Custom Water & Liquid Shaders for Games

Water in games often looks like jelly — too smooth, without foam or realistic waves. A standard shader with parallax mapping doesn't provide the needed depth. We develop water and liquid shaders where each parameter is tuned for the target platform: from mobile to PC and consoles. Realistic water requires synchronizing multiple systems: a surface shader with Fresnel, normal map animation, foam mask, vertex displacement for waves, and a properly configured underwater effect. Each part affects performance, and balancing quality with frame budget is the core engineering challenge. Our experience: 30+ projects with water effects; we guarantee stable FPS on target devices. Investment in a custom shader pays off through optimization and unique visual identity. Get a consultation from an engineer with 7 years of experience — contact us.

Shader Parameters Affecting Performance

Key factors: number of draw calls (batching), texture resolution (normal maps, foam), use of Opaque Texture for refraction, and number of wave components in vertex displacement. For mobile platforms, the critical limits are: two scrolling normal maps (256×256, ASTC 6x6), Fresnel using NDotL approximation, foam via Depth Texture (no Opaque Texture), and one Sine wave — such a shader runs in 0.3ms on Galaxy A53.

Creating a Custom Water Shader for URP

1. Choose the graph type: For mobile — Unlit with fake lighting via normal map, saving vertex shader invocations. For PC/console — Lit with PBR parameters.
2. Scrolling normal maps: Two texture samples with different UV tiling and scroll directions (Time + UV offset). Use Overlay or Blend Normal to combine. Different scroll speeds eliminate pattern repetition after about 5 seconds.
3. Fresnel effect: Fresnel Effect node + Lerp between two water colors (deep and shallow). Exponent 2–5 for a soft transition. For URP, use NDotL via Normal and View Direction — more accurate than the built-in Fresnel.
4. Depth Fade for foam: Scene Depth minus Fragment Position gives relative depth. Smoothstep generates the foam mask near the shore. Requires Opaque Texture (additional blit pass) — for mobile, an alternative is Depth Texture.
5. Vertex Displacement for waves: Sine node on UV + Time with different frequencies/amplitudes for 2–3 waves. Sum with different directions — Gerstner wave approximation. Displacement 0.1–0.5 units, otherwise z-fighting with objects.

Why a Custom Shader is Better for Stylized Graphics

In HDRP as of the latest stable Unity release, there is a Water System — a ready high-quality component with tessellation, caustics, and underwater. But it is not suitable for stylized (cartoon, cel-shading) graphics: vertex-animated foam is not supported, and Shader Graph customization is limited to Water surface nodes. A custom shader in ShaderGraph gives full control — from color to wave shape.

What's Included in Water Shader Development?

• Source shader in ShaderGraph/Amplify/HLSL with comments
• Settings for target platforms (mobile, PC, consoles)
• Documentation on parameters (Fresnel Exponent, wave speed, color palette)
• Training for your team (1-2 hours online)
• 30-day support after deployment

Case Study: Water for a Mobile Game

A mobile 3D strategy game on Unity LTS (URP Mobile). Requirement: a sea in the background, 60fps on mid-range Android. Constraint: no more than 0.5ms for the water shader. Final shader: two scrolling normal maps (256×256, ASTC), Fresnel on NDotL, foam via Depth Texture, one Sine for waves. No reflection — only cube map on Specular. Frame cost: 0.3ms on Galaxy A53. Result: stable 60fps without drops. See Unity Documentation: Optimizing Shaders for Mobile.

Timeline and Cost

Cost is calculated individually after analyzing your scene and platform. Order a custom water shader for your game — get a consultation from an engineer with 7 years of experience in game dev.

Advanced Technical Notes

• Refraction on mobile: Use fake refraction via normal map with UV offset on the backdrop plane — no grab pass, saving 0.5ms.
• Vertex displacement: Using Gerstner waves in the vertex shader (sum of 2–3 sines) gives realistic waves without physics. For LOD objects, use a simplified single-wave version.
• Foam: Depth fade mask is one of the cheapest methods, but for strong waves add a noise texture to break up the foam.

