[PAID - CONTRACT] Shader/FX artist, short term, depth-sorting water surface (UE5.3)

Working on a VR shortfilm in UE and we’re near the finish-line but have a problem that keeps cropping up that’s a very common problem but the typical solutions don’t seem to be working for us.

Short version:
Entire film set inside a vessel with windows, that starts above an ocean surface, then submerges. So the task is solving that whole depth sorting thing where ocean surface needs to be hidden while submerging when it would otherwise appear inside the vessel, show the underwater stuff Through the window (and block Post processing inside the vessel), and as the vessel submerges lower than the waterline, we need to be able to see underside of the water through the windows. The vessel will then submerge very far and we need to essentially fade out all the ocean surface stuff so we can just use height fog to represent the underwater world. Towards the end of the film the vessel goes back out of the ocean and hovers above the surface, so all the effects need to be essentially reversed.

Here’s a video of the issue which also probably describes my needs better:
https://vimeo.com/867506410/f4a82dc7c7?share=copy

More info:
We WERE using the free Environment Project Ocean plugin and UE 4.26 and had kind of hacked a mostly-working version of this, but it’s wonky and terrible performance-wise, and renders inconsistently (sometimes elements are visible, sometimes they aren’t, with no clear changes to anything).

Now we’re seeing if it makes more sense for us to switch to 5.3 and have mostly had good luck, but the Environment project is even more wonky in UE5.

We’re trying a Marketplace purchased material: Waterline Pro, but there seem to be even fewer options for masking out the water surface without some super hacky approaches. The support team for the purchase implied there is no current solution to this issue (though they hope it’ll be in “the next version”)

Probably this is a simple thing for someone that has more experience but we’re at a loss.

So we need someone to help us out making the ocean and transition look good. Looking for someone who probably has experience with just this sort of issue. My attempts have included using distance field shadows (worked with our old Environment Ocean Project plugin), and probably some custom depth / stencils for blocking some things out, but I’m just not expert enough at Materials/shaders to pull this off.

Small budget, but not looking for free help, either.

joeldbenjamin@gmail.com

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