Game developers discuss technical methods for rendering water in ship interiors

Game developers on Reddit have engaged in technical discussions regarding the implementation of water surfaces in vessels to prevent water from appearing inside ship interiors. Common solutions discussed include using stencil buffers to mask out specific areas or utilizing depth buffers with invisible meshes to ensure the water is rendered behind the ship's structure.

Other approaches involve design-based solutions, such as creating specific layouts that prevent the camera from seeing both the interior and the water simultaneously, or more complex methods like deforming the water mesh to follow the hull. While full fluid simulations offer the highest realism, they remain computationally expensive for most real-time applications.

In a practical application of these concepts, indie developer Raihan Erviansyah shared progress on the horror-delivery simulator ‘Beneath the Dying Sun’. To balance visual fidelity with performance, Erviansyah transitioned from planar reflections to Screen Space Reflections (SSR) to maintain stable frame rates while depicting turbulent seas and atmospheric lighting.