This project focuses on the technical aspects of creating an efficient and optimized ocean shader.

While the common aproach to simulating waves has long been using gerstner waves, I experimented with the balance of looks vs performance and ended up with a modified sin wave, sometimes called a semi-sine wave. These semi-sine waves will look very simlar to gerstner waves and are far cheaper to run, they also come with the benefit of not inverting into themselves as the input sharpness increases.

In a custom HLSL function I make use of a for loop to go through the waves with iteratively higher frequencies and lower wave heights.

By sampling the wave function three times, one a the original position, and two with an offset in x and y respectively, used to calculate normals.

I created a cheap "sub-surface" effect by taking the dot-product of the camera vector and the sun vector and then multiplying that by the height map. This results in the tips of the waves taking on a slightly brighter color when looking in the direction of the sun. It's a small tweak that really helps define the outline of the waves and add more visual variety.

The ship controlled by the player has a particle system attached to it that is only visible to a screen capture component also attached to the player. This results in a a trail being created wherever the player goes. I then sample this texture based on a playerposition that is set in the actor blueprint to create a mask for where to place a foam texture and thereby creating the foam trail behind the player.

Base color and world normal render passes.