So I've picked up the GECK and thinking of making my own maps and such....but...adding water, placeable water or what-not is impossible. I've checked all existing game cells that they do have water in them and their water noise texture shows a path to Data/textures/water/WaterFlowRippleNoise01.dds. That entire file path is missing from me, even though most(if not all) cells I've checked use it, but it's not there.

I am unable to add water to my map or even see it. If I drag a placeable water or anything that might create water on the map....nothing happens. The item goes into the Cell View item list and I'm able to click it. Even trying to see water on Vanilla Fallout 3 cells (like Anchorage caves) the water is either there ( in the case of Anchorage caves it's missing completely, but it showed up on Megaton just under the bomb), or just missing and I am unable to do anything with the water entities.

Suggestion?

You have to extract the textures (dds files) from the BSAs in order to select them from the chooser.

Edit your placed water object's reference and add some reflection and/or refraction. Then you will see it.

Aah, thanks a lot! Any other textures or what-not that I should extract too?

You only need to extract files from the BSA in order to select them in the various selection fields in the Geck. The game will still find these files inside the BSAs, so once you have pointed a field to these extracted files, you can actually delete them. In most cases, its easier to just make a copy of an existing object that already has these fields filled in and just give the copy a new ID. This will then keep these selectable fields with their data already in them and save you a step.

If you're going to do anything with weather, the cloud textures need to be extracted as well. There's a few other things, but the GECK will usually let you know when it can't find a texture file.

Just keep in mind, the game will load a file thats in a folder, before the ones packed up in the BSA's. Reguardless of whether they are the same or not. Therefor, extracting alot of files (like 1000 of them) would result in a noticable reduction in game performance. So only extract what you need to. (ie dont extract ALL the textures)

Unless of course you store the files in another location other than your Data folder. I find it alot more convenient extracting all the BSA files and keeping them somewhere. That way they're always accessible if I need one.