Realistic Waves

The ocean gets a rolling swell and sends surf into the shore. Bands form well offshore, steepen as the water shallows under them, and break into foam on the way in. Out in open water the biggest crests tear white.

Surf that follows the coast

Bands run parallel to whatever shape the shoreline actually is - into a bay, around a headland, up a channel. The sheltered side of an island breaks less than the side facing the swell.

Whether water gets surf is decided by depth rather than by biome, so rivers, ponds and canals stay flat while a hand-built inland sea still breaks properly.

The same bands from above.

The swell picks you up

The wave lifts and drops you as it passes. And when a crest closes over your head you go properly underwater - the game's own underwater view, fog and overlay, not a blue tint.

Two looks

Vanilla is the default: Minecraft's own water texture, on the game's own animation frame, only moving. Cinematic is the other one, if you want the sea to look like a different sea.

What it does not do

• Boats and mobs float at the flat vanilla waterline and will clip a big crest. Shaderpacks have the same problem. If it bothers you, swell height is a slider you can take to zero while keeping all the surf.
• It turns itself off under an Iris or Oculus shaderpack, and comes back when you turn the pack off.
• A low render distance means a smaller ocean - it cannot shape a shoreline it cannot see.

If you see nothing at all

/whitecap status lists every reason it might not be drawing and tells you which one it is.

Client-side only, safe on any server. Works with Sodium and Embeddium; stands down under Iris. NeoForge 1.21.1 and 26.2, Fabric 1.20.1 / 1.21.1 / 26.2, Forge 1.20.1. MIT. Free to use in modpacks.