Water features a lot in video games – Bertie even ran a Five of the Best supporter’s piece on it earlier this year. But how do developers actually make it look so, well, water-like?
According to 3D artist Thomas of Twitter account Stylized Station, there is a lot involved to get it just right. It takes “a ton of smoke and mirrors in the background, without anyone ever realising it,” they explained in a very thorough Twitter thread, noting “creating real-time simulated water is still really hard to do”.
Thomas stated that most developers use a variety of “cheats” and techniques that see things such as textures, VFX sprites, normal maps, and basic geometry “smashed together” in order to give the “illusion of flowing water”.
