Hi Dean,

The color indicates the type of vegetation on the terrain. GReen for normal forest, brown for alpine vegetation. I still working on the colors. The different tones of color indicate elevation. Which will become clearer when i had some kind of legend.
Your comment on the water color is noted.

The effect on the text is effectivelly the glow effect. You can adjust these parameters. I thinkered a lot to get what i wanted exactly.

This map is not yet finished though. I got some very good new ideas after looking a a tool for ARCGIS call spatial analyst. I got to find a way to implement that in my map.

PAt