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Tutorial Updated: Controlling Pond Water on your lot and adding waterfalls- RalphaelNinja
RalphaelNinja
Posts: 1,461 Member
1. Controlling water levels on your lot
2. creating a simple waterfall
3. guilding the waterfall on a downward path
4. decorations
I've been having an aggravating time with filling my lot with water so that my latest creation can look like it is floating in a lagoon.
After a great deal of experimentation, I've discover the rules that govern water levels on the lot. Realizing that not many of you would have need to create great oceans of water, this tutorial will be expanded to cover water falls and the control of water on your lot.
1. Controlling water levels on your lot
In my first Yacht creation, I built the hull below ground level and thus flooding the lot was simply using the pond tool and the ship was thus floating on water.
However, "A ship in a bottle" was built about 8 clicks above ground level so that it sat on a platform within the bottle.
I knew that in order to create part 2 of the ship in a lagoon, I had to raise the ground to create a tub of water. What I didn't know was how to control the depth of water in that tub, until now.
1. raise the land around the house that you wish to sink under water.
2. use the flatten tool to raise the land evenly from corner to corner.
3. use the pond tool somewhere within the flatten land, an area beside the house to create a pond.
4. sink the house completely under water by using the pond tool (avoid the edges otherwise the water will leak out)
5. now.... to control the level of water, pick an edge and lower it with the lower terrain tool (large brush).
As you can see in the photo the water level is lowered with each click of the lower terrain.
Summary. The lot water level is controlled by the lowest large edge area it seems. If you lowered it too far, you can either use Ctrl-z to undo or raise the edge area back up.
Q. Can sims live underwater? not sure if they can or not. But after flooding the area, the sims that were inside the ship complained of no path; this may be temporary and paths might be redefined once you save and reload; however it was not tested.
Part II
Creating a waterfall and guiding it
1. create a large mountain mass using the raise terrain tool with large brush. For a high waterfall, simply raise it until it flattens out at the top.
2. press ctrl-shift-c and type "moveobjects on" without the quotes
3. place the column anywhere on the mountain where you want to start off the waterfall.
4. re-use the same same column that you just place instead of creating multiple columns. Trust me... you don't want to have to hunt for hundreds of columns under water.
5. find another spot to place the column
To guide the water.
6. In this demo and the actual final lot of "Pirates of the Carribean (Movie Stage lot), I tried to create cascading land areas so that the waterfall is broken into several levels.
7. continue using the column to guide it down towards the pond water bottom.
Decorations
1. to me decorations of the waterfall is really haphazard placement of rocks, but there is a reason to place rocks in waterfalls and that is to break up the monotony of an upside down pond (says Asante).
2. Since there was a break at the top of the mountain, I placed a huge bolder there to cover up the break.
3. the rest of the deco is shown in the photos.
Thanks for reading...
Ralphael
2. creating a simple waterfall
3. guilding the waterfall on a downward path
4. decorations
I've been having an aggravating time with filling my lot with water so that my latest creation can look like it is floating in a lagoon.
After a great deal of experimentation, I've discover the rules that govern water levels on the lot. Realizing that not many of you would have need to create great oceans of water, this tutorial will be expanded to cover water falls and the control of water on your lot.
1. Controlling water levels on your lot
In my first Yacht creation, I built the hull below ground level and thus flooding the lot was simply using the pond tool and the ship was thus floating on water.
However, "A ship in a bottle" was built about 8 clicks above ground level so that it sat on a platform within the bottle.
I knew that in order to create part 2 of the ship in a lagoon, I had to raise the ground to create a tub of water. What I didn't know was how to control the depth of water in that tub, until now.
1. raise the land around the house that you wish to sink under water.
2. use the flatten tool to raise the land evenly from corner to corner.
3. use the pond tool somewhere within the flatten land, an area beside the house to create a pond.
4. sink the house completely under water by using the pond tool (avoid the edges otherwise the water will leak out)
5. now.... to control the level of water, pick an edge and lower it with the lower terrain tool (large brush).
As you can see in the photo the water level is lowered with each click of the lower terrain.
Summary. The lot water level is controlled by the lowest large edge area it seems. If you lowered it too far, you can either use Ctrl-z to undo or raise the edge area back up.
Q. Can sims live underwater? not sure if they can or not. But after flooding the area, the sims that were inside the ship complained of no path; this may be temporary and paths might be redefined once you save and reload; however it was not tested.
Part II
Creating a waterfall and guiding it
1. create a large mountain mass using the raise terrain tool with large brush. For a high waterfall, simply raise it until it flattens out at the top.
2. press ctrl-shift-c and type "moveobjects on" without the quotes
3. place the column anywhere on the mountain where you want to start off the waterfall.
4. re-use the same same column that you just place instead of creating multiple columns. Trust me... you don't want to have to hunt for hundreds of columns under water.
5. find another spot to place the column
To guide the water.
6. In this demo and the actual final lot of "Pirates of the Carribean (Movie Stage lot), I tried to create cascading land areas so that the waterfall is broken into several levels.
7. continue using the column to guide it down towards the pond water bottom.
Decorations
1. to me decorations of the waterfall is really haphazard placement of rocks, but there is a reason to place rocks in waterfalls and that is to break up the monotony of an upside down pond (says Asante).
2. Since there was a break at the top of the mountain, I placed a huge bolder there to cover up the break.
3. the rest of the deco is shown in the photos.
Thanks for reading...
Ralphael
Post edited by EA_Solaire on
0
Comments
Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
If they are stomping their foot and refuse to fish.... then you don't have a clear path to the pond.
Also watch out for varying ground heights, if the ground is too steep the sim will not walk the path so to say...
As Asante pointed out, you may have rocks, flowers, or other objects that blocks the sim from having a clear access to the pond.
Post up a pic and someone will tell you why your sim isn't able to fish.
Ralphael
lol! Well no one HAS to decorate an "upside down pond" if he doesn't want to... it still looks better... say the female :P