This is an interactive Water Shader I created in Unreal Engine 5 featuring: caustics, waves and refraction, foam along objects, sparkles on the water surface and depth.
Inhouse Production
Shader, Code
Solo
PC, Steamdeck
Stylized
For the caustics and underwater sight distortion I first added a texture in the shader thats used with a bump offset to fake depth and "project" it as a shadow. Then I made a decal for the environment to fake the reflection that light causes when it hits the water surface. And finally I used a local post processing shader that would serve as a kind of distortion underneath the water surface. For extra juice I used the same bump offset technique to fake some sparkles on the surface (only the surface, it can not be seen from under the surface).
The shader also allows for customizing the "murkiness" and camera depth to create different kinds of waters i.e. beautiful, clear shallow water or murky swamp water.
It also features adjustible normals- I can change the size and strength as well as the refraction to create calm or wild waves.
In addition I can also add foam and ripples along the edges of objects. For extra emersion I created a VFX system for the foam that forms on the bottom of waterfalls.
I also created another shader but ultimately settled for the showcased one in my game called "Eutierria".
You can reach me basically anywhere,
pick your prefered platform:
