Everyone loves a good water shader, and this is some very satisfying stuff. The reflections look fantastic, especially the window lights dancing across the surface.

According to Raihan Erviansyah, planar reflections were actually his first choice and produced beautiful results, but the performance cost was huge. They also struggled once the weather system started generating higher tides and bigger waves, so he eventually switched back to the more reliable SSR. As for the water, the developer said he used a "mix of ShaderGraph and HLSL shaders".

Apparently, the window jitter comes from vertex jittering, which recreates the look of old-school hardware. The effect will eventually be optional.

The game is called Beneath the Dying Sun, and it's a sailing game in the same general territory as DREDGE, but going much harder on the horror side. As Raihan puts it, "DREDGE doesn't give me enough daily dose of impending doom, thalassophobia, and existential dread I need." He offered another comparison, saying the game is "more like a water DLC for Easy Delivery Co."

You'll load your own cargo, manage deliveries, deal with rough seas and changing weather, and slowly discover that there's something very wrong with this pretty peaceful routine. There's no Steam page for the game yet, but you can learn more about Beneath the Dying Sun on itch.io.

For more updates on the game's development, follow Raihan Erviansyah on X/Twitter:

For Unity developers working with stylized water, Stylized Water 3 is getting a new River Modeler extension. If you want to build your own solution, Fabrizio Espindola has also recently announced a new course focused on real-time water.

Scroll down for more water inspiration, including an Ori-style water system, Gerstner water, a Sea of Thieves-inspired project, and another cool one featuring whirlpools. And if you're working in Godot, don't miss Emil J's tutorials.

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