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Best looking water in games
- Thread starter DOSS216
- Start date
It's all in the wrist
Member
Anyone can make good looking static water. Interactive waves are harder to do. I sure do miss Wave Race and Jet Moto...
There is a PS3 version of that where the ps move guy picks up water with cups using an eyetoy
Kupfer
Member
So it's basically the same as the big screens or TV's in City17 with Dr. Breen on it, sitting in a little room somewhere under the map talking to a virtual camera?
Noclipping to his room
funking giblet
Member
Yeah that's pretty close! When I've done it before, I literally setup a camera, using the same perspective matrix etc, flipped below my own viewpoint, and it had it's own scenegraph, update loop etc in code and rendered a texture to memory to be used in my main render loop. I imagine in the HL2 engine, they could do it in runtime using a camera entity in their map, which could output a texture that they could dynamically reference. I wouldn't need a secret room per-se, it would just be in code, so very rigid in it's use. There is a cost to doing this btw, but usually you lower the resolution the camera renders, and do some effects so you won't notice 
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daTRUballin
Member
I remember people would be particularly impressed with this gif from Kinect Sports Rivals.
Of course, the developers of this game would go on to make Sea of Thieves. I'm guessing SoT's water engine evolved from KSR. It's interesting to see how it's changed over the years.
Of course, the developers of this game would go on to make Sea of Thieves. I'm guessing SoT's water engine evolved from KSR. It's interesting to see how it's changed over the years.
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DynamiteCop!
Banned
They never lied about anything, the game may have been lacking content but they certainly misled no one.
01011001
Banned
I remember people would be particularly impressed with this gif from Kinect Sports Rivals.
Of course, the developers of this game would go on to make Sea of Thieves. I'm guessing SoT's water engine evolved from KSR. It's interesting to see how it's changed over the years.
you can trace the tech back yeah. the way the water looks and them using planar reflections (but back then that was still more common... before everyone jumped on SSR, which SUCKS!)
tell my what they lied about? tell me a single thing. literally NOTHING was lied about ahead of launch, they even had multiple beta and alpha tests where you could play the game for yourself and see what it was
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daTRUballin
Member
I know this is veering into off-topic territory, but gotta love the posters in every single SoT related discussion going "This game SUCKED at launch 3 years ago, therefore I will NEVER play this game ever again and will stick my head in the sand and pretend the game is still the same as it was 3 years ago."
Never understood that logic. Either people are looking for reasons to keep from admitting that the game has been a success and has changed significantly since launch for whatever weird reasons......Or some are still bitter over its launch state which is just as bizarre.
Calling it a scam is kind of weird considering you can practically play the game for FREE anyway. I mean, I guess it's unfortunate if you paid $60 for it at launch, but let's not act like the free option was never there either.
Never understood that logic. Either people are looking for reasons to keep from admitting that the game has been a success and has changed significantly since launch for whatever weird reasons......Or some are still bitter over its launch state which is just as bizarre.
Calling it a scam is kind of weird considering you can practically play the game for FREE anyway. I mean, I guess it's unfortunate if you paid $60 for it at launch, but let's not act like the free option was never there either.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
Sea of Thieves and it's not even a competition. The sheer dynamism and variance in environmental effects is incredible. Seeing a sunset, sailing into waves, transparency through a crashing wave or moon light reflections at night. It all just seamlessly immerses you in a sea adventure. Love it.
ACIV Black Flag is a close second, not so much for the tech around the water but the feeling of sailing and shanties when being a pirate was nailed, hard. Great experience for video game water as well.
ACIV Black Flag is a close second, not so much for the tech around the water but the feeling of sailing and shanties when being a pirate was nailed, hard. Great experience for video game water as well.
Fare thee well
Neophyte
Ill just say red dead 2 for most things lol
drotahorror
Member
From recent memory, The Last of Us 2 had some of the best flowing water and waterfalls. The waves in larger bodies of water were ok, not Sea of Thieves level though. But streams, rapids, and waterfalls all looked very good.
CartoonsNCereal
Banned
the horse spun in the water and the water continued to spin after horse left....ac origins aint doin that my guy.
rdr2 got this thread
nekrik
Member
Water effects are not only about pretty pixel - geometry shading and tesselation, or scripted events. It's also about large water bodies (soft bodies) - rigid bodies physics real time interactions, flow dynamics, caustics, particles etc etc. Imho the games that have most of the features are RDR2 and the latest anvil next games. Sea of thieves also has gorgeous water physics and geometry shading - tesselation but some artistic choices in some scenes breaks the effect for me though i would say it's on par on techhical level.
