Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.

How to make your waterfall look realistic

Sim_OutlawSim_Outlaw Posts: 3,342 Member
edited March 8 in Nominated Threads
waterfall.jpg


I figured I would give you a short tutorial on making a waterfall look good.

First you want to choose the flatten ground tool and build the ground up behind your waterfall. Once you have your ground level go under game object and then environment.
You will be choosing river water-single long. Just Type River in the filter and it will find it for you. Lay your river starting from the edge of where your rocks are on top straight back.

After you have done this grab the river water single short and lay it horizontal to the river you already laid down overlapping some of the river long.

Now grab the move object tool and move your rivers down until the seams come together. Use the rotate object tool if you need to do so.

Next use the hill gentle to raise the ground up on the edges of you rivers.Now use the valley gentle to sculpt around the edges of your lake.

If you do it right you should get really close to what I have above. You will need to use two rivers to make it look like a lake on top of the waterfall. you can also use the river rapids to make the lake come alive.

Set your camera non routable right over the waterfall and you should only see part of the lake.

To hide any straight lines at the edges of your lake you can use rocks or trees so you won’t see the straight lines. I hope this help some make a more realistic waterfall. It will be hard in the beginning but if you play with it you will come out with something like the one above
Post edited by EA_Solaire on

Comments

  • enkeli63enkeli63 Posts: 6,637 Member
    edited January 2010
    Thank you so much! I've been trying to figure out a way to make a more realistic looking waterfall 8)
    OriginID Starwing6
    my Sims 4 story blog: http://www.starwingsims.com/

    Join SimsWriters.com to promote or enjoy fan-generated content (stories, videos, music, etc) celebrating The Sims.
  • Sim_OutlawSim_Outlaw Posts: 3,342 Member
    edited January 2010
    If you set the camera routing below your water fall on up over the waterfall it will look like a river.
  • enkeli63enkeli63 Posts: 6,637 Member
    edited January 2010
    I can't believe I had to hunt so hard to find this thread again and that I'm the only one to respond so far. I thought most people would be interested in this!

    Anyhow, I am having trouble at this stage: "Now grab the move object tool and move your rivers down until the seams come together. Use the rotate object tool if you need to do so." Could you please give me more detailed instructions on how to do this? I couldn't do it successfully with the move objects tool and I was not sure what other method you might have meant :wink: I'm a total n00b with this program, although I am learning fast, there is plenty I haven't learned!

    Also, is there any way to get the water splash effect to show up in the pond created at the base of the waterfall? I could only get the effect to hover in midair above the water, which is completely unacceptable to me! lol I know the effect shows up at the surface of the water of the pond in sunset valley, I just can't figure out how to do it myself. Probably because I'm using the move objects tool.
    OriginID Starwing6
    my Sims 4 story blog: http://www.starwingsims.com/

    Join SimsWriters.com to promote or enjoy fan-generated content (stories, videos, music, etc) celebrating The Sims.
  • SikoahGraceSikoahGrace Posts: 1,399 Member
    edited January 2010
    My only problem with waterfalls is they don't actually show up in game as in the effect...the rocks are there, the ponds are there...just no waterfall effect :(
    Any clue as to why?
  • simbody872simbody872 Posts: 828 Member
    edited January 2010
    First off, Thanks Outlaw for pointing out the water/river effect idea. I was going to just paint a lake with snow run off above my waterfall.

    For the 2 having trouble with waterfalls showing up and the rotating tool, hopefully this will explain it for you.

    Many of the water effects have to be either placed just so or rotated to make them work in the game. To get the waterfall to fall you have to rotate them.

    When you click on the rotate tool 3 circles show up around your objects. The green one will turn the object in a 360 motion, think coffee cup and you turned the handle to face you. The red and blue one turn the item either east to west or north to south. Most items the blue one tips it in an up and down motion and the red tilts it side to side.

    They are very sensitive to mouse movement and a slight movement can cause the darn things to spin. Just undo and try again. Things like the waterfall will rotate tip and spin even when only using one of the different colored circles if you move your mouse in more than one direction, like up and to the right will cause it to spin 2 different ways at the same time. I use the red and green circles on waterfall objects to spin them around and over so they actually show the water effect.

    The move tool is much the same, red and blue lines move the item right left or forward back, the green one will raise or lower it. If you want precise movements use the grid off or it will snap each movement to a grid square. This is great for trees, buildings, roads and most decor, but water effects don't really look good snapped to grid.

