Have a Look at This Underwater Scene Made in Unity

Earlier this year, we talked about Death in the Water 2, a game created by Lighthouse Games Studio. With Unity as its driving force, the game offers an opportunity to delve into a vast underwater realm teeming with perilously animated creatures.

Armed with an extensive array of weapons, your objective is to bravely combat these creatures while uncovering covert riches strewn across the expansive map. However, the ultimate challenge lies in locating and engaging in an intense encounter with a Kraken of mind-controlling abilities, a relentless entity that torments your every action and compels the sea's other dwellers to launch even more ferocious attacks against you.

A few days ago, we came across an old demo of the game that provided a glimpse into its early stages and showcased its visual and gameplay development. So, let's take a look at it and explore what the game was like back then.

Even at the early stages, the underwater experience feels immersive and authentic, with the diver's movement and weapon sway effectively capturing the feeling. The overall sensation is exceptional, complemented by impressive sound design.

At the time the video was posted on Reddit, which was around 2 years ago, many people wrote that the scene would be even better if it took into account the following factors. Firstly, incorporating more inertia into movement would create a slower start, resembling real-life physics.

Secondly, considering the limited effectiveness and range of weapons underwater, as demonstrated by a Mythbusters episode, could add authenticity to underwater combat scenarios. While realism may not be the primary focus of the game, it's worth keeping these aspects in mind to enhance the overall experience. Others pointed out that it would be nice to add more bubbles to the scene.

The creators didn't miss a single comment, replying to followers' feedback. According to the creator, while particle effects were not yet implemented, they expressed a strong desire to incorporate micro-bubbles forming on the gun. Additionally, the intention was to include bubbles being released when moving swiftly or firing weapons.

Speaking of the game itself, it seems that the developer did incorporate and use some of the advice given by the audience since the game received positive reviews among the players on Steam.

Creating underwater scenes might take a lot of time, but making caustics is something you need to be really skilled at.

Caustics refer to the fascinating light patterns observed at the bottom of swimming pools or bodies of water during summer. These light phenomena occur when refracted light converges within the surface waves of the water. The visibility of these patterns is enhanced when the water surface is calm, with minimal wave activity. Consequently, caustics can also be observed in lakes and the sea, provided the water is clear and the waves are not too rough.

In real-time graphics, calculating these intricate light refractions can be time-consuming. To streamline the process, it is common practice to utilize pre-calculated caustics textures. These textures can be tiled and looped, making them ideal for real-time graphics applications.

If you would like to learn more about caustics in Unity, we recommend checking out the works of Masataka Hakozaki, widely known for creating lifelike goldfish simulations:

And here are some tutorials that can help you with creating underwater scenes and caustics in Unity:

You might want to have a look at the breakdown of Lucas Zilke's award-winning underwater scene, which was created for the ArtStation competition, where he detailed creating the underwater scene in Unreal Engine.

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