CC3: Terrains: Best Practices question

Another noobie question, this one more of a 'best practices' question. In the tutorial, when we place terrain, we just sort of slap it down around the island, hills over here, grassland there. No attempt is made to 'fill' the landmass with terrain, the sections between terrains show up as the fault landmass fill. Coastlines are handled via tracing.

Is that the recommended practice? I am placing desert terrain, and there happens to be mountain region within it. Do I put the mountain terrain in a different, overlying sheet? Do I just abut the two terrains, and do my best to draw around the mountains (and ignore my OCD proclivities)? Is there a way to 'trace' against another terrain polygon (I tried that but it didn't seem to select the terrain polygon)?

Per my original Fractal Terrains Map, I have other ecosystems (climates) that abut the desert area, each other, mountains, etc. Looking for the best/standard approach.

Thanks in advance!

Comments

  • Here is what I do.

    top of sheet order
    Land sheet
    Desert sheet
    Symbols, Mountain

    bottom of sheet order.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    If you take the Schley overland style as an example, the land is green. This is vaguely indicative of grassland or such even though there is a grassland fill as well as a land fill. This is because there will always be spaces between things like forests and deserts that are not necessarily grassland, but just 'some kind of land'.

    There is nothing to stop you from covering the entire island in alternative fills, including swamp if you like, but for a map that just basically shows a few settlements and the roads between them, and isn't particularly bothered about what kind of land use is going on other than where the forests are, this green land background is a convenient way for the land just to simply exist.

    That's my personal take on it, anyway ;)
  • JimP & Loopysue, good feedback! If I did want to be OCD and fill in inch of landmass, is there a trick to abutting terrains?
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    For a deliberately sharp line, put them on the same sheet. That's a line sharp enough to cut yourself on.

    For a more natural fuzzy line, put adjacent terrain types on different sheets and add an Edge Fade Inner sheet effect (EFI) to each of the overlying sheets and adjust the size of the EFI to taste. There are already a number of sheets available to use this way in most templates, but never enough if you want to use every single last terrain fill available in the style. No matter - just make as many new sheets as you need. Its best to follow the same naming convention so that for example if you create a new sheet for wasteland call it TERRAIN Wasteland to follow all the other terrain sheets.

    Its pretty difficult taking fills right up to the coast if you use the second method because the fill fades away towards the edge of the land where the EFI takes effect. The only answer I have ever found for this is to change the fill of the land to the fill you want to take right to the coastline, and use that instead of the default land fill. I tend to replace land fill with desert, or some such sandy/beach type fill if I'm doing a fairly large scale map where the beaches would be visible, or if I'm making a volcanic island I'll change the land fill to the volcanic fill.
  • Loopysue, great, thank you! I will try the EFI approach tonight, it sounds like exactly what I want!
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    If you are looking for an example of a preset EFI, just open the Sheets and Effects dialog and check the effects on the existing TERRAIN sheets. You could even copy and paste the effects onto any new sheet you create.
Sign In or Register to comment.