It was such a horrible pain to animate the caustics, partially to blame NeoDex for not being able to export texture animation for some reason, or I did something wrong lol.
I'm still trying to get the most "liquid" look, but no matter what I do I cannot achieve that with planes.
After all water is a mass not a plane, so it looks weird without good looking volumetric transparency.
I was thinking of de-emphasizing the actual surface and replace it with layered "watery" particles such as glitters, highlights and foam maps topped with things such as lots of floating debris and foliage to give the impression that the surface is still there but it also has an apparent depth to it.
And by the way, do any of you folks live in big cities ? I was playing with the idea of recreating a real world city with the help of Google earth street view.
It would take away the burden of having to design architecture and maybe somebody, somewhere, sometime would go like "I KNOW THIS PLACE !".
EDITS
So, I have already decided to base the level design on Los Angeles. The architecture of the New Downtown and surrounding areas is very much like what I'm aiming for.
Naturally, it won't be a completely accurate replica (for obvious reasons such as the ridiculous amounts of time and effort it would require) and certain areas may be altered to enhance the level design, eg. large open areas such as parking lots, garages and parks may be replaced, either with entirely new buildings or enhanced by other features and aftermaths of the "apocalypse" such as unusually overgrown trees and vegetation or debris that somehow made its way there from the surrounding buildings or "craters" filled with water.
That being said, I'll be aiming to make every single place recognizable (despite the amounts of deterioration it will go through).
