Stylized water in 60 lines of GLSL

The look

Three layers stacked: a flat base color, a step-quantized highlight that follows two summed sine waves, and a foam line where the water meets geometry (computed from depth-buffer delta).

The shader

float wave(vec2 p, float t) {
  return sin(p.x * 1.7 + t * 0.8) * 0.5
       + sin(p.y * 2.3 + t * 1.1) * 0.5;
}

void fragment() {
  float w = wave(WORLD_POSITION.xz, TIME);
  float band = step(0.2, fract(w * 4.0));
  vec3 base = mix(BASE_COLOR, HIGHLIGHT, band);

  float depth = texture(DEPTH_TEXTURE, SCREEN_UV).r;
  float dist = abs(depth - FRAGCOORD.z);
  float foam = step(dist, 0.01);

  ALBEDO = mix(base, vec3(1.0), foam);
}

Why it works

Stylized water is a depth + step problem, not a normal-map problem. Once you accept that, you stop fighting the engine’s PBR pipeline.