Ah well, you see, Remy told me that one ;)

My initial ideas were completely wrong when I checked with him.

Thanks @Monsen :D

Yes, nobody knows how long it takes to do one of these beasts until they do it themselves. The problem is that clients asking for city maps are never going to know what's involved, so city maps seem to them to be unreasonably expensive.

But it's looking good. I'm glad you decided to go with this style. It's good and clear :)

Alternative to Julian's suggestion, and if that doesn't work, try making the farmland texture smaller, so that more of the detail shows in each patch of farmland.

Well, either could work.

I think the secret is to try both and pick the one you like best.

That looks better - without all those stripy light bits in the shadow :)

Hi Fersus :)

There are shadow sheet effects that should achieve what you describe. Try hiding that drawn shadow sheet and instead adding a Wall Shadow, Directional sheet effect to the sheet with the trees and then editing it to check the drop shadow option in that effect.

I've done several water effects, both in sheet effects and symbols in different styles. The greatest number of them are in Marine Dungeon, but there are some in Darklands City. I can't be sure which you mean.

You can make drop shadows that behave according to the global sun by checking the 'Draw as drop shadow' box in a Wall Shadow, Directional sheet effect.

Oh I see!

It is rather complicated isn't it.

I think that if I were trying to do what you are trying to do I might massively simplify everything by dropping all those really complicated sheet effects, getting rid of all the Color Keys and so on, and just using a tracing of the visible trees in solid black (use TRACED to trace the symbols) on a separate sheet, and then adding just two sheet effects to that single shadow sheet - a blur, and a Blend Mode set to 15% opacity and Multiply.

I'd have to move everything on that sheet collectively away from the sun to actually 'cast' the shadows in a direction, but unless I wanted to change the global sun settings I wouldn't need to worry about it once it was done.

I'm sorry it took me so long to grasp the problem. I seem to be having a 'slow thinking' phase right now.

Could it be that the grid is black/white, and the trees have black/white in them? Try a grey.

There doesn't seem to be an EFI effect on that sheet. Maybe ok that RGB Matrix Process and then add one?

Nice use of the fire symbols :)