3D Water Buoyancy for GDevelop
A downloadable tool
GDevelop 3D Extension
3D Water Buoyancy Auto Config
Add floating boats, animated 3D water, wakes, foam trails, ramp driving, camera follow, and debug tools to your GDevelop 3D projects.
Build Better Boat Gameplay in GDevelop
3D Water Buoyancy Auto Config is an experimental GDevelop extension designed to make 3D boat and water gameplay easier to set up.
The extension can auto-configure buoyancy based on the boat size and physics mass, so you do not have to manually guess force values for every model.
It also includes animated water visuals, wake and foam tools, a simple boat controller, a boat follow camera, ramp and ground driving support, random drift, and debug helpers.
What This Extension Includes
Auto Buoyancy
Makes 3D physics boats float, bob, and tilt on simulated water waves. Auto-config can estimate probe depth, buoyancy strength, and force caps.
Animated Water Shader
Adds moving water visuals with wave motion, depth color, normal map ripples, foam, wake turbulence, fake reflections, and quality settings.
Wake Emitter
Sends wake data from the boat to nearby water shader objects so the water can react behind the boat.
Foam Trail
Spawns soft foam particles behind the boat to make movement on water feel more alive.
Ramp / Ground Driving
Allows boats to leave the water, drive on ramps, roads, docks, and solid 3D surfaces, then return to buoyancy mode.
Debug Tools
Shows buoyancy probe data, active probe count, total force, bridge status, ramp state, and tuning information.
Included Behaviors
WaterBuoyancy
Attach this to a boat object with GDevelop's 3D Physics behavior to make it float on water.
WaterSurfaceShader
Attach this to a 3D water plane to create animated water, waves, foam, wakes, and shader effects.
WaterBuoyancyDebug
Use this to display live buoyancy data while testing and tuning your boat.
SimpleBoatController
Adds basic boat controls using keyboard input for fast testing.
BoatFollowCamera
Creates a quick third-person boat camera with distance, height, pitch, look-ahead, and smoothing options.
BoatWakeEmitter
Publishes moving boat wake data to nearby water surfaces.
BoatFoamTrail
Creates foam particles behind the boat for stronger water movement visuals.
RandomBoatDrift
Adds random drifting motion for background boats, testing scenes, or simple water movement.
Basic Setup
- Import the extension JSON into your GDevelop project.
- Add GDevelop's native 3D Physics behavior to your boat object.
- Add the WaterBuoyancy behavior to the same boat object.
- Make sure the physics behavior name matches the extension setting. The default is Physics3D.
- Add a 3D plane or water object to your scene.
- Add the WaterSurfaceShader behavior to your water object.
- Optional: add SimpleBoatController for instant boat movement.
- Optional: add BoatWakeEmitter and BoatFoamTrail for wakes and foam.
- Optional: add BoatFollowCamera for a quick third-person camera.
Ramp Car Mode
This version includes ramp car mode actions. These are useful when you want your boat to climb ramps, leave the water, or behave more like a vehicle on solid 3D surfaces.
ActivateRampCarMode — call every frame while the boat is touching a ramp.
DeactivateRampCarMode — call when the boat leaves the ramp.
RampCarModeIsActive — condition to check if ramp mode is currently active.
Example Event Setup
IF Boat is in collision with Ramp → Activate ramp car mode for Boat using Ramp IF Boat is NOT in collision with Ramp → Deactivate ramp car mode for Boat
Recommended Water Setup
- Use a high-subdivision 3D plane for better visible wave deformation.
- Add a normal map resource named waternormals.jpg if you want the normal ripple effect.
- Keep the water shader wave settings close to the buoyancy wave settings for better visual matching.
- Use the debug behavior when tuning mass, water height, force, probe depth, and damping.
- Test performance on your target device if using high water quality settings.
Good For
Important Notes
- This is an experimental GDevelop 3D extension.
- It requires GDevelop's 3D workflow.
- Physics-based boats need GDevelop's native 3D Physics behavior.
- Imported models may need scale, mass, damping, and forward-angle adjustment.
- Water visuals depend on your water mesh, normal map, shader settings, and device performance.
- This is a gameplay and visual helper extension, not a full AAA ocean simulation system.
Version Highlights
v1.2.0
Current release with buoyancy, animated water shader, wake emitter, foam trail, boat controller, follow camera, debug tools, ramp actions, and auto ground driving support.
v1.1.x
Added ramp car mode actions, ramp diagnostics, rotationY ramp support, anti-flip ramp alignment, and more forgiving ramp activation.
v1.0.x
Added water shader improvements, Kelvin-style wake, foam improvements, normal map fixes, caustics/refraction-style effects, and cleanup hooks.
Start Building Water Gameplay Faster
If you are making a 3D boat game, racing prototype, fishing game, ocean scene, or water level in GDevelop, this extension gives you a strong starting system for buoyancy, water visuals, wakes, foam, controls, and debugging.
Created by ByteBard.
Boat asset: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/speedboat-ee69bea3e40849909d73f6a896e7382a
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
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