I got a note that ctrl+Paint has got some new offerings on their store that might help you with your surfaces. The newest offering explores making realistic surfaces for your objects and environments as well as work flows on how to achieve them. He's got a sample video that I'll link below for your perusal. The surface…
that's probably where i'd start - simply don't include the water There is/was a node for testing depth behind a surface that looks like it's specifically intended for this purpose on (probably) 5.2. I cant remember what it was called but if you search for depth in the materials nodes it should come up
Alright, I did solve it and it was on the surface except only one thing. You have to enable Modeling tools Mode inside your Plugins window, then you go to XForm and Edit Pivot, set it, apply, done. Hope I could help
I know from my past attempts to use Marmoset that there's something weird about the surfaces. Like only one surface per object or one UV per object or something like that. Can someone remind me what that was?