Laurence Hartje sends in a link to 2 interesting stories (Games Radar, PC Games Hardware) that cover the history of water in games. This is actually something that I have always loved and used as a benchmark to “feel” how real the world was. The first thing I would do is run over and shoot the water.
I remember the first time I thought “wow” when I saw water in a game, and it was Turok on the N64. The 2nd time was Wave Racer… where you really felt like you are on water… getting wet. After that it was Splashdown. These were the first times that I felt the effects of water I was seeing on the screen, made me think of water and feel wet… like I could get into what the character was doing.
After Splashdown water continued to look real, but the feel was never there. Games like Bioshock almost had the feel and certainly had the look, while games like Crysis only had the look, but no feel (e.g. just a little tiny ‘splish’ when you shoot it and a stupid texture/ring-wave that renders over that part you shot).
Believe it or not, but the game I’m going to give the award of “Most Realistic Water” to as of right now is actually Halo 3. The reason for that is not so much how the water looks, from the screenshots above you can see that water has looked good since 2001 in games… that’s not the problem, the problem is the feel of the water. How does it react to you shooting it? How does it react to you driving a car through it? Does it just render stupid textures on it’s surface as you plow through it or throw a grenade in it, or do waves form and react to you manipulating it?
These are the reasons Halo 3′s water wins this award. If you don’t believe me, walk out into the water in Halo 3′s beach multiplayer level, and start shooting it… see the ripples in the wave? Throw a grenade, do you see the big concussion wave created? Start firing the tank into the water, same thing.
The effects, combined with the sound really sell the “you are in water, getting wet” effect to a player. Here’s a video of some of the Halo 3 water effects, the best display of them is at the end when he’s shooting it, and you can see the little waves created:
Unfortunately there has been no other game I’ve seen, where the reaction of the water is proportional to what you do to it. For example, BioShock and Crysis both have better looking water, but its only reaction to being shot or having a grenade lobbed into it, is to render a splash texture on the surface of the water, no proportional waves are created or anything like that.
If you can think of a game that had better water effects than Halo 3 does, as far as modeling real water goes, please let me know. Better looking water doesn’t count, I mean actually more physical water.
Update #1: I would add that other environmental effects can create very real immersion as well, but no one has really dabbled with them. Like rain+wind (rain by itself has been done awesome ever since MGS3) or just strong wind and debris actually effecting the environment (e.g. blowing a tin roof across the screen, or a tumble weed that isn’t scripted).
All of these things would give me a “holy shit!” reaction, but we just haven’t seen them done in games yet. Hopefully as physics engines and computing power keep increasing at a ridiculous rate, truly physical environments will be something we see at the end of this current gen and the beginning of next (3-4 years?).
Do you have a game whose environment made you say “Oh shit!”? If so, what was it?
Update #2: FurballMK3 below just posted a link to a movie of Kameo’s “mathematically correct” water and I’ll say I’m pretty damn impressed, check it out. (Thanks Furball!)
Also, don’t forget that items will be moved by the current in Halo 3. Bodies, for example will float on by when caught up in the current.
Ah! Another good example of the realism of the water. Good catch.
you have got to be fucking joking. Bioshocks water effects blow the door’s off of halo 3. Their entire game was structured around its water effects for goodness sake
BioShock’s water was *physically* totally static. They used textures to show “wave” effects.
Note that my post is specifically *not* about how real the water *looked*, but behaved.
No go drown yourself.
Oddly enough, I agree with this article.
I wonder why…
Try Stalker: shadow of chernobyl, there isnt much water in the game, but the environment effects are GREAT.
Of course you do, Frankie, of course you do.
Also in Halo 3, things have BUOYANCY. The game knows what should float and what should sink.
It’s amazing.
OF COURSE YOU DO Frankie! You’ve been ranting about this water since before the Beta.
And I have to say I’ve missed the watery updates… But now I just play in the water anyway, so, I get my fix. I want to see a game with Halo3′s water physics and Bioshock’s looks. Or just expand that into every part of those games…
Halo 3 has awesome water. You know which other game also does? Half-Life 2. It has very realistic physic and stuff, even if it doesn’t look as good as Halo or Bio.
Thumbs up from me. As you say this is as of RIGHT NOW though – my money is on the baton passing onto Hydrophobia next…
Halo 3 has great water graphics, in my opinion. Once, while deep underwater in the game, I touched a corpse that was underwater, and it floated up to the surface.
I enjoyed the nice muted sound effect that Halo 3 gives you when underwater also. Quite realistic.