How to distinguish a working shader from a failed one?

A programmer adds water to a scene and gets a blue rectangle. The Asset Store delivers an outdated asset with artifacts on mobile. Shader development is not just applying a texture—it’s a complex engineering task: you need to understand the depth buffer, sample normals in multiple layers, and organize foam at intersections with geometry. Without this, the shader either doesn’t work or kills FPS.

Our team has been engineering shaders and VFX for over five years—during this time, we’ve worked on dozens of projects from indie to AAA. Once, a client brought a water scene from the Asset Store: on a mobile device, it ran at 12 FPS due to missing LOD and incorrect batching. We rewrote the shader for URP and achieved 60 FPS while preserving the visuals.

URP vs HDRP: What should you choose for your project?

The choice of Render Pipeline is fixed at the start—shaders for HDRP do not work in URP and vice versa. Evaluate the trade-offs based on the table:

Conclusion: URP provides up to +40% FPS on mobile devices compared to HDRP. For a mobile RPG, we chose URP—on an iPhone 8, we got stable 60 FPS without quality loss. HDRP is justified on PC/consoles where photorealism and the built-in Water System are needed.

How to develop shaders in ShaderGraph: from water to vegetation

ShaderGraph is a node-based editor without HLSL, but understanding "under the hood" is essential. Let’s break down a water shader—it includes several techniques.

Normal motion. Two layers of normal maps sampled at different speeds and directions:

Time → Multiply (speed1) → Add → Sample Texture 2D (normalMap)
Time → Multiply (speed2) → Add → Sample Texture 2D (normalMap)
→ Normal Blend → Normal (fragment shader)

Two opposing directional layers create the effect of running waves without tiling periodicity. Consumption: 2 texture samples, which fits within the budget of 40 draw calls for a water surface.

Depth and foam. Using the Scene Depth node (opaque texture must be enabled in URP/HDRP), we get the difference between the scene depth and the water fragment’s position. Shallow depth (intersection with the shore) → foam via Step/Smoothstep. Deep depth → more saturated blue, higher opacity. Foam adds 1-2 ms on GPU but provides a realistic shoreline.

Refraction. Scene Color + UV offset by normal map—the bottom "swims". Water is rendered in the Transparent queue, after all opaque geometry. Be sure to enable Opaque Texture in URP settings, otherwise refraction won’t work.

Fresnel and reflections. Fresnel Effect node—near the camera normal, the surface is more transparent; at sharp angles, it reflects. Physically correct for dielectrics. A cubemap or Reflection Probe is added on top of the Fresnel mask. On mobile platforms, replace Reflection Probe with a low-resolution cubemap (128x128)—saving 1-2 ms.

Vegetation shader. Animating bushes and grass without physics simulation—via vertex shader. In ShaderGraph: take vertex XZ coordinates as phase shift, Time → Sine with different phases, multiply by Vertex Color channel R (white = swaying, black = fixed to ground). Result: grass sways in waves, base remains fixed. For "wind when the player runs," add a CPU parameter _PlayerPosition. Such a shader handles 100,000 vertices in 0.3 ms on an iPhone 11.

The original asset used 4 normal map layers and dynamic cubemap reflections—on mobile, it delivered 12 FPS. After rewriting for URP with two layers, simplified foam, and baked reflections, we achieved 60 FPS. Development time saved: 1 day instead of 3 days for asset adaptation.

VFX Graph: How to manage millions of particles on GPU

VFX Graph runs entirely on GPU via Compute Shaders. Unlike Particle System (Shuriken), which works on CPU, here you can manage millions of particles without CPU load. Example: an explosion with shrapnel (200 particles) on GPU takes 0.05 ms, while a CPU Particle System of the same complexity takes 0.8 ms.

The graph is divided into contexts: Spawn (burst, constant rate, event trigger), Initialize (initial attributes), Update (gravity, turbulence, collisions), Output (Quad, Mesh, Lit/Unlit, Distortion).

