How come water always look so good in video games?
How come water always look so good in video games?
Leo Ramirez
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Brandon Taylor
Carson Sanders
Amateur 3D modeler here. Most water you think looks good is just a reactive displacement map, and because of some minor culling and particle effects, it reacts accordingly to simulate an actual baked water simulation.
In the future, ray-tracing will likely improve, and allow real-time water simulations to occur. However, in most cases, what you are seeing is 'units' of bound physics objects that just come tight together to look like water.
It hasn't always looked so good, though. A lot of water in games is quite literally an animated texture with a large bump map, and maybe a transparent splash effect that triggers when you enter it.
As to why it looks so good, I'd wager it's because cloth + liquid physics have always complemented each other's development throughout the history of 3D motion graphics.
Anthony Ross
>always
As a water fetishist I can tell you there's plenty games with SHIT water. And don't get me started on there not being any splash or ripple effects.
Evan Jones
It's psychological. This is the part of the game where you escape where you really are and get to imagine you've escaped to someplace that isn't completely terrible.
John Martin
I bet it was still the best looking part of the game though.
Luis Hughes
Eh, looks better IRL.
Blake Price
Based.
Henry Nguyen
Arkham Knight is STILL the best looking game of the generation.
Jonathan Torres
I liked how vanilla Morrowind has nice water. the game came out in 2003 and the water effects are still the only graphical part of the game that hasn't aged that badly.
Nolan Adams
Is that fucking jelly?
Jonathan Morgan
STILL has the best looking water almost 20 years later. how the fuck did they do it? It looks AMAZING
Ethan Morgan
i hate using graphical overhaul mods, OpenMW or the graphics extender because they all replace the default pixel shading that makes the water look so good
Owen Taylor
Witcher 3 has probably the worst looking water out of all modern games.
Christopher Smith
>how the fuck did they do it?
That's actually pretty interesting. It's dead simple and crafty.
youtube.com
Evan Wood
twilight princess actually has amazing looking water
Adam Campbell
Is it finally playable on PC? Or should I just get it on PS4?
Adam Foster
No point in having amazing looking water if your character can't swim (or even dive).
Parker Jenkins
I played it after all the DLC was out on PC. Played just fine then.
Cooper Hall
all the amazing looking water in the world doesn't mean shit if you can't actually swim in it
Asher Mitchell
I played this game at 1440p when it came out, maxed out. It almost looks like CGI at times, even when you fly around the city. The craziest part is that it runs on an ancient Unreal Engine version. Modified 2.5 or some shit.
Austin Murphy
Wrong?
Adrian Diaz
>Mogs your water
Chase Green
It is CGI. That's the inherent nature of most video games.
William Jackson
Grayson Hall
Angel Powell
>computer generated images look like computer generated images
whoa...
Joshua Reed
This, when I first got the game, the water blew my mind, it looked so good.
Parker White
Yeah my boy here knows what’s up!
Easton Turner
CGI used in any context refers to pre-rendered movies, you dumb dumbs.
Jackson Long
>Always
Alexander Clark
Le dunning kruger has arrived.
Water in video games is actually just a dedicated GPU shader.
Tyler Harris
Seems like the secret is the right shade of turqiose to give it that nice tropical vibe
Jeremiah Sanchez
Best water is in waverace 64.
Brody Perez
Because we are made of water and skeletons
Luis Smith
fpbp, came in this thread hoping to see this image and it was better than I could have expected.
Benjamin Diaz
works fine on pc for me and my 2015 high end gpu
Josiah Ross
Honestly coloring the water correctly for its environment is like 80% of selling the effect. Tropical colored water in a forest lake is going to look wrong no matter how good the tech behind it is and vice versa
Julian Powell
Unless it's STALKER and you just came across an anomaly.
Daniel Allen
I still remember being blown away by Wave Race 64 as a kid.
Andrew Long
Haven't even played Wave Racer, but I love the style that gif has. Compressed soul.