BTW, your linked video stopped working. =(
@Frankie,
I’m not familiar with the Halo team, but if you were the one that worked on the water you did a phenomenal job. The attention to detail with it’s behavior, sound, how it handles physical bodies, etc… just brilliant.
@Takeda,
I haven’t played STALKER yet, but I did see in a review that it has some incredible environment effects. Thanks for the heads up, I’ll see if I can pick that one up.
@Num_T,
Hydrophobia? A game? Link?
@Stung47000,
YouTube looked like it is having some hickups at the moment… takes a while but finally loads. Hope it starts working smooth later.
I might be wrong but, i remember the game ‘Bloodwake’ for the xbox had awesome water physics and realistic looks…wasn’t that great a game otherwise tho….
Project Gotham Racing 4 has the best looking snowfall I have ever seen in any game.
Arancio,
Like this?
Looks pretty cool… did it have any physical properties to it? Or was it just snow animation across the screen, then static snow textures and geometry on the ground?
@Riyad Kalla
http://www.bladeinteractive.com/hydroengine.html
I’ve got to say its still in a pretty unpolished state and who knows what it’ll actually be like as game? Plus the video is seriously cringe worthy and shows nothing of note!
Anyway, the reason I mentioned it is because it actually has physically calculated fluid dynamics in it – kind of like the stuff you can get in high end 3d apps I think, just optimised for a realtime setup. Everything else including Halo 3 is faked in some way (of course even these fluid dynamics are also faked in a way – its not reality is it?)… I read about it originally in the games magazine “Edge”.
Num_T, I really wish they had a movie of those screenshots… certainly looks impressive, but I agree with you… how long until that is a licensable, performant engine that can be used in games… who knows.
I hate seeing “Sweet tech” and then 5 years later finally seeing it in a game, while the new “Sweet tech” is another 5 years off… too much lag
What about Hydro Thunder from the Dreamcast. That game gave me some major wows. When it first came out that was one of the reasons to own a Dreamcast for me, other than PSO.
Cheshire, even though on today’s meter it doesn’t look that great, I will agree with you that at the time, I did feel somewhat like I was in the water with HT.
yes, halo 3′s water effects are so fucking realistic, because 2 ton cyborgs should float to the surface of the water instead of sinking. I love the halo series more then most people here, but this article is fucking bogus
Yes, the Halo 3 water sounds great!
Yea the Halo 3 water IS great but you have to give credit to Valve for their Source engine.
Half-Life 2′s water is key is various places to progressing through the game.
Agreed that Halo 3 is sporting some nice water.
Kameo: Elements of Power also has fantastic water.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NN2nbep3E40
I do love the new water effects that have shown up in games recently.
Ever played this really old game called “Chaser”? It was from 2003 on PCs and published by JoWood. Best water and glass effects I had ever seen at the time, and it wasn’t until recently that I’ve seen better.
The water doesn’t look very pretty in that game, but it reacts realistically when shot at or when you walk into it. And unlike most recent games, glass and wooden planks actually break in chunks. Wood chips can be shot off piece by piece, the glass is as realistic as the glass in Resistance: Fall of man. While in Half Life 2, you shoot water and you get little white circles… You shoot glass and you break off square pieces of it..
I surprised myself; I agree with this article. However, since when has any of the Halo games have anything to do with water in terms of gameplay? It might as well be a textured wall that lets you walk through it because you don’t ever even swim in it throughout the series, and plenty of first-person shooters have given you the ability to swim in water.
@Post #21, who are these floating 2 ton cyborgs you refer to? Do me a favor and call your parents, and double check if they were brother and sister, or first-cousins then post back here and let us know. (ohhhhh FACE!)
@DY357LX: That is true, the water looked good effects wise in HL2, but it was a little flat in presentation however the behavior of objects *in* the water was pretty damn slick… like breaking boxes apart just to have the pieces float, or throwing something in that sunk.
@FurballMK3, awesome link. That is some pretty damn good water. I had never played Kameo, but I included your link in the original post with creds.
@wilson326, I hadn’t actually *ever* heard of that game, but looking it up it looked pretty slick… I’m surprised it didn’t get more coverage back then. It reminds me of a Lithtec game or that 1 game with the deformable environments where you could dig holes with the rocket launcher… forget name.
The glass does look decent for that time:
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/screen3/534963_20030528_screen008.jpg
all breakable and everything. Thanks for the heads up.
