Open Sea

The oceans package showcase: one ocean, a reef that rises out of it, and a raft of buoys riding the waves.

The reef is there for the water above it. The surface measures how far light travelled through the column to reach the eye, so a reef that comes to within a metre of the surface turns the water over it turquoise and lays a foam band around its edge — none of which is authored, all of it falling out of the one depth measurement.

The buoys read sampleDisplacement every frame, so they ride the same waves that are drawn rather than a parallel approximation, and they drift sideways with the crests as choppiness pinches them.

The scene walks its sea state on a slow cycle — a clear sky, chop, a running swell, a gale and back — which is the fastest way to see what wind speed alone does to a sea.