Question Adding Boat Wake to an Ocean Shader

Hi there!

I have a question in regards to how people manage adding in a boats wake to their ocean shaders.

I currently have a ocean shader in HDRP (projected onto a plane) created through shadergraph which has; waves through vertex displacement, reflection, underwater refraction, colour gradient based on depth, foam, etc and I love it!

Only problem is that I want to add in moving ships, and for these ships to produce a realistic wake. I am not sure how I can dynamically do this through the shadergraph I created. I could add in some sort of particle system at the ocean plane surface to give the effect of movement however really want there to be as much realism as possible, and again if possible, have it be handled through the shadergraph.

Would a possible solution involve having an orthographic camera above the ocean that looks out for ships, produces a render texture based on that and then manipulate shadergraph that way? Or am I barking up the wrong sort of tree?

Do let me know how you have managed to handle boat wake effects even if it is completely different from my line of thought!

Thanks in advance,


Jonathan