zaide_chris has made a tool to create custom water planes, please see the excellent tutorial here: Tutorial: Adding Water Planes but please use the stand-alone too from this post as the online one doesn't work any more.

flstrider has made a step-by-step guide to creating waterplanes on the official forums- click here. Nice work!

Links to water plane generators: Zaide_Chris or SandrineD. Note: If using SandrineD's program, try this hex editor.

Adding opacity: Read Here!

Why don't multiple planes show up?

SuperCAW can add water planes, but the Devs advise against this.

Kickass, simsample! You're doing great things figuring out all the unknowns for worlds. Thank you!

That's excellent! But unfortunately the world I've been doing so far is finished in sculpting stage. Perhaps next world.

But once again, thanks for your excellent work

Excellent!

Now all I have to do is quit my job and drop out of uni

Thanks all, I'm glad you may find this useful!

GiLaNg- I know what you mean, I found this too late for my world too. Next one, perhaps...

Simsimillian- Hehe, don't do that!

If somebody could work out roughly how *big* each of these water patches is, it would help immensely. Right now I've worked out a very rough idea of the file format but I need actual data to continue.

Cool, well done Delphy! Would world coordinates help?

For Twinbrook, the world is large which means that the coordinates for the corners of the entire world are as follows (x,z):
0,0
0,2048
2048,2048
2048,0

And the water level covers an area with corner coordinates as follows (x,z):
596,725
596,2048
2048,2048
2048,725

The height of that water level is y46. Bear in mind these may not be entirely accurate, I'm measuring using object placement to try to get these coordinates. Does that help at all? Do you need the Bridgeport coordinates too?

Thanks simsample, that should help a lot. Bridgeport would be good too (HP already supplied me some of those).

Okay that world out spectacularly:

596,725 = 54020000D5020000
2048,2048 = 0008000000080000

Which happen to be part of the file header.

Ahh, I see- I was looking at it with the wrong Endianness! Now we're getting somewhere.

Bridgeport coordinates:

(x,z)
1498,1100
1562,1100
1562,1036
1498,1036
Height Y=129.5

1500,1084
1596,1084
1596,1180
1500,1180
Height Y=110.8

1423,1156
1615,1156
1615,1316
1423,1316
Height Y=104.6

799,1316
687,1316
687,1204
799,1204
Height Y=40.4

632,1311
632,1231
712,1311
712,1231
Height Y=40

488,829
488,701
648,701
648,829
Height Y=42.6

The Y coordinates are most likely to be inaccurate.

Grr, I don't know why, but I'm having no end of trouble getting these to work.

I've got a copy of Bridgeport that I've been working on a while, and would like to import the water layers into it, since I haven't resculpted it enough for them to be any kind of problem.

My S3PE is updated to the latest version.

I open my BridgeportOverhaul.world file in S3PE. I import from file, with "replace duplicates" and "compress" selected. It imports fine, and I save it as a new filename.

I go to open the file in CAW to continue working on it and get this error:

---------------------------
File Load Error
---------------------------
Unable to load file. 'C:\Users\Sidian\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds\BridgeportGah.world': Cannot load a Packed File {0} in The Sims 3 Create a World Tool – Beta
---------------------------


I've also tried doing it in another way - creating a new, flat, 300 map and importing the water layers as well as all the resources from my BridgeportOverhaul.world file. That doesn't work either, with this error:


---------------------------
File Load Error
---------------------------
Unable to load file. 'C:\Users\Sidian\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds\BridgeportWithWater1.world': Could not load File C:\Users\Sidian\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create A World Tool\UserToolData\Worlds\BridgeportWithWater1.world.
---------------------------


I don't seem to even be able to import them into a brand new map (large, flat, 300, lush) anymore - I get the Packed File error no matter what I do.

Has anyone been successful in importing these into a world-in-progress? If so, HOW? I'm tearing my hair out here. It doesn't work whether I use S3PE or Postal.

Haaaalp?



Edit:

Okay, this is definitely compression-related. Even though I made the two files the same way, the old file which works has 5 resources compressed; the new file which doesn't has 8 compressed. I can't get the different resources to stay compressed in S3PE - I can tell them to compress, but when I save the file it hasn't stuck.

I've got Delphy on it, who suspects there's something wrong in the file index.

I have no idea how or why the files would be different since I made them with the same version of S3PE in the same way, but I think I'm getting a migraine.

HP, I can get it to work just fine, but I don't select 'compress' when importing the resource. I noticed that these resources are not compressed in the Bridgeport and Twinbrook worlds, so I saw no reason to try to compress them.

Have you and Delphy had any luck interpreting these files, and modifying them? My attempts so far have only resulted in a big hole in the fabric of my Worlds!

I've tried it both compressed and uncompressed, and it doesn't want to work either way. Delphy had to hack at them with a new tool he made to modify the indexes and now has 'em within a few bytes difference, so hopefully it'll work that way... I just haven't been able to test yet. Edit: Bah, still doesn't work. What the fuuuuuuck?

Regarding the water layers themselves... he tinkered around with them for a while and seemed to be making some headway, but he keeps getting distracted by World of Tanks.

I know your pain, my husband is a big tank geek too...well, tanks, ships, aircraft, you name it. When I'm not looking he always sneaks on geeky military programmes and then sits there criticising everything they got wrong

I've been trying to follow the progress of these water levels on this thread but you lot keep talking in gobbledegook Can't wait to hopefully have these layers to play with :D

missroxor- you can play with these water layers right now if you like, just download them and import.

