I have been experimenting with three different approaches of taking a portion of a world designed in Fractal Terrains and then expanded upon in CC3+. All three of these experiments export the same view in FT.

The portion of the world I practiced on is an equatorial island nation called the Republic of Lumadair. The coastline is 10,099 miles long, with a length of about 2,000 miles long, depending where you measure from. (For reference, Australia has a mainland coastline (excluding islands) of 22,258 miles.)

Here's what it looks like from Fractal Terrains:

Approach 1: Parchment Maps

As previewed in a separate thread, this was my attempt to render it in the Parchment Maps style from the February annual using a technique that Ralf demonstrated in this video. It's scant on details -- the kind of map my players might find in old ruins somewhere giving them a clue where to continue their adventures.

Approach 2: Jerion Shading

This approach, also previewed in another thread, using the technique in this demo from Ralf to take the Jerion style and add beveling effects to some of the contours to create shading effects. I added cities and major towns (and a few magical places) but only named the major bodies of water and the two close continents.

Approach 3: Mike Schley Style

This approach exports the same land mass into the Schley style (which I only recently discovered was an option in FT), then added some contours brought in from the Jerion style. This is the slowest-to-render map I've ever done due to some techniques (and lessons learned) that I will describe later in this thread.

I just love the versality here -- I can have identical coastlines for all three maps, but they all have different looks and vibes.

You've done a great job keeping things tight and clean, where the walls everywhere are all proportionally distanced from the canals, and so are the pipes. That's the part I'm still trying to get the hang of -- half the time when my connecting wall or pipe turns a corner, it's not the same distance from the canal as it was around the bend. This map is nicely done. Not that it changes anything, but this is meant for a more modern sewer system (judging from the fact that there's a parking lot)? Are the rooms in the upper right with pipes coming from below meant to be bathrooms?

Here are two samples with the full range of Solid Bitmaps 10 through 90, plus a solid black polygon. The first is Sue's first suggestion and the second adds her second tip.

Edge Fade, Inner - Edge Width 2.5, Inner Opacity 80, Outer Opacity 25

Edge Fade, Inner - Edge Width 2.5, Inner Opacity 80, Outer Opacity 25 plus Glow Radius bumped to 0.5

I think bumping the Glow radius to 0.5 is nice. And these are working nicely, so I don't think I will try importing other water fills to see if any of them work. I'm leaning towards Solid 90 because for my poor eyes at least, I really have to zoom in on the pure solid one to see the stonework behind the water.

Thank you for your help, Sue! Looking forward to plotting out my main city's sanitation system over the next few weeks. Sewers make for such great adventure options -- emergency exits when you're being besieged, or for plotting out heists. I imagine a lot of crime lords dump a lot of evidence (and bodies) in the sewers...

Hmmm, I'm not seeing much of a difference, but there's some glare on my screen at the moment. Here they are:

First Edge Fade off, second one on

First Edge Fade on, second one off

Both Edge Fades off

And here's the FCW file:

On today's Live demo, which was about Sinister Sewers, I asked for recommendations for what to use as a fill style for pure water uncontaminated with sewage (such as water runoff from storm drains). I had been using Effluent 05, but on another Water sheet with a transparency effect. Sue recommended trying one of the Bitmap Solid fill styles.

Here's a practice attempt, with the five effluent fills above and then five on the solid bitmaps below (from Solid 10 Bitmap through Solid 50). The five below are on a Water 2 sheet in case anyone recommends effects different than the regular Water sheet. Right now, I put the same effects on Water 2.

I am leaning towards Solid 40 Bitmap for storm drain runoff (since that water will have dirt and other impurities), and maybe something like Solid 20 Bitmap for pure water (for example, if dwarves are using this technology for a subterranean aqueduct).

Thoughts? (If this is too difficult to see here, I can post it in my Gallery if that has a better resolution.)