Reworked in v2.0

Tidal Zones

Baked, per-body maps that modify water locally - damping, height, and flow.

Zones modify water behavior in a local region without adding a second simulation. In v2.0 they were rewritten from a per-pixel zone loop into a baked zone system: every zone affecting a body bakes into that body's zone maps the moment a zone changes, so the runtime cost is a single texture tap regardless of how many zones you place.

How baking works

All zones that affect a body bake into two world-anchored rings - a near ring (high detail, following the camera) and a far ring (full coverage). The maps hold height, damping, and flow contributions. At runtime the water samples a single map tap; there is no per-zone or per-frame cost, and zones re-bake automatically whenever one changes.

Why it looks smooth

Zone maps are evaluated with a C2 cubic B-spline with analytic gradients.
Height edits produce smooth surface normals at any zone scale - no faceting.
Cost is a single texture tap regardless of zone count.

Per-body scoping

Zones are scoped per body. Each zone declares which bodies it affects through its Affected Bodies list and/or its Affected Layer Mask. Because bindings are now per-material rather than global, scoping works correctly even with multiple TidalBody instances in the same scene.

Note: Make sure the body you want affected is either in the zone's Affected Bodies list or shares a layer with its Affected Layer Mask. If a zone seems inactive, check this first - scoping is enforced per body.

Zone types

Damping

Reduces wave contribution locally - the recommended way to calm water near shorelines, docks, harbors, or indoor pools without adding a second TidalCompute.

Height Modify (Experimental)

Adds or subtracts water height based on the zone's map values, letting you raise or lower the surface in a region.

Flow Current

Feeds the interaction canvas flow layer, driving a baked current that advects foam and wakes and is readable from C#.

Creating a zone

Create zones from the GameObject menu: GameObject → Tidal 2 → Zone → Damping | Height Modify | Flow Current. New zones default to a footprint scale of 10×1×10 with the Affected Layer Mask set to the Water layer.

Tip: The scale of the zone GameObject determines the world size of the region it modifies. Position and scale it directly in the scene view.

Height Map Generator

The Height Map Generator editor window (under Tools) generates and bakes zone height and damping maps directly in the editor, so you can author zone content without hand-tuning each region.

Painting zones

For direct, in-scene authoring of a zone's height and damping maps, use the Zone Painter - a scene-view brush that writes straight into the zone map.

Zone Painter

Paint zone height and damping maps in the scene view.

Interaction Canvas

Where Flow Current zones feed the flow layer.