Roads & Rivers Network

Creating roads, trade routes, trails, and waterways is a breeze with Lidarion’s integrated vector path engine. Paths seamlessly snap to hex centers and edges, creating natural travel networks that integrate with your terrain.

1. Entering Roads & Rivers Mode

To start drawing travel routes and waterways:

  1. Select the Roads & Rivers layer () at the top of the Studio palette.
  2. The tools palette switches into Path Mode, presenting options for Roads () and Rivers ().

2. Drawing Roads

Lidarion renders roads with a specialized, stylized dotted travel trail aesthetic that complements fantasy cartography:

  • How to Draw:
    • Select Roads.
    • Click on your starting hex and drag your mouse across adjacent hexes.
    • As your cursor moves across hexes, clean dotted path segments automatically connect between adjacent hex centers.
  • Line Width Presets:
    • Choose from 5 stepped thickness levels (Level 1 to Level 5, ranging from fine footpaths to broad imperial highways).
  • Color Palette & Presets:
    • Select from built-in road color presets (like parchment bone #FAF6EE, dirt brown, or stone grey), or click the color picker to define any custom color.

3. Drawing Rivers

Rivers in Lidarion feature an advanced dual-layer vector shader that creates a natural flowing waterway with soft shoreline banks:

  • Dual-Layer Rendering:
    • Core River Stream: A solid, vibrant blue waterway following the path center.
    • Soft Shoreline Bank: An automatic 3px translucent outer water transition that blends gently into the adjacent terrain hextiles.
  • How to Draw:
    • Select Rivers.
    • Click on the mountain or lake source hex and drag downstream toward the coast.
    • Winding river bends snap cleanly to the hexagonal geometry.
  • River Width Presets:
    • Adjust between stepped widths (from narrow mountain streams to wide navigable rivers).

4. Editing & Erasing Path Segments

  • Erasing Connections with Drag:
    • Select the Eraser tool ().
    • Click and drag across the path segment you wish to remove. Only the traversed connection is deleted.
  • Single-Click Hex Intersection Clearing:
    • Clicking directly on a single hex with the Eraser tool removes all incoming and outgoing connections meeting at that hex.
  • Layer Isolation:
    • Erasing roads or rivers will never damage or erase the terrain or object tiles underneath!
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