Water in Minecraft Bedrock

Change how water looks in Minecraft Bedrock Vibrant Visuals: water settings for color, murkiness, caustics and waves, applied per biome or everywhere.

In Vibrant Visuals, water is more than a blue texture. A water settings file decides its color and murkiness, the dancing light patterns on the bottom (caustics), and the waves on top.

The classic water color still comes from minecraft:water_appearance in the client biome. This file only changes the Vibrant Visuals look.

The files

Resource pack

RP/
  water/
    ruby_water.json
  biomes/
    ruby_grove.client_biome.json

The water file

A clear lake with a hint of yellow-pink and gentle waves:

RP/water/ruby_water.json

{
  "format_version": "1.21.120",
  "minecraft:water_settings": {
    "description": {
      "identifier": "wiki:ruby_water"
    },
    "particle_concentrations": {
      "chlorophyll": 0.2,
      "cdom": 1.5,
      "suspended_sediment": 4.0
    },
    "biome_water_color_contribution": 0.5,
    "caustics": {
      "enabled": true,
      "scale": 0.6,
      "power": 2,
      "frame_length": 0.08
    },
    "waves": {
      "enabled": true,
      "frequency": 0.8,
      "octaves": 12,
      "depth": 0.8,
      "speed": 1.5,
      "shape": 2.0,
      "pull": 0.3,
      "mix": 0.4,
      "frequency_scaling": 1.2,
      "speed_scaling": 1.0
    }
  }
}

The identifier needs a namespace. One water settings block per file.

Water color: particle_concentrations

Real water gets its color from what floats in it. You set three amounts, in milligrams per liter. All 0 gives perfectly clear water, like vanilla.

Field	Range	Effect
`chlorophyll`	0 to 10	Algae. More makes the water green.
`cdom`	0 to 15	Dissolved plant matter. More makes it yellow-brown, like a swamp.
`suspended_sediment`	0 to 300	Mud and sand. More makes it red-brown and cloudy, like a muddy river.

biome_water_color_contribution mixes in the surface_color from the client biome's minecraft:water_appearance. Use it when you want your biome's own water color to show in Vibrant Visuals too.

Caustics

Caustics are the bright, moving light lines on surfaces under water.

Field	Range	What it does
`enabled`		On or off. On by default.
`scale`	0.1 to 5	How big the pattern is.
`power`	1 to 6	How bright it is.
`frame_length`	0.01 to 5	Seconds per animation frame. Lower is faster.
`texture`		Optional. Your own caustics texture. Leave it out to use the built-in one.

Waves

Waves only change how the surface is drawn. The water blocks themselves do not move, so waves are a visual effect only.

Field	Range	What it does
`enabled`		On or off. Vanilla has them off.
`frequency`	0.01 to 3	Size of the waves. Higher packs them closer together.
`octaves`	1 to 30	How many layers of waves are stacked. More looks more detailed.
`depth`	0 to 3	How tall the waves look.
`speed`	0.01 to 10	How fast the first layer moves.
`shape`	1 to 10	The shape of each wave.
`pull`	-1 to 1	How much small waves get pulled into big ones.
`mix`	0 to 1	How much each layer blends into the next.
`frequency_scaling`	0 to 2	How the size changes from one layer to the next.
`speed_scaling`	0 to 2	How the speed changes from one layer to the next.
`direction_increment`	0 to 360	How many degrees each layer turns compared to the last.

Recipes

Tropical lagoon: all concentrations near 0, caustics power 3. Swamp: cdom 8, chlorophyll 3. Muddy river: suspended_sediment 150.

Using it

In a biome

Use minecraft:water_identifier in a client biome:

RP/biomes/ruby_grove.client_biome.json (inside components)

"minecraft:water_identifier": {
  "water_identifier": "wiki:ruby_water"
}

Everywhere

Vanilla biomes use minecraft:default_water. Make a water file with that identifier to change water in every biome at once. If two packs use the same identifier, the pack higher in the list wins.

Underwater fog is separate

How far you can see under water is set by the water part of a fog file, not by this file.