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The Number One Educational Resource for the Game Industry

Session Name: Advanced Graphics Summit: Open-World Water Rendering and Real-Time Simulation
Speaker(s): Zhenyu Mao, Kui Wu
Company Name(s): LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS, LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS
Track / Format: Advanced Graphics Summit

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Overview: Water is an essential element in video games, particularly in open-world games. In the past, most solutions relied on pre-generated meshes for rendering and flow maps from offline fluid simulators. In contrast, real-time fluid simulation is rarely used and requires a top-of-the-line GPU to achieve the task.In this session, Zhenyu Mao and Kui Wu from LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS will present Photon Water System, an in-house unified solution for rendering and simulating large water bodies in open-world games. Their solution enables both pre-computing and simultaneous updating of water data (height, velocity, and foams) based on physical equations. This data is converted into an adaptive water mesh on the fly for real-time rendering. Several advanced water rendering techniques, such as CDLOD, are also used for acceleration. An in-depth discussion of the solution's application will be provided.

Game Developers Conference 2023

Zhenyu Mao

LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS

Kui Wu

LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS

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Advanced Graphics Summit

Visual Arts