Bringing Sea Of Thieves-Style Water To Godot

We at 80 Level can't walk past a great water system, and naturally, we couldn't overlook this one by Godot Developer known as _brennon on Reddit. The water in Sea of Thieves is one of the coolest technical achievements in games: it looks amazing, feels alive, and has inspired many artists, including the developer behind this project, who recreated everything from rolling waves to shimmering light reflections.

Sadly, _brennon hasn't shared many details, including whether the water is interactive. However, based on the approach used in Sea of Thieves, we know it uses an FFT-based algorithm. If you're new to all of this, the original SIGGRAPH 2018 talk by the Rare team is definitely worth a watch:

Godot may not be as powerful as Unreal, but many techniques aren't tied to a specific engine, so don't be surprised by how good its water can look. Here's another fantastic example of an ocean shader by Levi Murray in Godot, and this one definitely has some interactivity:

Here are a few neat examples of stylized water in Godot: one by Critsium and another used in Tenkemo, a Minecraft-meets-Animal Crossing co-op game:

You can also check out Paul Jeffs' breakdown of the Sea of Thieves water in Unity, as well as Ghislain Girardot’s attempt to recreate it in Unreal: