I have not modded for elder scrolls games in the past, but I have worked with a few different games and their construction kits, so I hopefully will be able to pick up the Tes kit quickly.

However because I am unfamiliar with the kit, I am curious as to how much control you have? For example. I notice the currents a lot of rivers carry are... incorrect. However smaller streams seem to have a much more precise current. Would I be able to go in and fix the routes the currents take on major rivers? Or do you think this would be out of the Kits capabilities?

I'm honestly wondering this stuff too. Mainly, are the streams and simply run over rocks custom models, or can you draw some kind of a path for them in the CK? My mod will add new landscape, and I would love to have little creeks, so I hope I can just make my own shapes in the CK, instead of having to figure out how to model my own stuff.

The water flow is a new addition to Skyrim - it didn't exist in previous TES games. No way to know how it works now; we'll have to wait for the creation kit.

It depends on whether or not the current effect is placed in the world space or if it's inherent to the flowing water mesh. Either way though we will most likely come up with a way to alter it eventually. By "we' I mean some of the marvelous RL programmers we have here in our community.

Speaking of which welcome to the BGMC(Bethesda game modding community) and the most moddable games on the planet.

Thats what I figured.

And thanks I've been here a number of years, simply lurked rather than posted
Hopefully I'll be able to contribute something useful!

I've come to have a deep appreciation for members of this community that simply play test, report bugs, brain storm ideas and generally just encourage modders with positive feedback and constructive criticism. The plethora of such people on a world wide scale is IMO what makes this the best online modding community. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors but know that no matter what just being a positive creative presence in the community is a worthy contribution in and of itself.

I'm -really- curious as well, what I do know are that things like Waterfalls and inclines in rivers, much like the one near riverwood...you know "white water" are objects placed there. I believe they are 180 degrees in model and can be placed pretty much anywhere. the flowing water however is a mystery to me because as you can observe in Whiterun around the most apparent tree in the city, water "flows" in at different points and even bend/ripple to reletively sharp turns...

so either this is some kind of massive meticulously detailed placement object or.....damn.

Well, I've seen in game editors before where you tell the game where the water is flowing. You literally drag your mouse over the river tracing a path through all the winds and bends, and it arranges all the water into segments of directional flow. Thus giving you a rough pattern of flow downstream that bends and curvs with the river. Hopefully the CK will have something similiar so we can make our own rivers and whatnot easily.

No way to know before we have our hands on the CK. Here's to hoping theyre dynamic streams and not just animated models.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/649871336323695348/3C776C9CB6863F71817E87E03CB2066D99C8BDF0/

Either it's dynamic in some way or they've been spending a lot of time placing specific animated models everywhere. Sounds like a pain, but it's possible.

In Oblivion/Fallout 3 the map is divided into a grid, each grid cell is named as such - a "cell". Each cell can have it's own water level and water type (notice rivers are never ANGLED, if they drop they do it via rapids or waterfalls)

My belief that is that they added an additional property to each cell's water - direction and flow speed. This would explain why in bendy rivers sometimes the flow is "off", as the cells arn't especially small and that wouldn't allow much fine tuning. In contrast the smaller "streams" as well as the waterfalls are clearly placeable static scenery and are used to cover the cell-edges where a drop in water level is needed

I would better test the theory on some big rivers but I only got to play skyrim for a couple of days before i had to go travel for a week (typing from my laptop), so I'm current languishing wishing to be home and reunited with my new TES xD

These kind of small creeks are definitely animated models. Just open the console, click on them and type 'disable'. They're all-in-one models though, so placing them doesn't take a lot of time. All water related things apart from the regular water are animated models - white water, waterfalls, even the fishes that jump up the waterfall. If you are unsure do the trick I described above. You can't disable water via console, so it's easy to find out.

The animated water really does add to the game and for modders all of this new, similar to life kind of stuff is like going home expecting to have sausage and chips and finding a lavish banquet served by naughty women wanting to do naughty things. Its like being a little boy in a sweety shop. I was quite proud of my Mesogea world and the scenery that could with a few months of practice be developed with the CS. Waterfalls, streams, smoking fog and the like, its wow!

yeah I'm at what you could do with the new Tech in your mod Karinth

Phitt you sure those fishies are animated? because I flame throwered them..and they floated dead down stream lol...

=o

I was stood on a rock trying to catch them with my paws like.. well... a large predatory cat. Thanks the tip - GRENADE FISHING TIME!

Why is that cat so damn familiar.........I know I saw it from an online comic or sorts...lol you're welcome.

The ones that jump up the waterfall are animated statics. Just remove the water around them and you'll see they keep 'jumping' with a fixed animation even if there is no water left.

But in the end it's the effect that matters and I think Beth did a really good job with the water and all those little effects that add flavor to the game. Did you see the ants crawling over the tree stumps?

I considered going back to do exactly that, but I forgot. You're probably right.

You know what would be cool if they made there water flow system like stronghold 3 map editor it's very easy to edit the routes of water... if anyone here plays stronghold 3 they'll know what im talking about. But yeah i would love to see a mod to fix the water flow because it just seems to flow through the rocks.. not actually bounce or deflect off objects i'll be looking forward to this.

From a picture in the artbook, the little streams are indeed just several objects put together.