✤MURO Marching : Interactive Water✤

    Hi again, everyone! How was your summer? I love everything about the season, except for the heat...

 

    Today's post is about interactive water! That doesn't sound that impressive on the surface, but when you think about it, what goes into recreating water in a digital medium?

 

    Solids and gases have the benefit of being easy to establish visually. Collision, in game mechanic terms, is a property of whether or not the player can pass through an object. If I place a plain white cube in a space and turn the cube's collision on, I've successfully created the illusion of a solid object for the user. For gas, it's the opposite. Turn off collision, and make it see-through. In only a couple of steps, you can create both. 

 

 

    Liquid, however, is more complicated. Sure, I can create a flat, see-through surface, turn off collision for the user, and label it as water. That's what a lot of games do! And if your only need is to have water nearby, it's serviceable. But what if you wanted to have water pour into something? What if you wanted players to be able to interact with it? The more you think of what water is naturally capable of doing versus what you have to intentionally make it do, the more complicated it gets.

 

    Realistic water movement requires constant calculations. Computational fluid dynamics is an entire branch of fluid mechanics, which is itself a branch of physics. The more calculations, the more demand and strain on your PC, so less is usually better.

 

    The water I'm looking at today is a mashup of different assets, put together by iyFale Edvifin! The World photographed is ODN Pool ［VRCLV 2․0］, a rooftop pool with a video player and lights. It's a great party spot! I think the night mode with the auroras turned on looks super dreamy, and splashing in the water is so much fun.

 

 

    So what's so fantastic about this water? Well, look at it! Making realistic-looking and realistic-moving water is already a feat. But this water is Quest compatible!

 

    What's Quest Compatibility? The Meta Quest headset line is Meta's take on a VR headset, optimized for ease of use and portability. As a result, the Quest headsets have less processing power than a headset plugged into a computer. In VRChat, Quest users must follow stricter guidelines when uploading Avatars and Worlds to ensure the Quest can handle the volume of user content. That means for something to be compatible with the Quest, the creator has to know how to balance visual quality with performance. Making it so you're capable of splashing your friends, air bubbles spread under the surface after a splash, your vision blurs, and more, all while keeping it Quest compatible, is impressive! (Note: These photographs are taken on PC, so they may not accurately reflect how the World looks on Quest.)

 

 

    I'd also like to start including the credit lists from Worlds in MURO Marching because it's interesting to know how many individual assets go into making a World! What do you think? Should I start including credit lists when they're available? Let me know in the comments!