Three models — GLM-5.3, DeepSeek v4 Flash and Qwen3.8-27B — were handed the same prompt and asked for a runnable water simulation in a single file. Three very different architectures came back.
Create a Three.js water simulation. Requirements: · Plane mesh with 512x512 subdivisions · Wave propagation simulation · Mouse click creates ripples · Multiple interacting waves · Real-time lighting · Everything in a single HTML file · No external libraries besides Three.js
The lightest build: waves are fully analytic — travelling sines plus up to 64 Gaussian ripple rings — evaluated inside the vertex shader. Zero simulation grid, zero textures.
A genuine GPU simulation: the classic wave equation evolves on three ping-pong render targets at a fixed 120 Hz timestep, then displaces a 512×512 plane with procedural dusk-sky lighting.
The heavyweight: a CPU finite-difference wave equation over 513×513 floats, rebuilt normals every frame, PBR with environment maps, ACES tone mapping and shadow-casting lights — plus a bobbing buoy.