Paying the rent precludes me from giving you the full attention that you so clearly deserve - accept this breakdown instead.
A simple Unity scene, with a few simple scripts and elements added to give it a more dynamic, interesting feel.
Here's a breakdown of what's in there:
Water.
The water is made up of a large plane with a Transparency > Diffuse shader, and the standard Water texture applied. Alpha is at around 70%.
To achieve the depth / shallow appearance of the water, I used a crazy simple technique:
Painted underneath the 'deep' sections with black, and underneath the 'shallow' sections with sand.
Easy, and achieves a relatively nice look.
To achieve the ebb and flow effect, I created a basic script that will raise and lower the water plane within bounds, given a provided (very slow) speed.
Light Cycle
Very simple light cycle - achieved by applying a simple rotation on Update() to a Directional light.
Living Skybox
Another very simple effect - achieved by applying a texture to a giant cylinder, and rotating it on Update().
Also, the cylinder will align it's x and z coordinates with those of the player, so they maintain a specified distance at all times (best to correlate the clip distance to this).
Ripple effect
Probably the most complex effect - but still very basic - the ripple effect is the following:
A simple plane with a transparent background and a white circle painted onto it.
It will start at a scale of 0%.
On Update(), it will roll a random number - and if it is within specified bounds, it will initiate a 'ripple'.
This will effectively scale the plane at a specified rate, until it reaches a certain size, at which stage it will disappear.
The ripple will also lower its alpha as a proportion of it's progress to maximum size.
Too easy!
So what do you think? Relatively 'pretty' for two hours of coding and playing around and such.
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