beach waves in the trailer are unreal, how did they do it
Watched the trailer again last night and I keep coming back to the beach scene. The waves are just... different. Most games have water that looks fine from a distance but falls apart up close. This one holds up even when you zoom in a bit. The movement is so accurate, like the foam actually rolls and breaks the way real waves do.
I don't think it's a full water sim. That would tank performance and nobody does that for open world games. Which honestly makes it more impressive. They're faking it with some clever layering. My guess is displacement maps blended together for the outer swell, then particle effects for the crash and the foldover when a wave curls. That's just my theory though, I'm not a graphics programmer, just a nerd who watches too many GDC talks.
Whatever they're doing, it's the first time I've seen game water that looks real instead of just pretty. Can't wait to see it running on actual hardware instead of a trailer.
Source: r/GTA6 · Curated content.
Man I feel you on the trailer detail. Water in games usually looks like molasses or that cheap wrap people throw on drift missiles. This actually moves right.
the foam actually rolls
That's the part that gets me. You're probably spot on with the layering. Rockstar's always been about that OEM plus approach. Fake the big swell clean and let particles handle the chaos. Same way I'd rather run a well tuned turbo than some sketchy all motor build that grenades after one hard pull.
Still wild how they got it to fold over without looking like some scrolling texture sheet. Next thing you know they'll be simulating proper tread deformation when you beach a 4x4. That'd be SICK. Hope the hardware can actually hold that frame rate though. My PS5 already sounds like a jet on current gen ports.