Particles visible underwater since aquatic update.

[justGoron]

The new water that came with the 1.4 aquatic update looks great, I don't think there is any arguing that. One of the things that it's changed however, is the visibilty of particles that are underwater. Before the update, particles could not be seen through the water surface. I understand why this was changed. You want to be able to see all the particles that the aquatic animals leave behind them while swimming, as well as new particles like bubbles. There is however a huge downside to this change as well. A lot of water effects looked really nice because they could only be seen from above the water. Waterfalls would stop neatly at the water surface, for example. With the new update this changed, as can be seen in the pictures below. In the screenshots from before the update you can see splashes of water only above the water surface, but after the update they can be seen underwater as well, which looks a lot worse.

I'm not sure if this can be fixed. Reverting this trait of the water to the old ways could ruin the new particles for diving animals. I wonder if there is a way to see those particles, but not water effects like these? If that is possible, I think it would be a great improvement. If not, I guess we'll just have to deal with the way things are now...

 

[Chante Goodman]

Hayo @justGoron! Yes, you are correct that we made a change in our rendering to better present effects for underwater animals, but this is indeed the tradeoff. If you think there are effects you want to make that we don't have suitable coverage for anymore, please let us know your suggestions! Thank you!

 

[justGoron]

Hayo @justGoron! Yes, you are correct that we made a change in our rendering to better present effects for underwater animals, but this is indeed the tradeoff. If you think there are effects you want to make that we don't have suitable coverage for anymore, please let us know your suggestions! Thank you!

Thanks for the response! I think especially the effect shown in the post are the ones negatively affected by this change, those being water jets and waterfall effects.
I'm not sure if it's possible to revert only these to the old way (I don't know if the change is in the water or in the particles), if that's possible that would be great.
A setting in the particles emitter that enables/disables underwater visibility would be even more ideal as it gives players the most control, but again I don't know it this is feasible.

Thank you for listening and thinking along!