Question about certain border shapes and filling patterns
Hi ProFantasy community, I'm a new member (customer) and I'm trying to figure out the potential of this great mapping tool. I already watched some really good tutorial videos from Joe Sweeney, Dogtag and others and I learned a lot. Until now I worked with Photoshop and Illustrator mostly, so excuse me if I'm thinking in the patterns of those programs from time to time 
At the moment I'm wondering if it is possible to create something similar to two effects (or styles) I've seen somewhere. The first one is about the borders of a landmass for example. So far I can fade them out or create a hard outline (like black) around them. Is it possible to create something like a zigzag outline effect?
The second one is about contours. I can let them fade more or less into another, but I miss something like a spatter transition, where two contoures create little isles of each others colour at their boarders. Is it possible to do that with CC3+?
I tried to find examples for both effects to make them more clear. You can see the spatter transition between the green grass tones in the image (I would like to have much more spatters though) and the zigzag at the road (which is rather big on that map, I know):
At the moment I'm wondering if it is possible to create something similar to two effects (or styles) I've seen somewhere. The first one is about the borders of a landmass for example. So far I can fade them out or create a hard outline (like black) around them. Is it possible to create something like a zigzag outline effect?
The second one is about contours. I can let them fade more or less into another, but I miss something like a spatter transition, where two contoures create little isles of each others colour at their boarders. Is it possible to do that with CC3+?
I tried to find examples for both effects to make them more clear. You can see the spatter transition between the green grass tones in the image (I would like to have much more spatters though) and the zigzag at the road (which is rather big on that map, I know):
Comments
You should be able to create such things, but not with effects.
To create a zig-zag line like that, you'll need to apply fractalization to the line. I am not sure what settings exactly, you'll probably need to experiment a bit, but if you start from a straight line, you probably need both a high depth and strength.
To create the splatter effect, you will have to make small polygons of the relevant fill. Make sure not to make them too small though, especially if you are using edge fade, as they will simply disappear. You might consider putting them on a separate sheet so you can manage their effects seperately. Obviously, for a lot of splatters, this would be quite a bit of manual work though.
The software is vast in its capabilities, so I would never say that what I suggest is the only way, but if I was attempting to emulate this effect I would be tempted to add a new sheet called something like DETAIL SHADOWS (sheet names are usually upper case), and draw this spatter pattern by hand (or tablet) using the freehand drawing tool and then converting the lines to polys by right clicking the fractalize tool and picking path to poly from the dropdown list.
I would also add a transparency effect to the DETAIL SHADOWS sheet, and optionally experiment with a tiny amount of blur to take out the hard edges.
There may be a much easier way to get this affect. I am only telling you how I would do it
EDIT: ninja'd by Monsen! LOL!
Some time ago I did a PS style map that was also posted at Cartographer's Guild at higher resolution.. On that map I used simple lines of various different widths, instead of polygons, to generate the mist in the distance and draw the fine lines of shade on the shaded side of the valley.
The mist sheet had a really heavy blur effect.
The detail shadow lines on the mountains only had a transparency effect on them.
You could draw very short lines with the freehand tool with the line width set to anything above zero, and get the same effect a bit quicker than having to draw actual polygons