Waterfalls and/or custom water material - better water?

[mdgunn]

I'm considering implementing some water in a level in the form of waterfalls, stream or small pools (not necessarily at a single fixed level like the water plain).

 

A few questions relating to this:-

 

1) How would people go about doing a waterfall?

I'm thinking an animated texture with a refraction shader and maybe some particles (for splash) as I've seen done in Source engine

(https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Creating_a_Waterfall_Material)

 

2) Is there a refraction shader available that would work for water (like they use in the tutorial linked above)? I see some refraction code in the water shader but I'm not sure whether to try and make that water shader work on a brush/model or start from scratch. I've never constructed any shaders so this feels like it might be difficult for me to do.

 

I tried getting some water pools working by using the animated water image files on a new material but couldn't get it looking much like water at all.

 

Anyone got some experience on getting better water (waterfalle/streams/pools).