L a k e s

Flooding events: permanent vs temporary

For a permanent water level change through time, animate the Lake Elevation. Surrounding Beach will rise with it.

For a temporary flooding event you want the Beach foliage to stay put while the water rises. Set the Lake Reference Elevation at the established level and animate the Lake Elevation. The beach and foliage still stay in place while the water rises.

Lake edge renders blocky

WCS6: See Getting Started with WCS6 tutorials, section 5E, Step 142
VNS2: See Getting Started with VNS2 tutorials, section 5E, Step 146

Usually a Resolution problem. WCS renders a vector effect using the Component's Resolution value. If the value is too high relative to curves in the vector, curves become box corners. There are few solutions.

1. Uncheck and recheck the Lake Resolution Floating box. It may be stuck on the default 90 and resetting the float will match it to the terrain resolution.
2. If that doesn't smooth out the vector enough, check Hi-res Edge. It often helps with no RAM cost.
3. Increase the effect resolution by decreasing the Resolution value. This is last on the to-do list because it increases memory use. If there are a lot of vectors attached to the Component, it can mean a lot of memory.

Non-constant elevation

While this is not realistic, there may be times when you want to do it. Drive the Added Roughness parameter (Water page, Waves tab) with a georeferenced image texture. The texture should be a greyscale ramp where black represents the lowest lake elevation and white represents the highest lake elevation.

The 3D Nature FAQ on complex flooding events may also be helpful:
http://3dnature.com/faq/index.php?qid=142&catid=44