I have a cell with 4 pools of water. All 512x512 units. I have a few question about this. What is the difference between reflecting and refracting? Also what are water lights? I am about to choose all the objects to reflect so it looks good, and was wondering if I should also set all those objects to refract as well, or if it matters, and what that means. Also should I put all the lights in the area in the 'Water lights' tab, what does that do? And how badly does adding alot of things to these lists affect game performance around the water? Thanks to anyone who can clear up these things for me.

Gunmaster95

I haven't modded for FO3 yet, but I do know the more objects (lights, NPC's, items, etc etc etc) you add to a mod, the more it will take for a pc to handle it. Not sure about the other questions though.

Reflected does what you would expect, the objects around the water will reflect off the surface. You should also use refracted as this puts depth to the water as the objects that are under the water will show through the water. I haven't used the water light feature, so I am no help there. Perhaps set one up and see what it does.

A small tutorial I put together:
http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/2030-interior-cell-placeable-water

Its still much a work in progress.

You need to REFLECT everything ABOVE the water.
You need to REFRACT everything BELOW the water.

*everything you 'want' to be reflected and refracted.

Well of course, but I was referring to adding things to the reflect/refract list, not so much adding more items themselves.



Alright thanks that helps.



Ok that helps too.

I see now reflect is above, refract is what you see through it. So adding anything above the water to the refract would be a waste, which is what I had right now >.> I'm off to remove that! Thanks WillieSea and Pkleiss, I know understand how those things work. As for water lights, I suppose I will just ignore that. Oh one last thing. If a light shines on an underwater object, should I have it on the refract list as well so the object isnt black?

The 'lighted' object will be whats reflected, not a dark object. Unless the object is already dark. If you turn lights on and off, it is show in the reflection as well. It seems to be 'real time' reflections to me.

If your light has a NIF attached to it and you want that to be reflected, then just add it to the waters reflection.

Oh ok. I thought to get the reflected objects to be lit, you also had to reflect the light objects lighting them up, but if you don't its much simpler. Thanks!

Adding the light source object to the list of relected objects will make the light relect off the water as well. It can be a nice effect.