    Between the first and last picture you can see the different angle the box is sitting at to get the effect to show up in game. Hope this helps.

    Waterfall.png

    WaterfallRotateUpsidedown.png

    Waterfall2.png
    A Legacy Challenge. The Benton Legacy
    A Prettacy Challenge It Ain't Easy Being Green
  • water_cat1water_cat1 Posts: 751 New Member
    edited January 2010
    also, make sure that time is not stopped in CaW and in edit in game time is paused, so you will not see it.
  • rjdreamer53rjdreamer53 Posts: 1,050 Member
    edited January 2010
    My waterfalls showed up in CAW, but when I installed my game they do not show up. I hear the sound of waterfalls , but see nothing. Also how does the rock waterfall work?
  • enkeli63enkeli63 Posts: 6,637 Member
    edited January 2010
    WHEEEEEE :mrgreen: With determination, experimentation, and the tips you shared, I have been able to make a waterfall I am pleased with! I even got the splash effects exactly where I wanted them (thank you simbody872, for the detailed information on how to move objects with the precision I was after!) I am so happy with it that I cannot thank you enough 8)
    OriginID Starwing6
    my Sims 4 story blog: http://www.starwingsims.com/

    Join SimsWriters.com to promote or enjoy fan-generated content (stories, videos, music, etc) celebrating The Sims.
  • benignimbenignim Posts: 2
    edited January 2010
    I've made a waterfall that I love and it looks great in CAW but when I export to the game it doesn't display. What am I doing wrong?
  • JalidaJalida Posts: 2,181 Member
    edited January 2010
    How does that upper "lake" look while in game?
  • benignimbenignim Posts: 2
    edited January 2010
    I didn't add the lake. only the waterfall.
  • StarSarahStarSarah Posts: 931 Member
    edited February 2010
    Hi guys

    Thanks for this. From your advice i have managed to make an ok ish waterfall. The only thing is i am trying to put rocks at the top of the fall and infront of the river but the rocks dissappear behind the river.... What do i do? xxxx
  • auntielyndsauntielynds Posts: 3,071 Member
    edited April 2010
    I've seen some people asking about waterfalls lately so I thought I would bump this up.
  • BSIReginaBSIRegina Posts: 5,110 Member
    edited April 2010
    When I set out to making waterfalls I just grabbed the waterfall piece of the width and height I wanted, then plopped them down where I wanted them to go, which was at that time on the front of a rather flat face of rock. I started at the bottom and worked my way up making tiers, then once I had the tiers worked out moved the waterfall pieces into place then added the splash objects and blue texturing. Easy.

    Since people are asking, though, I might as well add a screenshot here as well. This is one of the waterfalls in the Shire in a location where visibility is limited. I wanted it there for the effect of the waterfall but plants in that area aren't really visible from where the camera stops. I also didn't feel the need to overdo rocks on it because I've seen a lot of waterfalls done with so many rocks there's no way water could even get through them. Sure, waterfalls tend to have rocks, but usually not as many as I keep seeing in people's worlds.

    Anyway, this is created for the base-game version of the Shire. All of the "water" is created with a simple texture (available at BogSims if anyone wants it). I won't even be going back and replacing the water with objects when I do the WA version because there's no need. In this case I did leave the texture at 512x512 because it isn't something anyone is going to see up close so blurring isn't going to matter.

    At any rate, here is the smaller waterfall in the Shire (not the one on the north mountain). The stream could be a bit wider, but in this case it isn't needed, again because the view is so obscured.

    waterfall.jpg
    Thanks to AdBlock: currently blocking 184 annoying animated siggy .gifs ;)
  • Staciibaby09Staciibaby09 Posts: 120
    edited May 2010
    :)
    Post edited by Unknown User on
  • Damienf519Damienf519 Posts: 6,988 Member
    edited May 2010
    Sim_Outlaw,

    Thanks for making another great tutorial. That waterfall of yours looks wonderful. Too bad I won't be able to use this on the map I'm currently working on, but maybe the next one.
  • hugzandpipes1hugzandpipes1 Posts: 128 New Member
    edited August 2011
    Thanks for this tutorial Sim_Outlaw. Would it be possible for you to upload your pics again, since I can't see any. I'm really having trouble making a waterfall :shock:

Leave a Comment

BoldItalicStrikethroughOrdered listUnordered list
Emoji
Image
Align leftAlign centerAlign rightToggle HTML viewToggle full pageToggle lights
Drop image/file
Return to top