Learn How to Make Real-Time Foam & Bubbles

The game outsourcing company Meta Meow published research on different approaches to creating real-time dynamic foam in a game engine.

As the studio pointed out, liquid simulations are covered pretty often, but bubbles don't get the same generous treatment, so Meta Meow provided a comprehensive overview of the methods used to achieve a realistic result.

It focuses on the following approaches:

• Texture-Based – creating foam by using a cropped and tiled picture of foam and applying it to an opaque material.
• Procedural Texture – making a procedural PBR foam material by layering different size bubbles using height blending and then creating normals and masks.
• Volumetric Texture – using a base geometry shape with a sub-surface scattering material eroded with a volumetric height map and a separate reflective layer with the height map added.

The first is the simplest and is suitable for background foam, while the Procedural Texture method allows for more flexibility. The Volumetric Texture approach is best for thick foam and delivers great visual quality, according to the research.

Meta Meow has an Unreal Engine plugin for realistic rendering of foam and bubbles, check it out if you wish to know how its research works in reality.

Read the full paper here to find the secrets of bubble making and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.