Sometimes you need square water. If you look at real parks, they often have square water features as part of rides, so you may be tempted to build some water like this:
You could easily have a coaster dipping down towards that pool and class it as "theming". However, it all looks a bit sterile, man-made and dull.
The absolute minimum you should be adding is something to take the edge off it:

Here the fence makes it look a little better; it gives it a bit more detail.
It's not quite right for this area though. The fence looks too harsh, and the pool is too bland. A hedge will soften the edge, and a bit of detail in the middle and:
Of course, in real life water looks nothing like this. Even small pools like this aren't square. Further into Guideland Park, there's a stream.
You'll notice that the water is below the level of the land surrounding it. In real life, unless a river is flooding, this is the case. The only exception (as we'll see in future guides), is where you're creating a beach scene (the sea flows up a beach). In most cases though, you will be making sure that the land around a water body is raised.
The banks look nice and muddy, as a riverbank should, but it's very bland. Some trees and bushes will help to break that up. Add in a variety of different trees, of different shapes to keep things interesting:
At the top of the stream, the water connects to my future beach. Unfortunately, I want to raise the level of my beach area for a future addition and theming (see the next guide). This would flood this area, and ruin it. Here is where Soaked or Wild can come to your rescue with the additional waterfall feature.
Waterfalls are a real trial though. You'll find yourself cursing and swearing about the funny nature of them. Then once it's done, you'll wonder why it looks so awful. Here are a few tips for you:
It may be difficult to see, but I've used a block tool to make a sheer drop on one side of the different height layers. I think you need a drop of 5 or 6 "full height walls" for it to succeed. This gives us a square basin to catch the water.
Meanwhile on the other side, I've "grabbed" the trailing edge of the higher block and brought it down to a lower level, giving a steep angle. The odd looking blocks are there because RCT 3 wasn't happy with the land modelling with the waterfall. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices, and as this will be covered with water, it doesn't really matter.
If you fill up the water on both sides. To the top of the "drop" on the higher, and deep enough on the other side so it doesn't complain, but not so deep that the drop isn't too low. It takes a bit of playing about the get it just right. Essentially though, the deep the bottom pool and the higher (to a limit) to top pool, the easier it is to create a fall.
If you now use the waterfall option and click on the top, then the bottom, it fills in a lovely, scenic waterfall for you.
As you can see in the photos above, the top lake looks a little blocky and rubbish. This is part of the beach area described earlier, and something needs doing to make it look better. It also helps to take the edge off the rubbish looking waterfalls RCT 3 sometimes creates.
So, back to the above tutorial. Trees and bushes can help to take the edge off and distract the viewers eyes from nasty looking edges:
In the download example, to make it compatibly with basic RCT 3, the waterfall is ready to go, but hasn't been made yet. For those with Soaked or Wild, feel free to add the waterfall. If you don't, then why not build yourself a dam? Using a bit of theming, you can still have the two different bodies of water, but make it look neater:
Firstly add a back "wall" and side walls. When theming like this, it always pays to theme even the inside that wont be seen. Then add in a front wall and a top. It will end up looking like a solid wall that could hold back the sea.
You'll notice that the wall goes right down to the bottom of the stream. It would in real life, so you have to here.
In the next tutorial, you'll see the beach area develop a bit with our tutorial on making flat rides look good!