How to cover a river bed?

[trainsteve2435]

Hello everyone, im to the point on my bridge scene that i need to think about how to cover the bed in order to make it appear as a shallow western river. I have bought the WS talis rocks in several sizes to simulate boulders and rip rap, but im not sure how to cover the bottom of the river bed. I know dark colors represent deep water and light colors represent shallow water, but what about a shallow river? Should it be covered all in boulders? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
steve:thumb:

 

[jbaakko]

I'd go bolders, and then add a little white color to the "water" to make it look nice, but that depends on the depth, & speed of the water.

 

[Jim Krause]

Fast moving streams out this way are usually pretty rocky affairs. Silt and lighter material end up somewhere downstream and various size boulders are left. Occasionally there will be a deposit of sand in an eddy. Depending on the water flow, there will be anything from clear water to blue-green in the deeper holes.

 

[nachoman]

Small, western streams often have a Pool-riffle sequence. pools are relatively deep and slow moving, with a gentle slope. Riffles are steeper, faster, and shallower. Rivers and streams will alternate pools and riffles. If you really want to go into deep detail and understanding, look for books on "fluvial geomorphology". This kind of stuff has been studied in great detail - average length to width ratios of rivers, meander geometires, relative lengths of the pools and riffles, grain sizes of the pools and riffles, etc. Unfortunately, my fluvial geomorphology notes are boxed up out of state right now, or I could offer more assistance.

kevin

 

[hminky]

I poured sand with rocks in the river bed and used Woodland Scenics Realistic water, I have what i did at:

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/rushing_water/

Thank you if you visit
Harold

 

[petey]

I feel silly trying to respond after reading Nachoman's response. I studied waterflow in college, but not to the extent that Nacho speaks of.
Anyway, if you have a significant change in elevation, your waterway will be narrower, probably have more boulders in certain areas, and will run clearer. Shallow, faster moving streams have relatively little color. Where a stream slowed due to leveling of its bed, is where you will find the boulder deposit. Many streams and rivers in the Texas Hill Country are so filled with free algae, that they look an opaque green, so that you cannot tell what the bottom looks like. The Highland Lakes(Tex Colorado River impoundments) just North, are deeper and reflect an expected blue.
Does this help?

 

[steamhead]

A picture is worth a thousand words...This is another link I'll ave to add to my growing collection of Harold's "How I did it..." tutorials. Thanks Harold.

 

[nachoman]

this may help:

www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/extension/wqg/sri/rv-crs-1.pdf

kevin

 

[Spartalee]

I play warhammer 40k and me and my buddies built a table witha river we went to the local lowes and picked up some clear appoxy stuff (its a liquid but as it dried it gets real hard) and it is clear if you pour it in and place small pebbels etc in it before it dries it looks very good I will try to get u a pic of it.