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Spent most of the day reworking my water shader (a shader is what makes object in games look like “something” — in this case, water).
Water is pretty easy — just pan a normal at an angle to itself, multiply and boom, fake water. Sounds easy, right?
EXCEPT it has an artifact. It tiles. Tiling is exactly what it sounds like — kitchen tiles that repeat over and over. Oceans, for example, don’t do that.
Now, GPU’s are wicked fast. Really. They can do a lot of things really well. 1/2
#TechLife
But like everything, they are a finite resource. Put too many “things” (technical term) in a shader and it slows the shader down. What does this mean? That as soon as you see ocean, the character starts moving slower. Other things move slower. It’s like time… slows…. Down…
So, ideally, you want a light shader… BUT the less you do, the more tiling you get. It’s a fight between looking good and speed.
So that was my day. More again tomorrow!