Advice needed: bodies of water that aren't the standard lake/river/ocean

[scfe_fan]

Hopefully some of the more seasoned route builders can assist me with this or help brainstorm ideas. I'm working on a route that not only stretches the water features of Open Rails, it outright breaks it. This route has a LOT of up close and slow coastal running, most of the time right on the edges of the shore line (max line speed is 25mph) I can get away with modeling the ocean using standard water, but as this route was built on land that was NOBODY's first choice for a railroad, there also a lot of swamps, shallow marshes, and coastal tidal pools and coastal shallows. Think large swathes of water that at the deepest are 2-3 feet. This is a project I have been trying to start for the better part of a decade, hoping the OR team would do something about the beyond basic MSTS water. I really don't know how to describe it, but these pictures are about what I have in mind.

2023-giys-views-steve-alberts-tidal-mangroves-fknms-1000.jpg MC-KW Gay Couple Snorkel Aerial A_0.jpg florida-keys-bahia-honda-calusa-Depositphotos192404070s.jpg Florida-Keys.jpg

[eric]

This does break the mold a bit.... what you could use are "water panes" which are scenery objects but with different or fewer layers than what the typical water textures use.

I've done this in a route where I had a dam with a vastly different water height than the tile's water height.

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[railrunner112]

I think Eric might be right on this one. If the water pane can be transparent you might even be able to paint the ground underneath it in a green/yellow sand shore line for the tropical effect. (If that is indeed the climate the route is in)

[eric]

Mine have three square/flat layers separated by 0.5m and slightly different opacities. Gives an appearance of depth as the terrain drops.

[dlfrenchmd]

For lakes and rivers in my routes, which altitudes prohibit using the standard terrain water feature, I made scenery models with opaque textures same as the water texture I am using for terrain. With Photoshop and .dds textures, I could see making different transparency levels and even putting spaces between them to create depth illusion if needed. I may try that! New idea! If I get something really good, I will upload it to see what happens.
Dan French

[ebnertra000]

I have a 128m square sheet of water (the size of a terrain patch) like Eric has, mostly because a route I'm working on has a ton of lakes at slightly different elevations in close proximity (the Boundary Waters are beautiful, but are a pain to build in. At least the trees aren't trying to poison me)