Wind Waker Graphics Analysis

One tiny thing that might help in your analysis: Nintendo accidentally included all the symbol names and locations on the Wind Waker disc in a file called "framework.map".

Doing some basic demangling on the CodeWarriors names gives you C++ classes and methods:

http://funny.computer/cloud/Random/zww_functions.txt

The "sea" animation is controlled by "daSea" -- "da" meaning "dynamic actor" in Nintendo's naming terminology.

It's extremely unlikely they used texture distortion for the sea effect, since the GPU they used didn't have fragment shaders -- the only method of texture warping is INDTEXMTX, which was only used for the heat effects in Dragon Roost Cavern.

They probably modified UVs directly on their triangular sea mesh.

Smoke effects and such use their in-house particle engine, "JPA".

I wish Nintendo were more open about some of the incredible stuff they've done over the years.