@Master Kim, it is definitely weird that a FPS with no water dynamics (vehicles, fighting, gameplay) gets the best water out there… what that says to me is the dev team had a lot of time on their hands. Halo 3′s multiplayer is so frigging expansive and polished that my guess would be portions of the team had a lot of time on their hands and just included more polish to the game.
So for Halo 4, I want a completely physical/simulated weather system… that ties into weather.com
Prince of Persia had great water effects too. I remember the first time I walked through a wading pool in that game and the wake around my legs distorted the look of the body parts under water…thought that was good physics, and it looked good to.
I’m glad I could help. The cool thing with Kameo is it has a whole level that takes place in water. It is really quite beautiful. I would say give Kameo a look if you like environmental effects. It as quite a few. Grass sways in the wind and deforms as you walk/fly through/over it. Same with the underwater plant life, great swaying and deformation.
Can’t forget Uncharted! Some of the best water out there today.
Hammer,
Uncharted’s water definately *looks* good, and the fact that it gets the character’s clothes “wet” is a sweet effect, but it doesn’t ripple or deform as you play with it (Grenades, guns, walking, running, etc.) which was a let down because it is so damn pretty.
I still don’t see the behavior of water in any game being as good as Halo 3′s is… which is such a strange statement in an of itself.
It’s like your local Citco gas station having the best Chicken Alfredo in town. You just scratch your head as to why
This game looks pretty good as far as water is concerned
I don’t really know much else about it but from what I can see it looks like it’s shaping up to be an interesting game.
It’s called hydrophobia and the link below will take you straight to the page about water.
http://www.bladeinteractive.com/hydro_details.php?section=2
just a shame there are no videos there yet
@riyad kalla
the game ‘where you could dig holes with the rocket launcher’ is red faction, still one of my fav games to this day for that very reason
and hydrophobia looks like it will have the best water once it comes out
Yes, the Halo 3 water physics are the best. Bioshock’s are static and very dissapointing when you try to interact with it.
Sad noone mentioned Uncharted’s water, as it’s pretty good. Though I gotta admit, that Halo 3 water effect is nice!
I would have to disagree, Crysis has the best water.
It looks the most real, and if you say it doesn’t ‘feel’ like real water, you have obviously never driven a boat or thrown barrels/etc. Into it.
If you drive a boat, lots of water splashes behind you. If you blow up a grenade in the water, guess what, a huge splash. If you crash a vehicle into it, it will splash
It also has great water physics, if you drive the boat for example (again) it’s rocked up and down at high speed due to the waves. I think this game has the best water so far.
No game has real water types but only particle effects and a distorted “plane” that they call water.
I think Crysis did it better than any of the other examples, until we find a game that has real waterfalls that are actually flowing, and could change course if you blocked it.
Evan thanks for the heads up. Crysis’s water is pretty decent, but I felt like Halo’s was still more physical (if that makes sense).
The demo the Unreal 3 engine had this year at GDC showing off the water coming in Gears 2 looked retarded… somewhere around 80% of what is already in Crysis… sort of disappointing.
I also agree, imagining a game like BioShock with *real* wave and water dynamics would have been incredible… really would have added to the sense of the game. I imagine that “real” water (whatever that ends up being) isn’t going to hit us until next-gen consoles and PCs where we have the GPU/CPU power to calculate that stuff on the fly and game engines provide models for that out of the box. After all, Halo 3 is the only game I’ve seen so far where the developers actually took the time to implement such a complex water system given water isn’t part of any of the core game mechanics (unlike BioShock)… I can’t believe MS paid them to do that, but I guess they were sitting around waiting for the multiplayer/portal aspects to get done.. and hell, I like it
I know, I know…this is an OLD thread!
BUT, I am a complete WATER WHORE when it comes to video games and have been searching for some games I may not have heard of with the best water effects.
Sure, like several posters have said, great LOOKING water has been around for a while…games with great looking AND dynamic water are few and far between!
Halo3 has excellent water since it’s dynamic and looks “alright”…it’s not the most realistic LOOKING out there, though.
I’d honestly say that the best combination of realistic looking AND dynamic water would go to Tomb Raider Legend/Anniversary for the 360. The water effects in that game are simply amazing!!
…to add on to my above post, even GTA IV has some EXCELLENT water effects! It LOOKS absolutely STUNNING and it’s also dynamic! Just drive a car off into it or drive a boat around and watch how it creates an amazing splash/wave/ripple!
Spot on Steve, a lot of people mix up “good looking” with “good behaving”, but it sounds like you know exactly what we were talking about with this article.
Also thanks for the heads up on Tomb Raider, we hadn’t heard comments on that title yet.