Roadmap

At the bottom of this page, there is a development list. The items are arranged in order of priority from top to bottom. However, this order may change depending on circumstances. Details of the completed features in the development list will be shared on the changelog page. Nevertheless, the goal is to implement all developments listed.

The following list includes:

Replication	Covers planned support for synchronizing DRW’s water simulation, grid updates, and physics interactions across multiplayer clients. This ensures consistent water behavior and visuals in networked environments.
Improved Top-Down LOD transition	To ensure seamless transitions between LOD levels.
Cooking optimization	Aims to reduce DRW’s cooking time by optimizing shader permutation.
Compute shader optimization	Focuses on improving the performance of DRW’s GPU compute passes, mainly focusing on FFT.
Infinite Ocean	Removes the GridManager’s bounded ocean extent so the water surface extends seamlessly to the horizon regardless of camera position or world scale, eliminating the visible edges of the current finite grid.
Skeleton Mesh support	Allows collision shapes to be attached to a Skeletal Mesh component.
Full playable vessel simulation	A full vessel control stack on top of buoyancy. Drivable boats with real hull physics, tuneable propulsion, and control surfaces that actually steer. The ride changes with speed: displacement at idle, climbing through transition, then planing flat once the hull lifts, with foiling for hulls that support it. Players can possess a VesselPawn directly, or send a character to occupy a VesselSeat, so multi-crew ships with a helm and passenger spots work without extra wiring. Enhanced Input is routed through VesselInputComponent, the camera lives on VesselCameraComponent, and the whole thing replicates so multiplayer needs no special setup.
Data Asset support	Data Asset support lets you save and reuse water settings.
Task Subsystem distance priority	Implements a distance-based prioritization system within the Task Subsystem to ensure closer water simulation tasks (e.g., physics, updates) are processed first, improving performance and perceived responsiveness near the player.
Water mask	Introduces support for a customizable water mask to selectively enable or disable water rendering and simulation in specific areas of the world, allowing precise control over where DRW effects are applied.
Water line	Accurate visual blending at water-object intersections.
VR compatibility	Aiming to provide VR support through performance optimizations and the use of opaque materials, while largely preserving the existing visual quality.
Underwater improvement	Enhances the visual fidelity and performance of underwater rendering by refining fog, caustics, color shift, and post-processing effects for a more immersive experience.
Vertex Painting Support	It allows better control over the water, which is especially important for shorelines.
Interaction	Implements responsive water behaviors such as ripples, splashes, and wave deformation triggered by objects, characters, or gameplay events in real time.
Shoreline	Enhances visual and physical fidelity at land-water boundaries with dynamic foam, wave damping, and terrain-aware blending to simulate realistic shore interaction.
Debugging tools	Introduces in-editor visualizations and logging options to help identify rendering issues, simulation anomalies, or LOD transition bugs in real time.
Flow map	Implements directional water flow control using texture-based vector fields to simulate rivers, currents, or dynamic surface drift across the water surface.
Physics prediction improvement	Enhances the accuracy and stability of buoyancy and water-object interactions by refining future state estimations using velocity trends and wave forecasting.
Multiple copies with optimization	Enables efficient use of multiple DRW instances in large worlds by reducing redundancy in memory and compute usage through shared data pools and instanced simulation logic.
Different water types	Introduces support for various water presets (ocean, lake, river, swamp) with unique physical behaviors, visual properties, and optimized parameter sets for each environment.
Local weather	Enables localized weather effects such as rain, wind, and storms to dynamically influence wave behavior, foam intensity, and surface appearance in specific areas.
Different Spectrums	Allows the use of multiple wave spectrums for varied water behaviors across regions, enabling distinct ocean, lake, or river dynamics within the same level.
Audio	Integrates dynamic water-related audio effects,such as wave crashes, underwater muffling, and shoreline ambience,based on spectrum data and interaction zones.
Foam accumulation	Implements realistic foam buildup around wave peaks and shorelines by using heightmaps, Jacobian data, and flow behavior to simulate persistent and dynamic foam patterns.
Water spray (Experimental)	Simulates fine water spray particles generated by strong wave impacts and object interactions, enhancing realism in turbulent or stormy conditions.
Depthmap disk cache	Enables saving and loading precomputed depth maps to disk, reducing runtime computation and accelerating level load times.
Virtual texture support	Integrates support for virtual textures to manage the transition between the ground and the water.
LUT implementation for optimization	Introduces lookup tables (LUTs) to precompute expensive calculations, significantly reducing shader complexity and improving real-time performance.
Physically accurate energy-preserving wave blending model	Implements a wave blending system that maintains total energy across frequencies, ensuring natural wave superposition and preventing visual artifacts in complex ocean surfaces.