Experiment No. 1 involved seeing if a Sim would actually swim from one level to another, in a standard pool, built in steps using CFE.

Three pools, with a bit of horizontal separation, on three descending levels.

Turned off CFE, and built more pool tiles between them, to connect the three.

The result is kind of cool, and yes, my test sim did swim from the first pool down to the third, no problem.
Experiment No. 2 was placing animated water overlays on the three pools, which did make the water look like it was flowing, but only when viewed from above... getting the appearance of an actual waterfall is going to be tricky. I have some sort of translucent curtains that I use to hide modern things; if they came in a convincing waterfallish recolor, it might help.

BUT... the Sim does appear to be leaping off a rock into the pool, thanks to an invisible diving board recolor and a deco pond rock. Since the pond rocks were found in the gardening section, maybe they're not actually coded as sculptures, which might conceivably block a Sim from using the diving board. Anyway... more work to be done. I just moved this new Sim onto the bare lot, it'll save time because I don't exactly know what I'm doing, and will probably have to go through several strategies before I find one that works. I was actually coming up with interesting ideas as I fell asleep last night... it's just a matter of remembering what I was thinking.

Did you see these waterfalls? Could help with the effect of running water

https://modthesims.info/d/237912/th...all-update.html
https://modthesims.info/d/647734/in...waterfalls.html
https://modthesims.info/d/275659/wa...of-rocks-d.html (shower)
(I've seen various edits and recolors of these, too).

The waterfall shower is too tall for this particular use, but I will definitely put it to use elsewhere... possibly on this same lot, who knows? I have the medium-sized one with the sound fx, that went with the "hippo" fountain. I forgot to take a second screenshot after I added a couple of them, and they do add to the overall effect. The one I really want is the shorter one, that has an invisible recolor of the rock parts, so the falling water could be placed by itself. It seems like I might need the Glamour Life SP, though, which I don't have... I can try installing it, I suppose, and see if it even shows up...


The pond rocks, when placed over the "waterfall pool" construction, did a pretty good job of masking out a lot of the ugly blue chlorine water. The only thing was: although the Sims could swim through the rocks, they couldn't exit the pool when there were rocks anywhere near the ladder, and I had to fiddle around in order to position them right... seems like 2 spaces away was the correct buffer. However, in reality, I don't need a swimmable waterfall sequence, just a pool at the end of the cascade. SO... I'm going to download the invisible falls and see what happens.