Half life 2 water FX

[McCLaw]

Hi All

I am trying to figure out how to get water looking the way it does in HL2.

The reflection is an issue... :?



The only way I can see to replicate this effect, is to generate a cubemap of the scene each frame, at the position of the camera.

This will work, but will be VERY slow, since the static scene will have to be rendered a minimum of 6 times each frame.

We currently have ALOT of FPS to burn, but I would rather not waste that on Just water.

Any ideas? :?: :?:

[McCLaw]

On second thought, a stencil buffer type mirror would probably be better more efficient...

[Paulius]

There is an article about doing a nice water effect at gamedev http://www.gamedev.net/reference/art...rticle2138.asp

[Clootie]

There is a presentation on ATI site how environments were done in HL2. basically they render cubemaps at fixed positions in world (made by level designers). As for water reflections - probably they are done with usual stencil trick: first render "over"-water, later render underwater at stencilled positions, apply postprocessing at underwater surface.