Interactive surf experience in Rive

The idea was simple: take the GTA Vice City aesthetic and swap the getaway car for a surfboard. The character was generated in Midjourney and then brought into Rive as a mesh rig. He stands there, looking like he just walked off a beach in '86, holding a shotgun instead of a surf leash. Behind him a board selector with stat bars (paddling, speed, control) and a star rating system straight out of GTA's wanted level UI. It's a hero section, but one that makes you want to stay and click around.

At the bottom there's a data panel inspired by the Surfline app. Swell direction, wind speed, wave height. All wired up and reactive. Right now wind is the first variable that actually affects the scene. When you switch between boards, the conditions update. It's a small detail but it sets the stage for something bigger, eventually the whole background will react to weather changes in real time.

Here's where it gets fun. Hover over a board and a crosshair appears - the character raises his weapon and takes aim. Click, he fires. The shooting animation is driven by a trigger in Rive's state machine. The weapon is connected to a bone rig, so the whole upper body follows the motion naturally. His eyes are two separate meshes controlled by a single bone, which gives them that slightly unhinged tracking look. There's also a subtle breathing loop and a fake 3D parallax on the head: small things that make the whole thing feel alive.

Under the hood it's all Rive: listeners, inputs, state machines, and data binding. Each board has a unique number assigned to it, so switching between them fires specific inputs that update the UI and conditions panel. The character runs on a mesh rig with bones controlling the head, weapon, and breathing. No code outside of Rive for the interactive logic, everything lives inside the state machine. It's an early concept, but the foundation is there to push it further into something fully playable.