The Water Layer

rhban

Active member
I really thought I'd got my mind round the the layers thing, at least the water layer, but now I find my rail track that is below ground level is flooded and there is no longer a "No Water" tool. What do I do?
 
The new water for surveyor2.0 is just under the surface. If you have made a water effect layer look for it on the left side under effect layers. Right click on it a small window will pop up. Click on edit effect and a window will pop up to show your water layer with a picture. On the upper right corner you will see a small round button that looks like a slide tab. Slide that to the right and your adjustment parameters will show up. The only thing you need to adjust is the default level. I set mine to a -200 because I have a part of my route sitting at a height of -98.6. You can also use the height up and down and set height under the paintbrush tab to raise and lower the height of the water. Hope this helps.

Jack
 
The new water for surveyor2.0 is just under the surface. If you have made a water effect layer look for it on the left side under effect layers. Right click on it a small window will pop up. Click on edit effect and a window will pop up to show your water layer with a picture. On the upper right corner you will see a small round button that looks like a slide tab. Slide that to the right and your adjustment parameters will show up. The only thing you need to adjust is the default level. I set mine to a -200 because I have a part of my route sitting at a height of -98.6. You can also use the height up and down and set height under the paintbrush tab to raise and lower the height of the water. Hope this helps.

So does that mean the water height is the same for the entire map? That is a very backward step.
 
Yes, Oceans go up/down with streams. Can be very surprising when you revisit the shore after a stream adjustment.
 
Yes, Oceans go up/down with streams. Can be very surprising when you revisit the shore after a stream adjustment.

No they don't.

As Roberto stated above, the water height is moved up or down locally using the Brush Tool set to the named water Effect Layer you have created as the target (the top drop down brush menu list) and with the brush action (the bottom brush drop down menu list) set to any of Height Up/Height Down/Set Height. With the Set Height action you set the water height you want in the Tool Options Palette.

So you can set the water height to different levels throughout the route.

Until just a few minutes ago I had never used the Water Effect Layer but I found it simple to use - as easy as setting the terrain height. The actions Height Up and Height Down allow you to create a great water slope for all those water skiing scenes :D
 
I used the Water Level tool under Topology in 2022. Adjusted all water features simultaneously. Focusing on one river all water moved in concert with that tool.

I thought that there was just one plane of water and that was the tool to use.
 
No they don't.

As Roberto stated above, the water height is moved up or down locally using the Brush Tool set to the named water Effect Layer you have created as the target (the top drop down brush menu list) and with the brush action (the bottom brush drop down menu list) set to any of Height Up/Height Down/Set Height. With the Set Height action you set the water height you want in the Tool Options Palette.

So you can set the water height to different levels throughout the route.

Until just a few minutes ago I had never used the Water Effect Layer but I found it simple to use - as easy as setting the terrain height. The actions Height Up and Height Down allow you to create a great water slope for all those water skiing scenes :D

Thanks for that. It was the use of the Brush Tool that was eluding me.
 
I used the Water Level tool under Topology in 2022. Adjusted all water features simultaneously. Focusing on one river all water moved in concert with that tool.

I thought that there was just one plane of water and that was the tool to use.

That is true for Surveyor Classic and in Surveyor 2.0 you can still use that as a "Legacy Water" object.

The water in Surveyor 2.0 is an effect layer and, when created, it is added to the entire route. Its default height is 0m so if you have ground below that level you will need to edit the effect layer to set the default height to the minimum altitude you want. You then use the brush tool as described in my post above to raise the water height to the altitude you need at differnet places in the route. So the water layer is just like the ground with hills and valleys as needed.
 
How do you change the color of the water? I looked in the environmental setting and found the area where it indicated you could change the color. The small preview box showed the color changing as you moved the three dials. But these changes were not reflected in the actual route.
 
No they don't.

As Roberto stated above, the water height is moved up or down locally using the Brush Tool set to the named water Effect Layer you have created as the target (the top drop down brush menu list) and with the brush action (the bottom brush drop down menu list) set to any of Height Up/Height Down/Set Height. With the Set Height action you set the water height you want in the Tool Options Palette.

So you can set the water height to different levels throughout the route.

Until just a few minutes ago I had never used the Water Effect Layer but I found it simple to use - as easy as setting the terrain height. The actions Height Up and Height Down allow you to create a great water slope for all those water skiing scenes :D

Each time you change the water level, do you need to rename the layer? I do like the idea of a sloping river.
 
Each time you change the water level, do you need to rename the layer? I do like the idea of a sloping river.

I just did some experiments and it seems that the answer is that you can make as many edits as you like to an effect layer and not have to change its name or even save it. Those edits will stay within the current route. You can save the layer to make it a Preset using its original name, in which case the edits will become part of every route that uses that Preset. You can save the edits with a new name to make a new Preset layer.

In my experiment I changed the default height from 0m to 20m of my original Preset Water Effect Layer and the change had no effect on the water in the exiting baseboards that were set at the original default height (0m). When I added new baseboards the water layer in those baseboards was set at a height of 20m.
 
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I have made a (possibly disastrous) error - I imported another water layer just to see what happened. I now have a few very strange stretches of water where one effect has overwritten another.
 
Have you tried deleting the additional layer?

Open Edit Effect Layers, select the offending layer and click the delete icon (but of course, make a backup copy of the route first).
 
I have made a (possibly disastrous) error - I imported another water layer just to see what happened. I now have a few very strange stretches of water where one effect has overwritten another.

They don't overwrite each other, they are layered on top of each other as separate layers.
 
How do you find the height of the water.An example is if I have a lake filled with water i would like to know the height of the water so i can duplicate this same level in another area.
 
How do you find the height of the water.

Interesting question to which I have no answer. In my explorations I discovered a few new things about the water effect layer that I will have to investigate but nothing that would directly tell me the height of the layer. The same issue occurs with other effect layers - while you normally have TurfFX, for example, at ground level there has been the odd occasion where I have had it accidentally and mysteriously floating 10s of metres above and have been unable to get a height measurement as well.

An indirect measurement suggestion would be to place the cursor (the compass rose) on dry land close to the edge of the water and use the Info Palette Focus Z (height) value to estimate the water height.
 
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Interesting question to which I have no answer. In my explorations I discovered a few new things about the water effect layer that I will have to investigate but nothing that would directly tell me the height of the layer. The same issue occurs with other effect layers - while you normally have TurfFX, for example, at ground level there has been the odd occasion where I have had it accidentally and mysteriously floating 10s of metres above and have been unable to get a height measurement as well.

An indirect measurement suggestion would be to place the cursor (the compass rose) on dry land close to the edge of the water and use the Info Palette Focus Z (height) value to estimate the water height.

A great pity if there is no answer at all. I will attempt to get rid of my unnecessary layer, but I can only hope that redoing my original layer will work. When I was trying to use it on water that had appeared in the wrong places, it didn't always work and finding the height, would have been really useful.
 
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