Welcome to this design article featuring Coastlines, Rivers and you, the aspiring terrain designer. Many maps feature decent looking terrain but when it comes time to blend that terrain into a waterfront things can get tricky. All too often an otherwise nice map ignores its coastline and rivers, leaving terrain reminiscent of a random map in place. In the last article we discussed how to create basic terrain;now we will examine the transition from that terrain into the water with both a Beach and River.

The various terrains that need to meet the water are far too many to cover in one article, so i choose one of the most classic AoK terrains with an Oak Forest. If you examine the opening picture, you will find a nice forest terrain that is satisfactorily detailed but the coastline and river are quite barren. There are countless viable alternative methods to tackle the issue at hand, so it will be up to you to adapt a solution for your particular terrain situation.

Note that this article will entirely avoid the use of Off Grid Placement, available in both HD Edition and the Userpatch. While this is a fantastic tool its certainly possible to create good terrain without it, and for the purposes of an introductory article to coastline we will focus more on the fundamentals.

Lets take a closer look at the river to start off with.


The first thing that leaps out at me is the unmixed water that the river consists of. Ideally a good river has a mix of water types, and a simple but effective method is simply to run medium and deep water down the center. Use a medium or deep brush to paint a good swathe of medium water, then go trough the middle of that with a tiny brush of deep water. Go back over the water with a tiny brush and work out any imperfections like the straight edged sharp lines that form when single tiles of water are mixed into other water types. Also keep an eye out to break up long, straight edges. Do not be afraid to bring the medium and deep water right up to the shoreline in places if you like it.

While at it, i will address the elevations on the banks. If you came here from the "Terrain Creation for Dummies" article, you may have followed my advice to make the entire map elevation2 so that you can have small depressions and craters easily. We should probably avoid having the riverbank elevation the same height in a straight line. In this case, I well extend the elevation1 from the waters edge slightly into the riverbanks at several key points, while leaving some areas of higher elevation intact near the waters edge.


With just some darker colored water combined with the changes to the height of the bank, the river is looking remarkably better. The edges of the land are still plain and somewhat drab, so next we will extend the terrain mixing from the forest into the riverbank. I used a goodly amount of dirt terrain along with a few patches of sand. I am going to add some shallows terrain to the mix as well, just a few thin sections along the water.


Having done that, it will be time for some bushes, reeds(bamboo) and maybe a few oak trees and one or two flowers or a grass patch. Remember to keep it subtle and limit the amount of flowers and grass patch as much as possible. Less is more. The amount of reeds you put near the water can make it look very swampy, so be sure to use that in moderation as well. Use some plants, craters, sea rocks, and fish to add some final touches of detail while using as few as possible of each.

The finished product of our labors.

Lets move on toward the coastline. Our coast is destitute of interesting terrain, feeling lifeless and bland. There is terrain mixing already in place with multiple grasses with nearby forests but the impression such an untouched coastline creates is bland, unfinished and lifeless, as seen below;


As with the river we should address the issue of the unmixed water. After examining many methods I selected another simple but effective method which is to layer the water in bands going from deep to medium and finally shallow.

The elevations in the picture seem suitable for my purposes, so i will leave them as is. You could try pushing the elevation1 further inland at points and have small rises come out further near the water. I would typically avoid having lots of elevation2 or higher adjacent to the water, but instead keep a flat area nearby of the same elevation. Terrain mixing can be more difficult when working in something between the water and hills when there is no gap to work with.


Here I went with a more chaotic and swirled together mix, but you can certainly go for a cleaner and more separated appearance. Medium water paints well using a tiny brush while the deep water was placed with a small brush. Be sure to carefully examine your water for artificial, straight edges and break them up a bit. Smooth out any spots where a single tile of water creates sharp rendering lines with other the other water types. You can see what I am referencing easily by dragging a tiny brush of water shallow around in an area of deep water.

Now we can move on to the land terrain. For this situation I like to use a beach made out of desert, which will be bordered by dirt1 for a smoother transition into the grass terrain. Some Dirt2\Dirt3 will be helpful as well. I sometimes put a little extra Beach terrain along with the sand. Since we are using dirt1 as a transition materiel into the forested area, I like placing some small dirt patches in the grasslands as well for a more natural transition, so the terrain used to separate the desert\sand from the grass is part of the overall environment and not contained only to the beach area.


Now we should add some detailing. More shrubs and maybe a tree or two along the edge of the elevations where the grass meets the dirt would be good. A few reeds sprinkled along the very edge of the water, a few sea rocks, and perhaps some of the little plants. A few stone mines around a rock or two might be nice. I also added a bit more dirt1 further inland, as I like that terrain quite a bit and wanted some more there.

One last point I would like to cover involves the areas just off the coast. Rocky outcroppings in the water and small islands can create some points of interest in the oceans that can feel somewhat empty. For the purpose of this article, i will be cramming more stuff in one area than you probably would want to do on an actual map, so that you can see more in the example.

To create a small rock outcropping, place cliffs in a north facing wedge, then use the delete button to remove the side pieces. Then put a rock or two nearby, perhaps a sea rock and some vegetation like a flower or fern patch.

A small rocky island or a series of them is another way of spicing up the offshore terrain. For these I like to use some cliff terrain in various tightly woven patterns but you can certainly make islands using normal terrain as well. On these islands i like to place a handful of trees, some rocks, and vegetation. I like to use desert or dirt but you can certainly just match the terrain used to what is used elsewhere on the map as well.

That concludes this article on Coastal Terrain and Rivers. Hope you enjoyed it, and more importantly became inspired on how to make your coasts a positive feature of your scenarios map design.