I am new to making a world space. I haven't found much on that. http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Creating_an_Exterior_Worldspace is all I have had to work with so far.

It seems to me that the Skyrim Tamriel world space has only one water level for ALL it's cells or am I wrong? If I am right then the water in the rivers is produced through other means.

If I am wrong then my mind just broke because I don't know how that each individual exterior cell could possibly have different water levels.

I looked at the cell diaglogue for an exterior cell and I don't see any means of controlling it's water level.

I found a cell near Whiterun--Wilderness (7, -6) that has a river running through it. I had the borders drawn (B toggles this). And I held a straight edge to my screen because there where static objects that were obscuring the border line (a yellow dashed line). I could clearly see that part of the river at the same level as the aforementioned cell extended into another cell--(8,-6)--at the same height, yet the cell bordering (7,-6) , (8, -6) has quite a bit of river in it that is at a different level.

I am unable to select any water of the river and I don't know how a current is produced either. If anyone could help me better understand how to create a river (stream, creek, etc.) in an exterior cell, I would appreciate that very much. I have found nothing as of yet in my searching.

Edit: The editor id of the worldspace is actually named Tamriel not Skyrim.

Edit2: It also occurred to me to take the camera through the landscape and see that the water level is below the river.

Edit3: Ok. I think I have figured out one thing... It's a flat activator... but my next question is... Can I use the base for a 2D primitive or do I have to line up the squares?

in skyrim, ground water doesn't seem to be used, all water is activator objects.

(if you can't select them, try pressing shift-w twice (toggles water, shift-l for landscape, shift-t for trees) and retry,

or might be you need to enable stg in prefs (render win -> constant water update maybe?) but can't remember for sure. you can check render win picking prefs anyway though (or limit these to water right away)

but most likely (the more as you said you tried near whiterun), you just have markers, effect objects or the likes in the way -> disable these or zoom in real close to the water

all waterfalls, rapids etc are objects, too (filter object win -> all to fx* to catch most, most of them movable statics)

and note that when you x- or y-rotate water objects, reflection/refraction won't work anymore (that's why vanilla rivers are all horizontal water with falls or rapids parts for slopes)

Thanks. That makes sense, but I am still at a loss on how to make a river. I want to add water not edit it.

they're just activator objects, like i said. just select one you like in object window and drop it where you need it.

So far, I have made a depression in the landscape of a new worldspace and I have placed 4 activators (Water1024RiverFlowNE) next to each other and somewhat below the level ground in order to cover the hole. That seems to a very inconvenient way to handle this problem. I cannot use a primitive with Water1024RiverFlowNE as the base?

Edit: The method I tested doesn't seem to create current either... It just animates it.

Edit2: After much effort, I was finally able to select an activator that "acts as water" (??? this concept still confuses me), so that I might lay eyes on an example of how water is made (outside of my guessing game). What still eludes me is why not something scalable ( such as a primative--I doubt it's a good idea to actually scale these activators), instead of tiles and how do I make current (water flow, move objects that are buoyant in it).

Edit3: I found a video tutorial, "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPOJkO-wE5E" by https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClUdwKMcw6enzmgiXP8tyGg. I haven't gotten into it yet, but given the level of detail and the clarity in which he speaks, I am pretty confident this will help me out... as well as any other newb who wants to dive in and create a river or other bodies of water.