When I saw your samples farther above, my first reaction was that I probably could do most of that in FM8 and maybe in CC3+ too, without Cosmographer. With CC3+, I'm not quite certain (I haven't been into the necessary mapping areas of CC3+), but with FM8, no problem, providing the following free add-ins have been installed:
CSUAC
Dundjinni Archives
Vintyri Cartographoic Collection
The sample map below uses objects from all three add-ins.
Seeing that you're looking at making your first shot with FM8 + AS, the CC3+ issue isn't pressing at the moment.
I spent about half an hour this morning seeing what the possibilities are, because I've never tried to make the kind of map you showed us before.
I started with the map of the Mos-Eisley-type settlement, duplicating the basic terrain and road layout. I didn't like the blandness of the original, so I chose more colorful sand textures. But that's not necessary:
Sci-Fi Sample.jpg
Anyone who wants to open this map in FM8 to see how things were made can download the original file here:
https://www.vintyri.org/downloads/sample_sci_fi.zip
After that, I tried to duplicate some elements of the "Mos Eisley" map on the left hand side of the test map. The original was hand-drawn and somewhat irregular in shape, so my duplicate also is a bit irregular. If this was a serious map rather than a test map, I would not have left things that way. In the rest of the map, I tried to create things in somewhat of the style used in other samples that you showed.
Please understand that this is a quick-and-dirty test to determine what can be done with FM8 (and probably also with CC3+) rather than a demonstration of what FM8 can do. If I had been making a serious map, things would have looked much better. There would be much more detail, special effects would be applied, etc. Shadowing is the only special effect in this map.
Also ... and maybe this is a bit of advice too ... I would not make new buildings on the spot in the map but rather make them in a separate FM8 session, memorize them as symbols and then take them from the symbol catalog into the map. That would take a minute's more time than making the buildings directly in the map, and gives you the advantage of being able to use the building symbol in other maps.
A further advantage: If you switch later to CC3+, you can import all of the homemade symbols that you created with FM8 directly into CC3+.
How does one do that?
When one starts with FM8, I strongly urge new users to work their way through the two (free) FM8 PDF manuals. The first or basic manual concentrates upon vector topics. The second manual then goes on to raster (bitmap) cartography. However, the lessons learned in the first tutorial are absolutely necessary to understand the second, advanced manual.
Plan on spending about a week in your free time working your way through the two manuals. Once you've done that, you'll be an FM8 master mapper. The program has a mild and easy learning curve.
You can download the first, basic manual here:
https://www.nbos.com/nox/index.php?action=1001&id=125
The second, advanced raster mapping manual is here:
https://www.vintyri.org/downloads/pdftu01.zip
Note that new versions of both manuals will be released for the pending 64-bit version of FM9.
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