HP- I'm not sure what you're doing differently from me, but I did notice you say you're renaming the file when you save in S3Pe. That would mean that you have a world file with a different name to the layers folders- which could cause a problem. What I did was to open the world file in S3Pe, import the resources (overwrite duplicates, not compressed) and save (not save as). Then I opened the world file in CAW. It works just fine, as demonstrated here by my in-progress world which has been submerged by a Bridgeport 'pond'! :D

Oops, I thought all the above chat about stuff I don't understand was something to do with the files not working in CAW. Thanks for setting me straight. Will need to have a little play with this then.

Remember to backup any files you plan to alter first. And post some pictures if you get it to work!

The bit above was discussion regarding changing the co-ordinates of the water levels, so that we could put water where we wanted. HP couldn't get it to work though, but I've not had any problems so far, so try it out to see!

EDIT Nevermind...thought I needed help but I was just being an idiot Managed to get water in a world, Yay!

It seems the actual resources in the .world file that CAW is saving changes for some reason. If it is a matter of just save vs. save as, I think I'll cry though. Spent all day yesterday pulling my hair out about it, D wrote a tool to edit indexes and was staring at a hex editor for me... argh.

Edit: Oh for fuck's sake. THAT was it? That I was doing Save As instead of Save? GAH!!!

I now have water layers in my world-in-progress. Huzzah! For some reason, they don't fit where they're supposed to and jut out at weird angles, but whatever, man, at least they're there. I feel like a total idiot now. Thanks for the hint, simsample. God I'm dumb.

Glad you got it working, missroxor!

HP, Hooray! I'm glad it works, I think that 'packed file' error basically indicates that CAW cannot find the global layer. In an actual packed file the global layer would be inside the world file as opposed to in a separate folder as CAW expects; so in your case, CAW couldn't find the layer file so assumed a packed file state. I wonder why they don't fit now, though? You're using the Bridgeport height map?

It's odd that I was getting two different errors, though. Stupid CAW.

I am indeed using the Bridgeport height map - I've edited it slightly but not in any substantial way around the areas where the water layers are jutting out. For example, that area up on the other side of the bridge with the three water layers and the waterfall spilling into the bay - the water layer right before the water fall has a big ol' corner jutting out over the area where the waterfall spills down in the original. There's a smaller corner sticking out of the top water layer nearby too. Makes NO sense, since you would think identical height maps would yield identical terrain, and I certainly haven't changed the location of the water layers themselves.

I'll just sculpt around it and cover any weird spots with rocks. :D

Hmm, I wonder if there's a slight discrepancy between the geometry of a terrain and the heighmap that the game creates from it? I guess if there is a slight innacuracy when importing and exporting, the effect would become apparent when using fixed items like the water layers.

Hopefully Delphy can figure out how to edit them once he's finished playing tanks! (Hint hint!)

water layers stick out because there is a mask on them!! like alpha? i dont know. you can lower the ground near the water layer and see, in the orig. bridgeport world. the edges are not straight on the water pools. real mystery is what files make this happen!!!

MrJazz- when you lower the ground in Bridgeport, at first the water will not appear as squares (as in my images above) as CAW will not render them so. However, if you save the world and then reload, you will see that now it is drawn as a square, with the flat edges.

The same for Twinbrook- if you import it to CAW and then flatten the terrain, you will see that the water looks curved, like the original shape. But save the world, then close it and open again and you'll see that it is actually square. This is just a rendering issue, as the game (and CAW) decide what to render upon loading.

From the actual UNK 0x707CA200 resources, I can see that (as Delphy discovered) the co-ordinates for each square of water are encoded in hexadecimal- but seemingly only two diagonally opposite corners. So the game can extrapolate the other two corners from this information. That means we can only create a square of water, lined up with the axis of the world, and not any other shape. However if we then raise the ground elevation above these water areas, the parts hidden will not be rendered in-game.

In orig. bridgeport in CAW even after save, edges are not squares. you see? one of the pictures is orig. bridgeport, with the paints and spawners and waterfall. corners of water layer for waterfall are not showing and water is shaped like the land cuts out. if i use sculpt tool to lower edges around water, water stays this shape, not square. it is like alpha is applied, i think. but i do not know how to control this alpha.

in green picture, corners of water layer stick out where waterfall would be. that is blank map, 300, lush, with your bridgeport water layers imported and then bridgeport height-map imported too and saved. there is a big corner sticking out.

how to remove this corner? or do i not understand you? i am wrong about alpha?

thanks for helping!!

MrJazz, I see what you mean now! No, it is not you that misunderstood, it was me.

But I discovered something by experimenting with Bridgeport: Yes, when you first import the water layers to a world created with the Bridgeport heightmap, some parts of the water will stick out when you load up CAW.

However, if you now save the world in CAW, then close the world and open it again, you should see that the protruding parts are gone.

I can also demonstrate this in Bridgeport, opened in CAW. If I flatten the 'wall' of the waterfall lake, then save and reload, I have a 'flood' just like HP and MrJazz noticed!


If I then raise the wall back up, it looks like this:

The water does not fit any more!

But if I then save this and reload the world in CAW, the lake now looks like this:


So, MrJazz and HystericalParoxysm should find that the Bridgeport water layers do work with the Bridgeport Heightmap, after all.