A little-known feature of the Triton Ocean SDK is its ability to simulate tidal streams, also known as eddies. These are like stationary wakes on fixed objects like bouys, that result from water flowing around them.

Triton offers the TidalStreamWake class, which makes it easy to simulate eddies around stationary objects in the water. All you need to do is contruct a TidalStreamWake of a given size for each buoy or other object in your scene, and then update it each frame with the object’s position and the velocity of the water moving past it.

The effect includes both a 3D wake wave surrounding your object, and an animated volumetric decal effect that simulates foam moving around on the crests of these waves. There is also some pseduo-random motion of the direction and amplitude of the waves, to make it look more natural.

In addition to buoys, this is also a useful effect for bridge supports, ships at anchor, rocks, or any fixed object within flowing water. The effect is also very fast, so there’s not much cost to using it. Take advantage of our TidalStreamWake class to add eddies and extra realism to objects in your simulated water!