[Techniques Question] Heights/Depths

Creators, Players, GMs... How do you go about portraying an 'undulating surface' in your games?  I've been tinkering with a technique for rendering area maps that are dominated by hill terrain.  And I'm wondering how other people do it, if they have examples they would share, and if the GMs and Players would provide feedback one which sorts of methods they like more or find more intuitive to use. So... the version I have been running I think is probably worth calling 'Shadow Gradient'.  Every say 5ft in height change gets a change in the shadow levels, with the highest points unaffected and the lowest are much darker. As in the example below.

That's a nice effect. Conveys the height nicely. Since you requested alternate examples,  here's my isometric approach .

plexsoup said: That's a nice effect. Conveys the height nicely. Since you requested alternate examples,  here's my isometric approach . That distorted Grid stuff, I suspect would be quite a challenge without the right software :P

Depends on what I'm making, a battle map, I usually us a ledge or some sort of over hang, and use its shadow to cast a perception of depth, world/region maps, I use several layers and give them a beveled effect and some opacity, keeping the bottom layer at full opacity. As the layers get higher, I erase (or layer mask) portions around around where I want to create depth, and continue to cut into the previous layers with the beveled and opacityeasing it into what looks like a hill. 

If that makes any sense