WaterType

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Link to TES4 Construction Set Wiki: Water Type

WaterType Dialog

• ID: Editor ID for the water type.
• Causes n damage per second: Checkbox to activate water damage where n is the number of health points lost per second while in this water type. Vanilla water types do not use this option, but cause rad damage instead. Using this option in your own water types will force the player to experience the camera shaking and sound effects associated with taking damage every second they are submerged.
• Name: Display name for the liquid.
• Spell effect: Editor ID for the Spell (if applicable). The 'Spell effects' are located in the Object window under Game Effects -> Actor Effects.
• Unlabeled dropdown list: Changes what is displayed in the first preview window.
• 2nd unlabeled dropdown list: Changes what is displayed in the second preview window.

Water Color Tab

Options for setting the water color, displacement effects, and rain effects.

The actual color of the water in-game is defined by the gradient between the Shallow Color and the Deep Color. The Reflection Color defines the color of the part of the water surface that is reflecting the sky and is most noticeable from a distance.

• Shallow Color: Color of shallow water defined in RGB color channels. Values for each channel range from 0 (no color) to 255 (full color).
• Deep Color: Color of deep water defined in RGB color channels. Values for each channel range from 0 (no color) to 255 (full color).
• Reflection Color: Color of water reflection defined in RGB color channels. Values for each channel range from 0 (no color) to 255 (full color).
  • Using the Color controls: To select a color, you may either enter a number directly in the text input field beside each color channel or use the up and down arrow buttons on the right of the text input field. (You may use the up and down arrows on your keyboard to simulate the arrow buttons.) Alternately, you may click the Select button to pull up the Color Picker and select a color interactively.

Note: The preview color swatches sometimes fail to render a color when the Water Type dialog window loses focus. To restore the color, move the window around the screen to force a redraw or click one of the Select buttons.

• Displacement Simulator:
  • Force:
  • Velocity:
  • Falloff:
  • Dampner:
  • Starting Size:
• Rain Simulator:
  • Force:
  • Velocity:
  • Falloff:
  • Dampner:
  • Starting Size:
• Add Blend Texture: Not in use. (Removed?)

Water Properties Tab

• Open Sound:
• Material ID:
• Opacity:
• Reflectivity Amount:
• Distortion Amount:
• Fresnel Amount:
• Sun Power:
• Shininess:
• Reflection HDR Modifier:
• Light Radius:
• Light Brightness:

Noise Generator Tab

Sliders to effect the normals on the water surface. The seven provided sliders alter the noise waves in different ways to produce different noise-maps.

• Texture Select: Drop down at the top of the page to select which layer of noise you want to modify the properties on.
• Noise Type: Selects which noise function is to be used (Perlin, Fractal/fractional Brownian Motion, or Ridged Multifractal/Multifractional.
• X Frequency:
• Y Frequency:
• Octaves:
• Amplitude:
• Lacunarity:
• Bias:
• Gain:
• Random Seed: A number used with the Generate button to create different noise-maps.
• Generate: Used to create the noise texture for that layer.
• Export: Used to save out the noise-map to a .dds texture file.

Noise Properties Tab

Sliders for modifying noise properties.

• Texture Select: Drop down at the top of the page to select which layer of noise you want to modify the properties on.
• Wind Direction:
• Wind Speed:
• Amplitude Scale:
• UV Scale:
• Noise Scale: Determines how exaggerated the normals will be.
• Depth Falloff Start: Where the alpha fadeoff begins (used for edges of the water, to blend it smoothly with the land).
• Depth Falloff End: Where the alpha fadeoff ends.
• Select Noise: Noise texture filename (.dds). Click Select Noise to browse for the texture.

Fog Properties Tab

Fog properties may be set in one of two modes: Above Water and Under Water. Above Water properties affect the appearance of water from above the water plane (ie. shore). Under Water properties affect the appearance of water from below the water plane (ie. submerged).

Fog effects applied to water may be thought of as general 'murkiness'. The Near Plane represents the distance at which fog effects begin. The Far Plane represents the distance at which fog effects reach their maximum. The distance between the Near Plane and the Far Plane is a gradient between full transparency (no fog effect) and no transparency (full fog effect). Objects rendered at or beyond the far plane are fully obscured by fog effects. Objects rendered at or before the near plane are rendered at full visibility with no fog effects. The distance between the near plane and the far plane defines how quickly objects are obscured. The fog effect is achieved by changing the transparency of the water color and has no color in and of itself. To change the fog color, you must change the Shallow and Deep water colors.

Note that the sliders use two scales: the thumb on the slider (which can be simulated with the scroll wheel on your mouse or the up/down arrows on the keyboard) moves the slider between 0 and 100% of effect. The text input box allows you to directly input a numeric value which varies depending on the property.

• Unlabeled dropdown list: Use this to switch between editing Above Water fog properties and Under Water fog properties.

Above Water Properties

• Fog Amount: Controls the transparency of the Deep Color water plane. Values range between 0.0 and 1.0. At 0.0, the Deep Color water plane is completely transparent. At 1.0, the Deep Color water plane is fully opaque (no transparency). Default value: 1.0.
• Fog Distance - Near Plane: Sets the distance in game units below the surface of the water of the Shallow Color water plane. Values range between -1000 and 1000 game units. Default value: 100.
• Fog Distance - Far Plane: Sets the distance in game units below the surface of the water of the Deep Color water plane. Values range between -1000 and 1000 game units. Default value: 1000.

Under Water Properties

• Fog Amount: Does not appear to have any effect in Under Water editing mode.
• Fog Distance - Near Plane: Sets the distance in game units from the player at which fog effects begin. Values range between -1000 and 1000 game units. Default value: 0. (Setting this value to a negative number seems to increase the general murkiness of the water.)
• Fog Distance - Far Plane: Sets the distance in game units from the player at which fog effects achieve full potency. Values range between -1000 and 1000 game units. Default value: 1000.

Note: Setting the Far Plane value to a number less than the Near Plane value inverts the effects of fog (object visibility improves as the player moves away from the object) and can result in undesirable visual effects.