How to Create Realistic 3D Ship Wakes

Ship fluid simulations typically generate a water surface mesh along with foam and splash particles. While this setup works well inside the native simulation environment, challenges appear when you try to turn it into a reusable asset.

In many cases, the water surface is extended toward the horizon based on the camera view, which looks good in context but becomes restrictive once exported. If you limit the export to the simulation domain, that distant water is lost, and users are left to rebuild the ocean background themselves.

A more flexible approach is to omit the water mesh entirely and instead use a large, simple plane to represent the ocean surface, while retaining only the foam and splash particles from the simulation. In this article, we will show you how to set up the 3D workflow and show you how to achieve a beautiful final result with V-Ray.

First, import the animated ship geometry from the asset. Here we’ll use ship_wake_001 as an example. This yacht is traveling at 20 knots.

Next, import the foam particle Alembic as a V-Ray Proxy. Set the render mode to Point, then adjust the particle width based on camera distance to achieve the correct foam scale. Repeat the same setup for the splash particle Alembic. (The asset pack includes one foam Alembic, one splash Alembic, and the animated ship.)

Then create a simple plane and scale it large enough that its edges stay out of the camera view. Position it vertically so it intersects the yacht at the correct waterline, acting as the ocean surface.

Apply a V-Ray Displacement modifier to the plane, then add a PhoenixFDOcean texture map inside the modifier. This adds surface detail and gives the plane a realistic ocean appearance in the render. You can further tweak the map settings to match your desired look.

Apply a V-Ray material to the ocean plane. Set a slightly greenish tint for the fog and scatter colors to achieve a tropical water look. Adjust the depth to around 600 cm, keeping in mind that this value should be tuned based on your specific scene scale and water depth.

At this stage, you can replace the proxy ship model with your high-quality yacht asset. If you render the scene now, you’ll likely get a result where the ocean still appears a bit flat and visually uninteresting in its shading.

To improve this, add another plane beneath the ocean surface to act as the underwater terrain. Apply a Noise modifier to shape the base form, then use a V-Ray Displacement modifier to introduce finer surface detail and enhance realism.

Render the scene again with the terrain plane included. You should now see much more interesting variation in the overall ocean shading.

Also, if you need any help with custom simulations, please e-mail us. We have a great team who eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff. We would love to work with you!

➡️  joren@thepixellab.net