Zillameth on 7/3/2005 at 19:59

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They are functional, but the way they work is just a little bit more complex than one would suspect.

In order to fill your level with water (or rather a poor substitute thereof) you need both a shallow water volume and a mesh. The mesh allows you to see water and volume allows you to hear splashing sounds, when you move through pool. Some additional ambient sounds for splashes unrelated to moving would fit nicely, too.

First, game checks if avatar is inside the volume. For sake of simplicity (I guess) avatar is only represented by a single point, which, in case of Garrett, is located about 58 UU above floor (this value probably depends on model's height and might be different for tall enemies, such as treebeasts). Therefore, your water volume must be present at this height (it doesn't need to be 58 UU high, actually, because it doesn't need to be alligned to floor). I guess volumes you experimented with were shorter, so when your avatar entered them, game didn't detect it.

Then, game checks if avatar's "feet" are below "virtual" water surface, which is, by default, located at the volume's bottom. You can set additional offset with Water->SurfaceHeight property, if you want to "raise" the surface.

If the above two conditions are fulfilled, an appropriate sound is played when the avatar is moving. You still need to add a mesh, or you will get an "invisible" pool.

Zillameth on 7/3/2005 at 20:35

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I believe meshes with names beginning with "WAT" are supposed to serve this purpose. There are a few of them in NATURE directory. Two of them (WATtile256x256 and WATtile512x512) should fit nicely in most situations.