What do you think about the new “conveyor belt” liquid animation?

[SamLogan]

Hi,

First of all, I think the art direction of the new DLC is absolutely beautiful. The underwater biomes, plants, creatures and backgrounds look fantastic, and the overall atmosphere is very distinctive.

However, I am not fully convinced by the new liquid animation.

The moving texture creates a very linear “conveyor belt” effect. When water flows around terrain, the animation often seems to slide beneath the tiles instead of visually following the shape of the obstacles. As a result, it feels less like a fluid simulation and more like a repeating texture moving continuously in one direction.

I added a couple of screenshots to illustrate what I mean. In this example, I would expect the visual flow to appear as though it is moving around the terrain on both sides. Instead, the animation gives the impression that the liquid is passing straight underneath the solid material.

Of course, I understand that the animation does not necessarily need to represent the exact simulation tile by tile. A perfectly accurate visualization would probably be difficult to implement and could make the screen too busy. Still, the current effect feels very uniform and repetitive compared with the quality of the rest of the DLC’s visual design.

I am curious whether this is still a temporary beta version of the animation or whether it is close to the intended final result.

What do you think?

• Do you like the new animated liquids as they are?
• Would you prefer a subtler effect?
• Should the animation react more clearly to terrain and obstacles?
• Or would you rather keep the original liquid visuals?

Personally, I think the idea is good, but the animation would benefit from being less linear and slightly more organic.

[Gurgel]

I had not even really noticed. Hence works for me.