Water in games is a big challenge for developers. A YouTuber shows what this could look like in the future.
Released in 1998 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64. It was then released for the GameCube in 2003 and another four years later for the Wii. In 2011, Ocarina of Time 3D was followed by an offshoot for the 3DS. at Metacritic the action-adventure gets a whopping 99 points, the user score is 9.1. Quite a few therefore consider Ocarina of Time to be the best offshoot of the series and even the best game of all time.
This group probably also includes YouTubers CryZENx
. He built Ocarina of Time already in Unreal Engine 4 after. In the meantime he has ported parts of it to the brand new Unreal Engine 5. We often speak of at this point incredibly chic graphics. This was also the case a few months ago with a view to the following demo:
Spider-Man-Demo in der Unreal Engine 5
Looks great, but comes at a high price
Water can now look so realistic
In this case, however, the look as a whole is not the dec isive factor, although the leap compared to the original versions is quite considerable. The exciting thing about the following video are the water effects and the water physics – see for yourself:
link to YouTube content
Representing water in a physically correct manner is no easy task. Just imagine how even the smallest currents and surf affect the countless water molecules. In a single liter of water there are around 3.37 x 1025 water molecules, or to put it another way: 33.7 quadrillion. Then there are refractions and reflections.
Calculating the movement of all molecules is therefore practically impossible, so any calculation by an engine or a simulation is only a rough approximation. It is all the more astonishing how well Unreal Engine 5 manages this in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, although of course it is not perfect.
Water in simulations and other games
Dedicated simulations of water in motion deliver even better results. Take a look at this video. Games or game engines, however, have to include many more aspects and, above all, calculate them in real time. You can take a closer look at how water in games has developed over the years in the following video:
7:56
Water in games – 3D graphics through the ages
We have put together for you here which games are or will be available in Unreal Engine 5:
What do you think of the fan project? Have you ever seen water calculated more accurately in a game? Write it to us in the comments!
