This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Update 2.

This trick for sparkles on water was mentioned to me by Mr. Anonym below the Bioshock Glossiness article and I think it’s so cool, that it deserves its own article! The whole thing was posted on Newgrounds by SpaceAndTime, and it’s a way to achieve nice water reflection highlights with a very simple trick.

I think the picture (shameless stolen from his post) below is pretty self-explanatory (if not, the thread explains it very well):

Update 1

Nicolae Berbece just sent me a scribble-cel-animation-test he did in the past. Looks awesome!

Update 2

I encountered a small issue in Sims 4 where the water is culled incorrectly, but it reveals how they add nice sparkles to their water: It’s just a small glittery particle system sitting on top: