Software required:
Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus (CC3+) with the City Designer 3 (CD3) add-on
A bitmap editor (The GIMP v 2.10 is used in this tutorial, but any editor will suffice)

You can download a zip folder of the three files that comprise the template for this tutorial called
“House Builder (basic)” used in this tutorial from here.

Download part 1 of “Making New Houses in CC3+” in pdf-format.

How CD3 house symbols work

Whenever we paste a house symbol into a map what we are actually pasting is a very flat image that probably looks a lot like this one.

CD3 symbols do not have roof shading. There are no ‘dark sides’ or ‘light sides’ in these flat-packed roof images, yet they appear on the map fully shaded the instant the symbol is pasted in the CC3 environment. So how is this happening?

CC3+ obtains information about the pitch and facing direction for each part of the roof by reading the colour coded message in a second file stored in the same location as the image, but which is never shown in the CC3+ environment. This second file has the same name as the image file, but with a “_map” suffix.

We need to make both types of file for our new house symbol, so to distinguish between them I will call them the image file and the map file respectively.

And here (below) is the symbol House 01 arranged in CC3 to show how the shading changes with the rotation of the building – all calculated by CC3 using the information contained in the map file, and adjusted to take account of the global sun setting and the rotation of the symbol.

Continue reading »

We are happy to announce the full release of the “Token Treasury: Monsters“, our first release in a line supporting virtual tabletop software with ready-to-use artwork.

The Token Treasury line gives you a huge selection of creatures and characters to populate your maps, with frames and varicolor backgrounds to customise your virtual tabletop tokens. The art is available as CC3+ symbols and as PNG files for any graphics package such as Photoshop and GIMP. The Token Treasury is designed for use with any virtual table top software such as roll20, Battlegrounds, d20pro and Fantasy grounds.

The first release, Token Treasury: Monsters contains 118 creatures drawn by fantasy artist Rich Longmore, in rectangular and circular forms, as well as a set of token frames for depicting the creatures role in combat for your fantasy maps.

Token Treasury: Monsters can now be ordered from the ProFantasy store. If you purchased Token Treasury Monster as a pre-release, the full setup files are now available from your registration page.

The full feature list includes:

• More than 750 tokens, consisting of 118 creatures and 24 frames in various configurations, for immediate use in any graphics software such as Photoshop or GIMP.
• Ready for use in virtual table top (VTT) application such as roll20, d20pro, Battlegrounds and Fantasy Grounds.
• Frames for melee, ranged, magic and bosses to denote the creature’s role in combat.
• A guide introducing you to the Token Treasury both within CC3+ and in other applications.
• More than 500 symbols for use in CC3+ including the 118 creatures and 24 frames in 4 symbol catalogs, and templates and drawing styles for creating more token combinations.
• If you own CC3+, TT:M also installs symbol catalogs, templates and drawing tools. Create custom tokens with varicolour backgrounds and add your own frames. Mirror the symbols to add variations.

This is the full list of creatures. Normal creatures are 300 x 300 pixels, large creatures are 600 x 600 pixels, and huge creatures are 600 x 900 pixels.

The Town of Corvallen has gone through a number of iterations in its role as a model for the “Isometric Town” style of the February Annual issue.

In addition to seeing the final version in the now-available Annual, you can now read up on Sue Daniel’s method of constructing the map, as well as all the small adjustments she did to make the map the work of art it is.

Check out the article “The Making of Corvallen” in pdf format.

In February’s Annual we are looking at city mapping once more, but with a twist: The Annual issue contains an isometric style that Sue Daniel has created by building house models in SketchUp and exporting them as CC3+ symbols.

Created as full 3D models the symbols are based on real-world Tudor-style houses and fit together seamlessly at various angles, allowing you to create streets lined by adjoining houses. resulting in a beautiful and evocative, three-dimensional view of the settlement.

If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to the Annual 2019 here. If you are already subscribed, the February issue will be available for download on your registration page on the first of February.

Dear map-makers! Welcome to the first newsletter of 2019 and a new year of fantastic mapping. We have the latest Annual for you, very useful articles by Remy Monsen

News

• The Annual Vol. 13 (2019) has started and is available for subscription. The January issue can be downloaded from the registration page.
• Update 21 for CC3+ is available, fixing a long-nagging problem with cache use

Resources

• Get inspiration from more beautiful user creations in the Maps of the Month.
• Remy explains two very useful recent additions to the list of CC3+’s commands: Select nearby symbols and Delete nearby symbols.
• Another article by Remy Monsen looks at how to integrate macros with the drawing tools that CC3+ allows you to create for every style.

