Water has a strange flicking behavior on Gaia Pro 2021 and Unity 2021.2.18f1

[Asored]

Hi guys,

I have a strange behavior with water after changing my project to the Unity version 2021.2.18f1 with M1 Silicon support. (My device: Mac Studio Ultra). I'm using Gaia Pro 2021.

My water is showing like the example in the image and is flickering hard:

In general migrating Gaia Pro 2021 was interesting. In the file GaiaUtils.cs I had to remove a line..

#if AQUAS_PRESENT
            AQUAS_Camera aquasCamera = camera.GetComponent<AQUAS_Camera>();
            if (aquasCamera != null)
            {
                GameObject.DestroyImmediate(aquasCamera);
            }
#endif

... because #if AQUAS_PRESENT and #if AQUAS_2020_PRESENT are fireing both. So Unity give an error that the variable or function aquasCamera already exists in this context. After removing one of these lines there are no errors anymore, but the Water looks like that.

Here are some Gaia Water Settings:

Is there a reason for this water behavior? Maybe a known issue? And is there a workaround? 🙂

[Bryan]

This is an issue with Metal graphics API and the water shader,
 
They can do the following to fix this issue until we come up with a better approach to this:
 
- Open the water shader file in Assets\Procedural Worlds\Gaia\Shaders\PW General\PW_Water.shader
In line 61, remove the two leading slashes "//" to comment in the command "ZWrite Off" This should fix the issue but can create other issues when using the wave feature in the shader
 
- Switch the graphics API to OpenGL
- Switch the rendering Pipeline to URP
- Adjust the rendering queues in the shader (This is a slippery slope into having to adjust the rendering queue on other shaders as well though)

[Asored]

Hi Bryan,

thanks very much for your answer! After the first step, the water already works again. There are no other issues I can find. Because I cannot change to URP (some models are not supportingURP), do I will have problems when ignoring your other three points? 🙂

[Bryan]

Mainly it should be just the first bit. 
As long as that worked your good.