Water Parallax Mapping

The previous water rendering method has been widely considered lackluster by the community, as it relies solely on an animated normal map in order to exhibit the notion of waving water. The visual presentation of this effect is hindered even more through the poorly implemented LOD system in place: normal mapping stops applying to the surface of water at a disappointingly short distance from the camera. This led to water appearing completely static in most camera positions. BetterRTX includes several improvements to water directly addressing these issues. The height of water is now varied over time through multiple noise samples and visually displaced through a parallax mapping technique. Reflection quality has also been significantly improved through additions to the specular denoiser.

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Reflected Water Caustics

BetterRTX introduces water caustics through sunlight reflections off of water to enhance the level of realism achieved with the renderer. From each point on a surface, the path sunlight would take to reflect off of water is traced backward to determine if reflected sunlight is capable of reaching that point. If so, the animated caustics texture is sampled and added to the illuminance of the surface.

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