Suppose you have a nice way to move your 2D particles in order to simulate a fluid (like water). Any ideas on how to render it?
This is for a 2D game, where the perspective is from the side, like this. The water will be contained in boxes that can be broken in order to let it fall down and interact with other objects. The simplest way that comes to my mind is to use a small image for each particle. I am interested in hearing more ways of rendering water.
Check out how PixelJunk Shooter did it (including simulation) in this presentation (PDF) at GDC2010.
George Duckett's answer is far more direct and really well presented if you need fully-simulated water in your game. For simulated shallow-water physics with minimal accuracy (less realism, more playful), this image gave me an incredible moment of clarity:
Grant Kot has put some of his fluid simulation code up on Github with implementations in both javascript (canvas) and C++ with OpenFrameworks: https://github.com/kotsoft
He has a few demos up on his youtube account: http://youtu.be/HqWheJSEiaw
I have no idea how it works, but I know it runs fast and there's all sorts of variations to build with it. A good keyword to search for might be "multigrid particles".
