Remy did a two part video tutorial about this several years ago own his own channel if you want a bit more: Part 1 and Part 2.

Separate entrance for privacy makes sense.

I have done maps where I have discovered that I forgot to put in entrances to certain rooms. (My Sea Elves Outpost had three rooms with that problem!) Fortunately, the Color Key effect can solve that problem. If you look at the Outpost on the Atlas, you’d never know which rooms had forgotten doorways (until you turn off sheet effects, that is.)

Hi Ryan,

Welcome! I see that your hometown was chosen as the inspiration for Mayberry because it was where Andy Griffith grew up. Very cool.

I also started with Fractal Terrains. It took me a while to get my head around how FT and CC3 do and do not interact with one another. I finally started watching some of the older tutorials, and it was watching Joe Sweeney's that Ricko recommends above where things really start to click for me. Before that, I was trying to teach myself using the PDFs and I wasn't really absorbing it.

Joe Sweeney has some videos that show how to use Fractal Terrains, and here are some more from ProFantasy from a few years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuhB_LXr3Sg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khNR-BBPSRo

There are some others that show how to take what you've built in Fractal Terrains and then elaborate on them in CC3. They're a bit advanced, though, but if you want to take a peek, here is one from early 2024:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd78fcQc1YA

(The beginning covers taking part of a continent from FT to CC3.)

But don't get intimidated if it seems like a lot. I started with Joe Sweeney's, then watched some of Remy Monsen's that were about specific techniques and tools, and then graduated to the ProFantasy's "Live" sessions. The Lives are great, and I always learn something new from every one, but you never know (unless it's the main focus on the session) what techniques you'll learn from them. I'd recommend getting a good foundation from the other videos first.

And also, this forum is very welcoming, and we are all happy to answer any questions you have.

On Ralf's 2025 Ancient Realms Revisited tutorial this morning, there was discussion about using the Color Key rivers tool (where a magenta river is placed on the LAND sheet, cutting through the land to reveal the sea below). It was mentioned that the terrain sheets have to go over the land, and that means that you have to draw terrain around the rivers or using the regular rivers fill instead of the cutout.

I tried to do an experiment. On the left, I drew blue rivers over a swampy terrain. Not bad, but you do have to connect it properly to the coast for it to look right. But then on the right, I tried a different approach. I used the Color Key Cutout rivers on the land. Then I drew a swamp over it. Then I added the COLOR KEY effect to the LAND FEATURES (SWAMP) sheet (moving it to be the first effect), and then copied my magenta rivers to that sheet as well.

Both work well but I really like how the river pops in the swamp on the right. Quenten's CC4 wishlist idea in the chat of allowing color cutouts to cut through multiple sheets is a great idea, but in the meantime, copying the cutout to multiple sheets seems to work well.

One thing I use layers for is to simultaneously reveal or hide things that because of different sheet effects need to be on different sheets. I once designed a five-level sewer system with each level of the sewers involving multiple sheets on a single layer for each level. Or a mountaintop covering a dungeon that can be hidden or revealed with a single layer.