Articles

• Jay Johnson finishes his tutorial on how to create awesome cities with CC3+ and City Designer.
• Jens Fuhrberg continues the WIP report on his “Call of the Warlock” map.

A new version of CC3+ is available now, fixing a few nagging bugs and enabling some text specs for macro access.

Version Notes

CC3+ Version 3.90
=================
– Fixed problem with CC3+ crashing when running out of cache. Should increase stability significantly.
– Fixed Symbol Set 1 forest tools breaking selection method
– Enabled Outline and Fixed Angle flags for TSPECS command
– Text no longer renders as ClearType, instead renders as aliased glyphs, removing halos with effects.

Download this latest update from your registration page.

Welcome to a new year of user map’s from the Profantasy community. We spotted the following this month or at the end of last year and hope they inspire you to create your own great maps with CC3+!

The coastlines for Richard T Drake‘s beautiful map were created in Fractal Terrains 3, imported into CC3+ and then completed using an amalgam of the Herwin Wielink and Jon Roberts styles.
Continue reading »

Part III: The Warlock’s Castle and the Crater of Ghorm

Before I come to the next two symbols I need to explain a bit about the background story of RdW, especially about why its name is ‘Call of the Warlock’:

In the beginning of the world of Tanaris the eight gods didn’t interfere into the things of the humans, elves etc., but one day the god Thongmor started playing around in the world and the other gods had to react. As they didn’t want to counter Thongmor’s action personally, they created the Warlock. This is a person with godlike abilities, immortal and invulnerable, his task was to fight against Thongmor. Over the years, with changing Warlocks and with the beginning of the war of the gods, the initial task of the Warlock was forgotten and now he is an independent entity.

But as the gods didn’t want to create another god, they gave him one ‘weakness’. They created the Swordmasters, a group of people with outstanding abilities in swordfighting, who always know where the Warlock is, they always hear the ‘call of the Warlock’. If one of them fights the Warlock and defeats him in a duel (this is the only situation where a warlock can die), the winning Swordmaster will become the next Warlock.

The Swordmaster is a Player Class, which means a player can become Warlock. Unfortunately the requirements for playing a Swordmaster are so hard (while creating a character you have to role dice epic…), no one in my group ever played one.

The home of the Warlock is the castle ‘Sign of the times’, which is settled on a mountain range overarching the ‘black lake of buried hopes’ (in the night you can hear the screams of the dead souls of all the Swordmasters who lost their fight against the Warlock). The feature with this castle, mountains and lakes is, that the warlock can teleport this ensemble anywhere he likes. When the map is done, I will see where exactly I will place it:
Continue reading »

We’re continuing Jay Johnson’s City Mapping article with the third and final part.

Adding Details

Little details add a great deal to a map. Look at these two images. The first is with trees and pathways in the courtyards. The second is without them. How much difference do these details make in your opinion? In my opinion, they make a big difference.

Shadows

Another detail you can work on is your shadows. I adjusted the shadow settings on my buildings so they intrude more into the streets. The places where the streets are covered in shadow creates a sense of danger and mystery, don’t you think.

The City’s History

Think about your city’s history and include details that suggest a city that has evolved. Your city should have a nucleus (the original settlement) from which it expanded. Consider how this expansion took place and the different phases through which it occurred. Think about how your city has grown. If there were old walls, roads that ran beside them most likely now mark where they once were. Maybe sections of these walls still stand or roads pass beneath old gates that are located far from what is now the city’s perimeter. What other changes may have occurred as your city grew?

Some More Advanced Techniques

Let’s take a minute to talk about some more advanced techniques I have used. Some that require using other programs in conjunction with CC3+ and its add-ons. Continue reading »

Belated welcome to the Cartographer’s Annual 2019! Why belated you say? Well, the January issue has been available since a few days before the New Year and subscribers have already created maps with the new style!

If you haven’t done so yet, head over to your registration page and download the January issue to try the new “Worlds of Wonder” overland style. It makes use of a great new set of bitmap fills and over 100 symbols to create beautiful worlds, continents and countries. Previews for the February and March issues are also available.

You can subscribe to the Annual 2019 here. If you are already subscribed, the January issue is available for download on your registration page.