallowColor, DeepColor, TransitionDepth, Absorption, Scattering, Clarity, Roughness, Specular, DetailScale, DetailStrength, FoamColor, FoamStrength, FoamCoverage, FoamPatchScale and Whitecaps. Parameters vary by material; underwater and caustics use separate materials.

Motion and shore

Actor controls set wave amplitude, wind direction, wave speed, surf height, wavelength, speed, foam width and shore fade. FFT enables the built-in spectral wave path; deterministic spectrum seed controls variation. The ocean uses camera-following concentric geometry with lower geometric density at distance. It provides a horizon-scale surface, not a simulation of an unlimited ocean volume.

Curling Breakers adds instanced, shader-animated shore strips. These are a visual approximation, not physically simulated overturning fluid. Disable them for lower cost or coastlines where the strips do not suit the scene. Shoreline accuracy depends on terrain resolution and coast sampling.

Underwater and caustics

Underwater enables the depth-dependent underwater effect. Adjust density and color on the actor. Caustics enables an animated seabed projection with strength, scale, speed and depth controls. These are artistic effects, not photon-traced caustics. Test both above and below the surface under your project's lighting.

Seabed and terrain

Ocean building does not automatically repair a DEM's flat sea-level ground. The optional console command GeoVeyra.Ocean.PrepareSeabed 24 180 creates a named, generated landscape edit layer, using estimated depth (metres) and transition distance (metres). Work on a duplicated map. It supports square landscapes up to 2049 vertices with edit layers enabled. This is artistic bathymetry, not measured seabed data. Delete the generated layer to restore it, then use GeoVeyra.Ocean.Upgrade to refresh the ocean coast data.

Playback and performance

Follow Camera keeps surface geometry near the view. Animate in Editor previews motion. Manual Time and Simulation Time Seconds support repeatable cinematic timing. The buoyancy component can sample the wave height for physics-driven actors; it is not a complete boat or swimming system.

Use Balanced first, then enable refraction, breakers, underwater and caustics as required. Measure GPU frame time in your target scene. Shader Complexity is a diagnostic view, not a frame-time measurement. The selected-actor Details performance fix is included; generated breaker instances are not expanded inline.

Limitations

No fluid solver, river-flow simulation, measured bathymetry, guaranteed competitor parity, or universal platform support is advertised. The ocean release is qualified for UE 5.8 / Windows x64. Source assets saved in UE 5.8 are not promised to load in older engines. Surface detail does not increase the underlying landscape resolution.