A large body of research has been done into modelling, shading, and reproducing optical effects of water [49, 34, 15], yet most methods still present a large computation burden to achieve a realistic image. Nevertheless, it is possible to borrow from these approaches and achieve modest results while retaining interactive performance [28, 13].
The dynamics of wind and waves can be simulated using procedural models and rendered using meshes or height fields. The geometry is textured using simple procedural texture images. Multipass rendering techniques can be used to layer additional effects such as surf. Environment mapping can be used to simulate reflections from the surface. The combination of reflection mapping and a dynamic model for ripples provides a visually compelling image. Alternatively, synthetic perturbations to the texture coordinates as outlined in Section 5.13.7 can also be used.
Optical effects such as caustics can be approximated using parts of the OpenGL pipeline as described by Nishita and Nakamae [33] but interactive frame rates are not likely to be achieved. Instead such effects can be faked using textures to modulate the intensity of any geometry that lies below the surface.