Underwater Shimmering Caustics

Development World Creation
1

Hey everyone,

I’ve been having a lot of issues trying to get some effects working in my underwater scene. I’ve got some caustics working, but I’d also like to get some light shafts.

I’ve tried a number of methods, but nothing seems to be able to create the shimmering light shaft effect that I want to get.

Ideally, I’d like to do the effect seen in this video: Real-time Realistic Underwater Caustics and Godrays - YouTube

I’ve created a caustics projection as a light function, but I don’t have any light shafts. I’ve enabled them on my directional light, but I can’t figure out any method to get them to show up consistently (I don’t want to have a complicated mesh in the way) or anyway in which to get them to “shimmer.”

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

2

Do they need to be perfectly physically accurate?

If not, you could always build a mesh out of cards which are ‘shimmered’ and waved through their vertex offset. Put a depth/angle fading opacity input in, and make them translucent, and you should be able to get a fair approximation.

3

They don’t need to be completely accurate. That would be nice, but the caustics themselves are particularly accurate either so I think we can fake it.

I will try your suggestion, thanks!