Presets and saving changes

What a System Preset represents

A System Preset is a reusable configuration asset for a main water body. Selecting one applies a coordinated water setup instead of changing every Inspector panel separately. A preset can define the water mode, rendering behavior, appearance, waves, interactions, and modules.

Presets and scenes solve different problems. The preset stores a reusable configuration; the scene stores the placed water object and its relationship to the level. Saving one does not replace saving the other.

What a main water preset saves

Saved category	Examples
Water mode and rendering	2D or 2.5D mode, Fake Perspective enablement and strip height, sorting layers and orders, material-instance behavior, reflection and underwater-capture settings.
Mesh and performance configuration	Base resolution, 2.5D LOD settings, ripple patch smoothing, runtime patch limits, far-edge offsets, and related debug settings.
Ambient waves	Mode, direction, amplitude, speed, and frequency.
Interaction configuration	Impact-ripple physics and visuals, wakes, foam, filtering, limits, physics sampling, and other WaterPhysics settings.
Material appearance	Supported surface, Fake Perspective, and underwater shader values such as colors, patterns, foam, distortion, fades, and assigned appearance textures.
Optional modules	Which water modules exist, whether they are enabled, and their serialized settings. Applying a preset can add missing modules or remove optional modules that are not part of it.
Current and exclusion zones	Zone count, names, enabled state, local transforms, shapes, direction or mask settings, and visualization settings.

Runtime-generated data is deliberately excluded from the material snapshot. Active ripple and wake data, generated capture textures, the Camera Sorting Layer Texture, and other live shader inputs are recreated by the water system rather than stored as preset content.

What a main water preset does not save

• The water root’s world position, rotation, scale, parent, name, or active state.
• Width, Underwater Height, or 2.5D Depth (Z). These dimensions belong to the placed scene object and remain unchanged when another preset is applied.
• Characters, sensors, buoyant objects, platforms, colliders, or other gameplay objects outside the water system.
• Project-level configuration such as Sorting Layer definitions, the 2D collision matrix, Input Actions, or the 2D Renderer Data’s Camera Sorting Layer Texture boundary.
• Current Play-mode state, including objects already inside the water, active splashes, ripple ages, wake history, or temporary runtime material instances.

This separation lets the same preset style a small pool and a wide lake without resizing either scene object.

Default and custom presets

The presets supplied with the package are read-only defaults. You can select one, apply it, and continue editing the water instance, but Save, Rename, and Delete cannot modify the packaged asset. This protects the original configurations and prevents package updates from overwriting project-specific changes.

When a default preset is selected and you change a tracked setting, the System Preset header displays an unsaved-changes dot. Use Save New to create a writable custom preset from the current water. If you attempt to switch presets while a read-only preset has changes, the Inspector offers Save New, Cancel, or Discard Changes.

Custom presets are writable assets stored in the project. They can be overwritten, renamed, deleted, committed with the project, and reused by other water bodies. Start from a supplied preset when you want a variation of an established setup; use a blank preset when you want factory defaults without inheriting a style.

Preset selector and action buttons

The dropdown selects and applies a preset. Applying a different preset preserves the placed body’s dimensions, rebuilds the required water configuration, applies its material state, creates or removes optional modules as needed, and restores its saved current and exclusion zones.

The five action buttons appear to the right of the preset selector:

Button	Action
Save	Overwrites the selected writable preset with the current water body’s tracked settings. Disabled for packaged read-only presets.
Save New	Creates a new writable preset from the current water body and assigns the new preset to it. Use this to customize a default preset safely.
New Blank	Creates a writable preset from factory-default values, assigns it, and applies it while preserving the water body’s dimensions.
Rename	Renames the selected writable preset asset. Disabled for read-only presets.
Delete	Permanently deletes the selected writable preset asset after confirmation. The Inspector selects another available preset when possible. Disabled for read-only presets.

When a writable preset has unsaved changes and you select another preset, the Inspector offers Save, Cancel, or Discard Changes. Save updates the preset asset. Discard Changes continues the switch and replaces the current tracked settings with the newly selected preset. Before switching, edits exist on the scene object and can be retained with the scene, but they do not update the reusable preset until you click Save or Save New.

Recommended preset workflow

1. Select the closest supplied default preset.
2. Adjust the water in the scene until its appearance and behavior fit the project.
3. Click Save New, give the custom preset a meaningful name, and keep the new asset under source control.
4. Use Save as you refine that shared style.
5. Use a separate custom preset when another water body should evolve independently.
6. Save the scene as well, because the water’s dimensions and placement are scene data.

Simple Water presets

Simple Water 2D uses a separate Simple Water Preset type. It saves the Bézier shape points, shape resolution, top and bottom waves, sorting, reflection settings, sprite-reflection proxy settings, and material appearance. It does not save the Simple Water GameObject’s scene transform or unrelated scene objects.

Its preset selector follows the same read-only and writable rules and provides the same Save, Save New, New Blank, Rename, and Delete actions. A blank Simple Water preset starts with a rectangular shape and factory appearance values.