Waterfall Tool and Waterfall Tool 2 Differences
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The Waterfall Tool and Waterfall Tool 2 are two completely different products offering different solutions. We currently plan on supporting both products going forward as they both have different use-cases for different types of projects.
The first Waterfall Tool was built way back in UE4.17. It is super simplistic in its approach of using spline mesh planes and has very limited functionality.
Features
Spline based Waterfall Tool.
Automatic ground detection.
Dynamic Material Object Detection.
Material Settings: Color, Brightness, Flow Speed, and more!
All Particle Effects have LODs for better performance.
Pros
Super simple and easy to implement
Good for styalised projects
Cons
Limited to using straight-edged, flat planes
Limited functionality and flexibility to create more complex waterfalls
The Waterfall Tool 2 has been built from the ground up in UE5.2 as a way to create much more realistic and less-stylized waterfalls to cater for the ever-increasing demand for more realistic environments. It provides a full Editor Mode and has many more variables and uses dynamic meshes and spline paths to build geometry from scratch, giving it the ability to bend along a cliff-face, rather than being a simple straight plane.
Features
Create a realistic waterfall by dragging and dropping and clicking a couple of buttons!
Create waterfalls that aren’t just planes but instead bend to conform to the cliff-face!
Full flexibility when it comes to tweaking variables for how paths, meshes, and FX generate!
Split into Simple and Advanced Modes to cater for a wide variety of use cases and technical ability!
Ability to bake the Dynamic Meshes to a single Static Mesh for optimization.
Includes a Material for each mesh type.
Includes Niagara System assets for each global VFX Component.
Includes Audio Components for SFX (SFX Assets not included).
UI to easily add and modify additional VFX and SFX Components to any of the spline points on any of the paths.
Most variables are exposed to Blueprints and most functions are virtual, allowing the possibility to add on top of this system!
Pros
Provides a full Editor Mode with many parameters to provide flexibility
Create realistic-looking waterfalls for less-styalised projects
Generates custom meshes based on an offline particle simulation to create waterfalls that conform to a cliff-face rather than being a simple flat, straight-edged plane
Ability to bake meshes into a single Static Mesh with an option to also combine same Materials into singular slots, which provides a more optimised version of the waterfall, reducing the number of draw calls and removing all the overhead of the Dynamic Meshes.
Cons
Better to create more realistic waterfalls, rather than styalised waterfalls
Bigger learning curve
