Living Lake turns a hollow in your terrain into a lake that feels alive. Add the water and press one button. The lake fills with water lilies, sunken roots, underwater plants, reeds along the shore, and fish that swim over to look at you. Dive under and everything changes: the water turns murky, light fades as you go deeper, and specks and bubbles drift past.
It suits exploration, survival, fishing, open-world, and nature games. It works in your own scenes, and a demo lake you can walk around in comes with it.
The water
- Reflects the shore, trees, and sky in real time
- Refraction, ripples that move with the wind, and color that gets deeper with depth
- Soft edges where the water meets the shore
- Three presets to start from: Forest Lake (tea-brown, like a dark mirror), Clear Lake (blue-green, you can see 14 m down), and Murky Pond (green-brown, you can see 3 m)
- You can tune everything in the material: color, clarity, ripples, wind, reflections, and the sun's glint
Under the water
- Murky water, with its own color and visibility for each lake
- Daylight that fades and glows as you go deeper
- Floating specks, bubbles, and depth of field
- Turns on and off by itself as the camera crosses the surface
Lake life
- Water lilies, sunken roots and stumps, plants on the lake bed, and reeds
- Each grows where it would in a real lake: lilies in the shallows, reeds on the bank, plants on the deeper bed
- Set how much of each you want, or press Randomize for a new layout. The same seed always gives the same lake.
- Built only near the camera and never saved into your scene, so it stays light
Fish
- Schools of perch and trout, sized to fit your lake
- Stand still underwater, and some will come over and circle you
Easy to set up
- Dig a hollow in a Unity Terrain.
- Add the Lake Water component to an empty object at the height you want the water.
- The water fills the hollow's shape by itself. Press "Add Life and Fish" and you're done.
A Quick Check window looks over your project and fixes the URP settings with one click.
What's included
- Demo scene: a mountain lake in a valley, with a first-person player who can walk into the water
- Shaders for the water, underwater view, fish, plants, reeds, and sunken wood
- Models and textures for the lilies, roots, plants, reeds, and fish
- Full C# source code
- User guide (PDF)
Requirements
- Unity 6 (6000.0 or newer)
- URP 17 with Render Graph (not Compatibility Mode). Built-in and HDRP are not supported.
- Compute shader support (DirectX 11/12, Vulkan, Metal) for reflections. Without it, the water reflects only the sky.
- Lake life and fish need a Unity Terrain under the water. The water itself works on any flat mesh.
- The Input System package is needed only for the demo player
Enjoying Living Lake? Please leave a review and tell me what you'd like added next. I consider every suggestion. Any problems? Message me on Discord
