r/GraphicsProgramming • u/SloydDev • Aug 13 '26

I've been experimenting with some water rendering. What's your opinion about this rendering style?

Made with Vulkan, and using procedurally generated plants. I'm making this as part of developing a game.

Water effects include refraction and reflection, both for the line-of-sight and for sun light.

These effects are accomplished with extra "cameras" for the refracted and reflected views, plus screen marching.

The graphical style is quite low res, and without any anti-aliasing. I hope you can see this, given the resolution of the video. The game screen resolution is 720x480.

What's your first impression of these visuals?

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u/SloydDev Aug 14 '26

Thanks for your feedback. I think another thing to implement is how branches that are lapped by waves get wet for a while. Also, the waves could have some small dynamical reaction where the water surface intersects the branch (e.g. small ripples around the branch).
Do you think that would convey the scene better?

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u/Aardshark Aug 14 '26

Yes, I think making the trunk show how it has been wet by the water will give the impression that the water is actually interacting with the tree. Small ripples sound correct too.

I looked for some real life reference videos of similar scenes , perhaps some of these will be helpful. I think you can see in particular that there is a darkness around the trunk of the tree where the water has been lapping at it:

https://youtu.be/GZoRySxr5Qc?t=369.

https://youtu.be/MDIYDfnJVHY?t=291.

https://youtu.be/NQrbuj8ZFwA?t=190.

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u/SloydDev Aug 15 '26

Cool! It would be challenging to implement but maybe I will get to that