CuteFaceJay
Member
Red Dead 2 on PC with water settings cranked to the tits is prolly best I've seen so far.
ArthriticZombie
Member
First time I was ever amazed by water effects in a video game was Morrowwind on the OG Xbox. Sea Of Thieves takes the cake though. It’s stunning.
DrumNBassDanTTV
Member
Sea Of Thieves & MS FS
ZehDon
Member
jigglet
Banned
I struggle to see the difference. Which one is Sea of Thieves?Wave Race 64
Sea of Thieves
CuteFaceJay
Member
Why isn't anyone talking hype for Wave Race Blue Storm on the Gameqube
ZehDon
Member
Top one. The dolphin gives it away - its a cash shop only pet.
Roman Empire
Member
I remember Resistance 2 had a huge focus on stages filled with water. At the time the water physics blow me away, but it really only worked for tight spaces because of how exaggerated its physics was and how jelly-like it behaved in more open areas like the Kraken boss fight. But still, it was impressive for its time.
iHaunter
Member
HIGHLY INCORRECT. And there's far more than this. They lied about A LOT of the content. That being there was literally none. Still barely is any outside of the Pirates of the Caribbean story.
Can we take a minute to talk about lies that Sea of Thieves developers said prior game launch about the content that is not there? : Games (reddit.com)
Did Rare Lie About ‘Sea Of Thieves’ Content, Endgame? (ibtimes.com)
DynamiteCop!
Banned
People misinterpreting their statements doesn't equate to lying. What they said was accurate. You get Pirate Legend livery (Legendary Ship), there is a Pirate Legend hideout, and while not much different you get Legendary quests which are much harder and reap greater rewards.
What they stated was no lie, expectations of others has no bearing on reality.
Secondly don't even get me started on features and content. They've been continuously packing this game with new features and content for literal years.
You have no idea what in the hell you're babbling about. See yourself out.
TheMay30thMan
Member
The water in Bioshock was amazing for its time:
The realistic water mod for Minecraft is hard to beat, even today:
The realistic water mod for Minecraft is hard to beat, even today:
Saint Boot
Banned
The polluted water is weird looking, but I still like it.
JoshuaThomas
Banned
Do you know THE CREW 2? Let me find a picture for you. It seems that the studios of the French company have worked out how to create realistic water.
JerryinSoCal
Member
GTAV has some really nice water effects and AC Odyssey as well, Valhalla took a step back in that area.
Darlingcognito
Member
Thread dedicated to Sea of thieves.
Slayer-33
Liverpool-2
Waa horizon?
best waves I have seen in a video game.
Dural
Member
Hellblade
Balducci30
Member
Honestly, I just recently played sea of thieves for the first time - nothing comes close to that. Probably before that I remember being blown away by resistance 3 I think? But nothing comes close to how sea of thieves water looks, not LOU2 or RDR2 - physical reactions I love and wish there were more of to where it was actually convincingly water but I don’t know what the reactions are in SOT it just looks straight up insane - you see through it properly, the way the light hits it - crazy shit
rapid32.5
Member
Forbidden West not out yet, but yeah, I should have clarified , the game that is out already.
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JerryinSoCal
Member
Sea of Thieves has really great water (and HDR) but everything else looks like a free to play game, I wonder if they really tried making the character models and ships etc more detailed if that would have much of an impact on the water?
Havoc2049
Member
A three year old raging Reddit post and a three year old click bait article about the Reddit post. The poster even deleted the post of the things missing in the game, as it soon became out of date and was no longer relevant.
The Pirate Legend Athena Lair was an early update and at the time of release, I remember Rare said that there were only a handful of gamers in the world who had reached Pirate Legend status before the update.
Rare never lied, most of the artwork they have shown and what they talked about has ended up in the game. They never said it was all going to be there day one. MMOs evolve and are always changing. Content drops are spaced out in a way to keep people hooked and playing on a regular basis. Considering the success of SoT, Rare is doing a great job at keeping players engaged and attracting new players.
MrFunSocks
Banned
Yeah it's why I get annoyed when someone lists games like Batman Arkham City and Killzone 3 as having amazing water. It may as well be an FMV, it's completely un-interactive.
The best water in any games I've seen is Sea of Thieves, hands down. Second would be Halo 3 which was just incredible, especially for the time - it actually had currents in the streams, and would carry items downstream, and would actually flow around items in the water like the characters legs, not just through them. Third would be GTA5.
There's this thing called art direction lol. They chose that style because that's what they wanted the game to look like.
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iamvin22
Industry Verified
fvcking yes!!!! this so much. the tech back then was so beyond. especially if you were an advanced rider and you knew where to dip low
I can feel the water and the controls just watching that clip.
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