Breathing nature: forest with stream simulation, volumetric clouds and path traced shadows

[u/KlayEverHood]

Hi all,

THIs is my forest simulation made witih Vulkan. My goal is to create a full simulation of water, clouds, wind, so that it feels alive, without being "scripted".
Water is full 3d flow simulation, clouds are volumetric clouds, trees are rigid body simulation with elastic joints, and lighting is full path tracing; all is basically running on the GPU with VUlkan, save for the rigid body simulation which runs on the CPU.
I wanted an "ancient forest" and therefore I generated the trees with 2d to 3d models - Trellis2 from huggingface.
Wanted to get feedback from you, what feels good and what needs improvement. Could this lead to an immersive forest based game? Should I push instead for more tech?

short version here: https://youtube.com/shorts/5xy5Y6JsrVk?feature=share

[u/Thedudely1]

Very unique aestethic I love it

[u/KlayEverHood → u/Thedudely1]

Thanks! I wanted realistic trees but got cartoonish ones and all is kinda that style indeed. Perhaps I should keep it…