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Getting started

Physical Open Waters (POW) is a versatile Blender add-on that simplifies the creation of realistic ocean scenes. It provides real-time rendering capabilities, a range of ready-to-use presets, and detailed wave simulations. Compatible with both Eevee and Cycles, POW enables users to animate water features and achieve visually stunning results with minimal effort.

Requirements

Latest Physical Open Waters is supported by Blender 3.6.0+.

Use on MacOS (currently not supported on Eevee). But works with a workaround 👇

How to avoid Pink issue on MacOS Eevee (requires PSA addon):

  • Add Physical Open Water (POW) Ocean to the Scene.
  • Enable Physical Starlight and Atmosphere (PSA) and enable it in the scene.

Installation

Info

"Physical Open Waters" is only available for purchase on Blender Market or Gumroad. Get your latest version there.

  • Download the "physical-open-waters[version here].zip" file.
  • Open Blender.
  • Go to Edit/Preferences.
  • Choose "Add-ons" tab and press "Install..." button.
  • Locate the .zip file and press "Install Add-on".
  • You will see the newly installed add-on, enable it by checking the checkbox.
  • Wait till it registers. Voila!

First Run

  • Locate the Physical Open Waters panel in the Sidebar also called N Panel. Click on the tab Ocean to reveal it.

  • Enable the add-on by clicking the + Add Ocean button.

Important

  • You must have a World to be able to add an Ocean.
  • You must have a Camera in your scene to see the water properly.
  • You must also make sure you to add a Sun and allocate it to the add-on in the Ocean panel.

Enable POW

What happens when addon is being enabled/disabled?

  • A water mesh containing shaders and a geometry node setup is imported and added to the currently active scene. At the same time, several shader nodes are imported and added to the currently active world.
  • If a sun is present in the scene, the addon's sun property is assigned to read data from that sun. It prioritizes PSA sun if one is present.
  • If a camera is present in the scene, the addon's camera property is assigned, using active camera.

Presets

Presets allow you to store a snapshot of your customized ocean settings and return to it later or use already predefined presets provided by the add-on.

Preset panel

The add-on comes with 7 different presets:

  • calm waters
  • confused seas
  • moderate waters
  • rogue wave
  • serene
  • small breeze
  • storm gusts

How to use presets

  1. Install the POW add-on.
  2. Enable the add-on inside the Blender Preferences
  3. Add the Ocean inside the Blender Viewport, which will make the presets visible inside the add-ons N Panel.
  4. In the N Panel under the Presets tab pick a preset of your.
  5. You should now see the preset in your scene!

How to make your own presets

  1. In the POW N Panel click + Create New.
  2. Name it something memorable, avoid special characters.
  3. Modify the POW parameters to your liking.
  4. Save the changes you made.

Tip

If you want to save changes to an already existing preset, then simply click Save when having loaded in the presets settings.