Example: explosion with shrapnel

Spawn: Single Burst (count: 200)
  ↓
Initialize:
  Position: Sphere Volume (radius: 0.1)
  Velocity: Spherical * Random(5, 15)
  Size: Random(0.05, 0.3)
  Lifetime: Random(0.5, 2.0)
  Color: Gradient by lifetime (white → orange → gray)
  ↓
Update:
  Gravity (force: -9.8)
  Drag (coefficient: 0.2)
  Turbulence (intensity: 2.0)
  Collision (Scene SDF or Depth Buffer)
  ↓
Output Quad (Unlit):
  Texture: spark
  Blend Mode: Additive

Turbulence uses Noise Field—3D noise, particles deviate organically. Flipbook animations in the Output context—sprite animation for each particle.

How to optimize VFX for mobile platforms?

For mobile devices, reduce particle count to 50 and disable Collision—saving 3 ms. Use GPU instancing with VFX Graph’s automatic instancing: the same explosion effect on iPhone 11 runs at 0.02 ms per burst, which is 2.5x faster than a CPU-bound setup. Also enable particle LOD via Quality Levels in VFX Graph: lower particle counts on medium-spec devices while keeping visual fidelity on high-end.

Why does post-processing require platform-specific tuning?

Post-processing—effects applied to the final image after main rendering. In Unity via the Volume system (Local/Global Volume). Typical stack for an action project:

For mobile platforms, we disable Motion Blur and SSAO, reduce Bloom to 2-3 passes—final post-processing budget of 3-4 ms. On PC/HDRP, the stack can take 8-10 ms, but this is compensated by GPU power.

What deliverables do you get?

• Custom shader development in ShaderGraph (URP/HDRP): water, vegetation, character effects, holograms, dissolve.
• VFX Graph effects: explosions, fire, smoke, magic, environment. Maximum performance—up to 2 million particles on GPU at 60 FPS.
• Setting up and optimizing Particle System (Shuriken) for mobile platforms: replacing with GPU instancing reduces draw calls by 70%.
• Building a Post-Processing stack aligned with the project’s visual style, with render time measurement.
• Porting shaders between URP and HDRP when changing pipeline: average time 0.5-1 day per shader.
• Optimizing VFX for the target platform: GPU instancing, particle LOD, culling.

Deliverables include shader and VFX graph source files, setup documentation, team training (1 hour consultation), and support for one month after delivery. We’ll evaluate your project in one business day—contact us. Get a consultation for your project—we’ll find the optimal solution and provide timelines.

What is our experience and guarantees?

Over 5 years in game development, 50+ projects (mobile, PC, consoles). We guarantee that the shader will work on the target platform at the stated FPS—if not, we rework it for free. Example: for one indie studio, we rewrote all shaders for URP—FPS on iPhone 8 increased from 25 to 60, and the render time budget decreased by 40%. We use the latest stable versions of Unity (LTS) and Unreal Engine 5, working with Vulkan, Metal, DirectX 12.

Comparison: a ready-made asset from the Asset Store often requires rework (compatibility, performance)—custom shader development is 2-3 times faster in terms of time than adapting someone else’s code. And a shader written from scratch for your tasks gives you 100% control over performance and visuals. Budget savings on one project can reach 30% due to the absence of unnecessary code.

What are the work stages?

1. Analysis: examine the scene, target platforms, FPS requirements. Capture visual references.
2. Prototyping: create shader/VFX graph, test on reference device.
3. Integration: embed into the project, adjust parameters, optimize draw calls and batching.
4. QA: test on all target platforms (Android, iOS, PC, consoles), fix artifacts.
5. Deployment and handover: deliver source files, documentation, conduct training. Support for 1 month.

Timeline: 2 to 10 business days depending on complexity. Cost is calculated individually—write to us, we’ll evaluate your project. Order shader development—get a ready result with performance guarantee.