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Best looking WATER effects in a game!

I take it no one has played Zelda:TP yet, so anyone looking at those screenshots and thinks that water is even close to as good as the other games mentioned here, needs to take off their "I want to suck Link's dick" specialty Nintendo glasses.

I enjoy Zelda games, too, but those screenshots do not exactly scream, "Holy shit! That's good-looking water!"

My vote for best water that I've seen in a game goes to Half-Life 2. I haven't seen any next-gen games yet, though.
 
World of Warcraft (especially underwater):

water.jpg


Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (which had brilliant reflection/refraction effects everywhere):

ffcc-007.jpg


Note that water is hardly easy to represent in a static screenshot. Its animation is probably more important. Voluminous water should be in more games, as it was in Mario Sunshine. Flat textures that happen to have transparency and animation on them (World of Warcraft, Half Life 2) can be nice when handled correctly, but if you can actually "ride the waves", it's far more immersive and convincing.
 
This is what I love about water effects so many different looking version of the effect. From the highly stylized to the ultra realistic, they are look great when done well.
 
WOW's water looks like carpet in screenshots.
I agree that RSIII has some amazing water.
FF:CC does too, for that matter.

CUBE IS THE MASTER OF WATER AND FLAME EFFECTS!
 
Resident Evil Remake, the Sharks Room
Resident Evil Zero, outside the small chapel
Resident Evil 4, inside the castle

all have very beautiful water effects as well.
 
Onimusha 3 has some great water effects, the underground water temple being the obvious choice for it's use, seeing the water reaction to your movements as you walked in it was cool.
 
gofreak said:
It was discussed a little on B3D a short while ago. Couldn't say for sure, but the vertex texture fetch technique shown on NVidia's page here looks to give fairly similar results..

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/using_vertex_textures.html

Anyway, despite it not being a game, I'll give the nod to the eyetoy/duck demo simply for the really brilliant water mechanics with the cups.
Click to expand...

Good find, that definitely looks like it could be related. SM 3.0 is gonna be a whole new bag of tricks I guess. What also stands out about the Warhawk water is the way its lit I think. Instead of that shiny shader look most in game water has had up to this point, this seems to trick you into seeing some kind of illumination beneath the surface. Like its a legit body of water rather than a fancy surface texture (best way I can describe it). It looks like you could fall right in the stuff. Whatever they're doing its gorgeous.

Another nominee, SotC. Not the water per se, but the underwater view is pretty damn cool I think. Love the faux beams of light breaching the surface and they got the wavy, murky distortion just right. The excellent sound design really aids the effect too.
 
Ramirez said:
WoW's water looks amazing on my friends super PC...
Click to expand...
Have you seen Half-Life 2's?

I swear, the one thing I hated most about this gen was the flat as a piece of paper (but with effects slapped on!!!!) water that devs used almost exclusively. Morrowind (XB) is a great example of it at its worse. Half-Life 2, however, is an example of this lazy approach but that game pulls it off so fucking well that it still stands up in my view as some of the best game water ever. The masterful use of color, volumetric fog, refraction and reflection used in the HL2 water is unsurpassed in my eyes...so much so that I prefer it over the water in Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker (the games I previously viewed as games with exceptional water)

All in all, though, I'd say the last few years was pretty pathetic in terms of how water was handled...I'm waiting for more devs to actually use real geometry on top of their see-thru aluminum simulations
 
The pic for Zelda: TP doesn't do it justice. In motion, the water effects look pretty good. I wouldn't be surprised if it used the same engine from Mario Sunshine.
 
Oblivion said:
The pic for Zelda: TP doesn't do it justice. In motion, the water effects look pretty good. I wouldn't be surprised if it used the same engine from Mario Sunshine.
Click to expand...

I don't understand all the love for TP's water...wait, actually I do. :P Anyway, it just looks like a generic shader effect to me.
 
Wetrix was an awesome game.

Also, is there no love for the water effects in beyond good & evil? I remember being blown away by it. (on PC, at least)
 
Mario Sunshine is the king. Pikmin 2 follows closely, as do a few others. But just playing Mario Sunshine is like taking a vacation. Going out into the ocean and just soaking in the rays and admiring the beautiful waves is breathtaking.
 
Has God of War been mentioned yet?
The rain/water effects on the boat ( the first level I believe) where quite amazing.Reminded me a lot of MGS2's tanker episode.
 
although they were only puddles, i always thought the water in Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance was really impressive.
 
Kleegamefan said:
Warhawk PS3
Click to expand...

Ok, I've looked everywhere, where is there some footage (or even a pic) of water in Warhawk. I was just watching a few PS3 trailers, and damn the games look good. Any game that has water on the PS3 will probably be the best looking water ever.
 
I wouldn't be suprised if they manage to pull something like that off on PS3. The Warhawk water effects LOOK very similar, but likely have none of the advanced physics demonstrated there...
 
dark10x said:
I wouldn't be suprised if they manage to pull something like that off on PS3.
Click to expand...
I would be. That's way too heavyweight for real-time use, AFAICT. Good approximations should be possible, but probably only in very controlled situations, like cut-scenes.
 
