Creating water within the HiDef profile
It goes without saying that in real life, water is everywhere! So it's not surprising how often the need to have it present in our games arises.
Similar to how the appearance of water can vary in real life, the techniques used to simulate the look of water in a game can vary quite widely, depending on the situation.
For example, a pool of water on the roadside might be achieved with a simple flat reflection, whereas a close-up inspection of water being poured from a jug into a glass might require a complex set of light and physics simulations running in the background.
In this section, we're going to aim for somewhere around a third of the way up the complexity scale. We'll use a method of drawing water that forms the basis of most of the water display techniques you'll see in 3D games these days, and should hopefully form a comfortable base for you to customize and advance upon in the future.
Getting ready
This recipe requires an image as a basis for...
