The orc structures look great too, and that volcano's virtually real. That's very much the classic fire-fountain!

I wanted to add my thanks also to PF and JimP for providing the prizes here.

I also wanted to add that though it was my good fortune to be awarded the 500th Atlas map thanks to the random draw, the Atlas wouldn't have reached this milestone without the input from large numbers of other people, many of whom have contributed far more to the Atlas project overall than myself (with a special mention for Remy Monsen as not simply being a mapping contributor, but for the huge amount of work he's put in to setting up and maintaining the entire Atlas website as well). It really is and has been a Community enterprise throughout. I hope those here new to the Atlas, as well as those who've already submitted any maps to it, will feel inspired to keep on contributing towards the next 500 maps and beyond!

Congratulations everyone! Some very fine efforts here indeed, and worthy winners all in the voted-for categories.

About time for another update, I think. It's been a bit of a battle over recent days with others of the upper levels for this fortress, however, and I seem to have to keep going back and forth between maps to make amendments on those just "finished" still. I also wanted to put a grid on the areas belonging to each level, but that's proven difficult too, trying to get to something which is legible, yet not too off-putting. This is the Ground Level map again (as above), but with its grid:

The main snag is getting something that doesn't just vanish into part of the background floor texture. I've tried different glow colours, and grid colours, and this is about the "best" I've managed so far. I decided too to give the option of a whole-map grid as an alternative, but at a 10-foot square scaling, although that's just in the ordinary map-grid fill styling:

Here too, it's obvious this works better in some places than others. Overall, I've come to think that leaving things as they are, and giving Atlas users the option to toggle either grid on or off, leaving the grids themselves as items which can be adjusted in the FCW file should anyone wish to try, is perhaps the better option.

Better have something fresh now. This is the next level up, imaginatively called the First Level:

Each vertical level is about ten feet high, three metres or so. The courtyard buildings are essentially lean-to structures, using the stone castle walls as their higher "back" wall as far as the roof slopes are concerned, so rainwater drains off only into the courtyard. As promised, there are also some Cos3 symbols scattered about in places here as well. Each old arrow slit in the walls has its own wooden hinged shutter inside, to theoretically keep out draughts. I felt leaving them ajar, like all the door symbols, helps make these features stand out a little better. And as many here may likely guess, the fading of everything below the current level was achieved simply with a white cover for the whole map fitted with a high Transparency Effect. Terrifying to open the file and find it's mostly blank without the Effects active, of course!

Onwards and upwards, the Second Level:

None of the courtyard buildings have more than two storeys, so are roofs only from here on up. However, we also have the first open-air walkways along the top of the main castle walls now, and as you'll see, I've added a deliberately heavier dark glow around these "outdoor" elements to help separate them from those places that are still enclosed. It was a little tricky to work out how best to do this, as the shadows from the various different Sheet elements sometimes don't work to best advantage in such circumstances (when you really want them to be able to go under OR over some things they're adjacent to at times!). A few more Cos3 symbols here as well.

The Winch Room (3) is a bit complex, as the drawbridge winch cables have always had to drop vertically from the next level up to the roller shown here (or its older version, anyway - this one's a bit more high-magic-tech), and then out through the holes in the wall. All so as not to snag the old system for raising and lowering the portcullis. That's been simplified to a pair of devices worked by electrickery now though, that only need fastening to the side walls! There are classic "murder holes" in the floor of the Winch Room too, to allow shooting down onto any foes that have got as far as into the Gatehouse beneath it, and that's an especially long ladder on its south wall, as it goes up through the suspended ceiling of said Winch Room, and on up to the tower roof on the Fourth Level.

Plus a handy Jon Roberts style gargoyle/statue for the parapet. There are more of these to come. Wyverns might have been better, but I haven't managed to find any suitable as statues in a compatible style till now.

Two more upper levels to finish, and then the underground...

You could certainly use the technique I suggested to make any existing pictorial city symbols look underwater too, with a transparent small polygon waving across part of the symbol, say, or blurring the whole symbol a little (though the Blur Effect, if used extensively on a map, can slow down redraw times, unfortunately), or a mixture of the two. If it's in shallower waters (less than circa 200 metres/660 feet of seawater, generally speaking for Earth; maximum sunlight penetration limit), you could add a few wobbly green lines to represent photosynthetic undersea organisms in a similar way alongside and over parts of the symbol as well.

Fully second Jim's point about us all always learning. The CC3+ program suite is vast in what it can achieve, and it's impossible to be aware of even many aspects of it, let alone all of them, especially as there are usually multiple ways to achieve something using it.