how do i add water to my land

someone in live help said that i should build an item on my land and set it to phantom to make it look like water, but that didnt work. i want to make a waterfall that follows my landscape. can this not be done?
thanks

Hi Cleon!

The only way *I* know of to add a waterfall is using prims. If you add a water texture and make the water move with a script. I'm not sure *quite* how to do this, but I'm sure others who post here will

Welcome to SL, Cleon

Sounds like there was a little miscommunication. Just so you know, setting an object to phantom will not make it look like water (or like anything else), but it will make it behave like water in that you'll be able to walk right through it (the phantom setting makes objects intangible). I can see where it could be confusing, receiving so much new information all at once, but I'd be willing to be that the live helper in question probably said something to the effect of "set it to phantom AND make it look like water", not "set it to phantom TO make it look like water" (unless live help is smoking crack today).

Anyway, if you take a look in your library in your inventory, you'll find a bunch of stock waterfall items. There are several water textures, a texture-animation script to make the water "flow", a particle script to generate mist, and a few other things. Take a look at those items, and then if you have any specific questions about what to do with any of them, by all means come on back and ask. Good luck and have fun.

... and then, after you play with the stock water items, go diggng around in texture stores, landscaping/furniture stores, and places like Yadni's Junkyard and get some better water textures and particle systems. The Linden ones are not all that good and they're so overused that they look tacky.

also may want to check in events> education for water effect classes

Drop by my place. There is a rough example of how to create water on your land.

If you need more ideas or help just IM me sometime when I am in world.

Hope this helps.

There are many ways to add 'water' to an SL lot...even if it's in a desert

You can make shapes (halved, hollowed cylinders or doughnuts/torus) that look like sheets of water..ie..prims..color/'texture' them to look like water..and add a 'water script' to that shape or prim by just dragging and holding one from your inventory to that prim. Then 'hang' that shape on your rocks for the look you want. Rocks can be found in your Linden library inventory..or you can make your own by twisting & tapering large boxes and spheres..and texturing them with rock textures.

OR...

You can buy some 'particle effects' from Neil Protanonist or a high quality seller of them..and just place these for another type of 'look' that is stunning, too. They look like diaphanous bursts of white..or blue. Just place them logically where you wish water to 'spew'. These effects are sometimes used in prim falls for the foaming, water spray effect at the bottom of a flow of water.

AND/OR

You can go to the edit area of your land in question, click on 'edit land' and terraform..in this case, LOWERING land..either in an oval shape, square..or meandering...depending on what you want to 'build'. Then place flat boxes on TOP of these gullies or the hollowed land...texture/color them...and add your script. Adding Linden Labs 'ripple 2' over these prims or simply as the main texture also looks great. If you want water to look like it's radiating naturally, place 3-4 prims on top of the other, each one more transparent than the next..and set each at a 90 degree angle to the other. Texture these with a venous texure (kinda like marble)..and watch..very natural..very pretty. This last technique is that of Toy Lafollette.

LASTLY...

If your lot is within 4 meters (some areas, 40 meters) of'linden lab sea level'....you can terraform LOWER than that..and the sea will pop right through!! Sort of a 'natural' lake or river, so to speak !

Explore your Linden Labs 'Waterfalls' folder, also..there are many wonderful textures that will give you an interesting, and sometimes lower-prim, falls, river or lake.

Happy building!

Jillian's free Splashable Water still looks better than any of the Linden water textures. Go to Yadni's Junkyard and pick up a copy.

You can see it in the new build I'm doing on Raccoon Valley in the southwest corner. No particle effects (other than the ones in Jillian's prims) yet, I've mostly been working on scripting the innertubes to ride down the waterfalls and follow the current around to the culvert. I'm pondering adding non-physical movement so I can make them move "through the ground" from one end of the culvert to the other, as well as having llTeleportAgent scripts (when they arrive) in the culvert to allow you to "walk underground" (using sit teleports to fake it for now).