No one has mentioned Wave Rave and then Later Wave Race Blue Storm...

Not the best shots but Circa 2001 no one took good screens...
vortal_pic_24573.jpg

vortal_pic_16981.jpg
 
MightyHedgehog said:
I would be. That's way too heavyweight for real-time use, AFAICT. Good approximations should be possible, but probably only in very controlled situations, like cut-scenes.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I hadn't actually WATCHED the video yet. You're right, that's pretty damn insane. Perhaps some of that could still be acheived (especially in cutscenes), but I just don't know. Shame that MGS4 is in the desert as that would be the team I'd expect to pull off water of that quality IF they had wanted to.
 
Yeah, Warhawk's not at that point, but I did hear about ray-tracing in PS3, which that article mentioned that CG used. Either way, Warhawk's still crazy.
 
dark10x said:
Yeah, I hadn't actually WATCHED the video yet. You're right, that's pretty damn insane. Perhaps some of that could still be acheived (especially in cutscenes), but I just don't know. Shame that MGS4 is in the desert as that would be the team I'd expect to pull off water of that quality IF they had wanted to.
Click to expand...

It's not just in a desert, that's just one part of the war. :)
 
I swear, the one thing I hated most about this gen was the flat as a piece of paper (but with effects slapped on!!!!) water that devs used almost exclusively. Morrowind (XB) is a great example of it at its worse. Half-Life 2, however, is an example of this lazy approach but that game pulls it off so fucking well that it still stands up in my view as some of the best game water ever.
Click to expand...

The water in Half-Life 2 has actual buoyancy that allows objects to float (or sink) in it based on item's properties (bodies and matresses float, cinder blocks sink). A game that just uses an effect layer is Halo 2. You can use the Ghost to ride around the bottom of the map (the first delta Halo area) if you climb up the ledges with it first.

Overall I'd say HL2 has the best mix of how the water looks and behaves. For sheer eye candy I'd still go with MGS2 for the part when the tanker begins to sink and the way the water would reflect when you walked over it and cause you to leave footsteps when you first came inside. The rain was nifty too.
 
teepo said:
water.jpg


amazing for it's time.
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Another Outcast fan! Woooo!!!

I didn't play it until, like, 2002...but I considered it my PC game of the year (despite the fact that it was originally released in 99). It's an amazing adventure the likes of which you very rarely find. The game is super lengthy and absolutely FILLED with content. Damn I loved it. The cancellation of OC2 was a HUGE blow for me. :(

Oh, and yes, the water was incredible for its time. The game actually holds up pretty well by today's standards, though. Yeah, it's low-res, but the hardcore depth of field (an option) really helps.
 
Brosa said:
Not in a game (Will it even ever be possible on PS3 / 360?) but the stuff possible with Flowline VFX is just jawbreaking. Check out this demo reel:

http://www.flowlines.info/rndreel.html

This IS water!

They've got more cool CG stuff too up their sleeves:

http://www.scanline.de/
Click to expand...

That's really movie-quality simulation and rendering. That said, I'd expect realtime fluid modelling to take a big step up, and in particular I expect good things from PS3 in this regard. The eyetoy demo was a nice taste.
 
Mario Sunshine does have the best water effects in game I have ever seen. The Gamecube launch titles like Wave Race and Rouge Squadron had some great ones as well. The beach flight in Rouge Squadron with the sun setting was way ahead of its time. Looked great for a launch title.

Man, Gamecube launch was awesome.
 
teepo said:
water.jpg


amazing for it's time.
Click to expand...

Voxel rendering in all its glory. It was a wonderful world to explore, and very nice water, yeah. I still can hear the sound FX of walking :)
 
MGS2 has the most amazing water I've seen this gen (can't recall what the water in MGS3 was like). Warhawk PS3 is by far the best looking water in a game.
 
VOOK said:
No one has mentioned Wave Rave and then Later Wave Race Blue Storm...

Not the best shots but Circa 2001 no one took good screens...
vortal_pic_24573.jpg

vortal_pic_16981.jpg
Click to expand...

I sure as hell did. :P The water in "arctic" level made me thirsty a few times...BS is just an awesome game.

Also...I think the water reflections in MGS3 are pretty amazing(for a PS2 game). Especially during daylight, in the areas filled with water where you can kill The End before the real battle. It's just beautiful.
 
Damn, after seeing Outcast.. I thought I'd throw in that Giants' water looked good too for its time. So I went to look for some screenshots.. and they looked dredful.. oh well. :lol

There's also that new graphics engine someone posted a while back with the lightening in the distance and whatnot.. that looked pretty good.
 
Unresponsive Bee Victim said:
Mario Sunshine does have the best water effects in game I have ever seen. The Gamecube launch titles like Wave Race and Rouge Squadron had some great ones as well. The beach flight in Rouge Squadron with the sun setting was way ahead of its time. Looked great for a launch title.

Man, Gamecube launch was awesome.
Click to expand...

I had Luigi's Mansion for launch. Did it really launch with those games?
 
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