Many gamers use some kind of digital solution such as virtual table-top software to display maps on a projector or computer screen even when running a local game (as opposed to running a game over the internet, where such software is pretty much required). All of these software solutions have their advantages and disadvantages, but  CC3+ itself may actually be a very good solution, depending on your needs. Now, just to start with the limitations, CC3+ don’t have any kind of remote viewing/projecting options, so this do require that you share the screen you are actually working on (This can be a secondary screen/projector that is set up to mirror yours, or it can be done through screen sharing software, which allow others to see your screen even over the internet).

So, why would you use CC3+ for this? What advantages does it have over other VTT software? Well, the main reason CC3+ is good for this is that this is where you made your map in the first place. This means that the map is fully interactive, and you have all your regular CC3+ tools available to you to manipulate the map during play. If you export the map from CC3+ to an image file for use in a VTT program, then everything becomes static. In CC3+ you can hide or show sheets and layers, you can move symbols and edit whatever you need to do.

Of course, CC3+ isn’t optimized for use during play, while a VTT program is made just for that purpose, so some things are probably a bit more complicated to do in CC3+, so it is up to you if the flexibility CC3+ offer with regards to what you can do with your map during game play is worth it. For this article, I’ll showcase a few features of CC3+ that helps you during play.

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Usually we make a map in CC3+, and when done, we export it to an image or print it, turning it into a static thing. This is required when we wish to use the map outside of CC3+, but it also takes away many fun things we can do with the map.
CC3+ does allow us to make really dynamic maps however, maps that change based on triggers in the map. I’ve already talked about a simple version of this in the article on Showing and Hiding Map Features, but let us take this much further and make a map with a large selection of interactive elements.

Now, before reading any further, I strongly suggest that you download the example map and give it a good try before reading further (requires DD3). Another much simpler example shows moving lights (Works without DD3).

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Did you know that CC3+ (including all addons) contains over 1000 commands in total? And that new ones gets added with just about every update?

Today, we’ll have a quick look at two of the somewhat more recent commands; Select nearby symbols and Delete nearby symbols. Both these commands are intended to help you manipulate symbols that are near another entity. This can for example help you clean up symbols that are too near a river, or help you select all the houses along your main street, for example so you can change their varicolor.

Below is an example of a forest with a river running through it. On the left image, the trees are obstructing the river, while on the left one, Delete nearby symbols have been run to automatically delete the trees near the river.

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In CC3+, drawing tools are great timesavers. The basic functionality of a drawing tool is that it works as a preset that contains all the various settings required, such as line style, fill style, line width, color, sheet and layer so that when you draw using a drawing tool you don’t have to go around setting all of these manually like we did in the good old days. Drawing tools also have some built-in nice features like being able to draw two separate entities at once, being able to stay within the map border, and the option to easily edit an existing shape.

However, there is another very important feature that exists for drawing tools, and that is to attach macros to them. A drawing tool can contain an embedded macro which follow the tool and isn’t dependent on your main CC3+ macro file and can contain macros that work in tandem with what you draw using the tool, or even functionality that isn’t connected to drawing at all. Today, we’ll look at how to create these tools and have a brief look at how they can make things easier for us.

Drawing with Macros

If you have been making overland maps, you’ll probably familiar with the forest drawing tools. If you pay attention when you use them, you’ll note that they ask you to draw a smooth shape, and then fills this shape with trees after you are done drawing it. This is a macro drawing tool at work. What happens is that the tool itself is only set up to draw that forest background, but it also contain a macro that gets called when you are done drawing that calls the Fill With Symbols command to fill the area you just drew with trees. Let us make a similar macro that uses the Symbols in Area command instead. I won’t go into detail about Symbols in Area here, since this is about making a macro tool that uses the command, rather than explain the command itself, but if you need a refresher for the command, you can look at this article.

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Back in update 15, CC3+ introduced a set of exclusion commands. These commands are variations of the various symbol fill commands where you can specify an exclusion zone, a part of the entity to fill that should not be filled. For example, this can be used to have the forest fill avoid the river running through the forest.

Let us start with this simple map (100×80) showing a river running through the forest. The forest area has already been outlined using the Forest Background drawing tool. Note that the forest area is drawn using a single polygon, it is not split into individual polygons at each side of the river. For this simple example, that wouldn’t have been to much more work, but for a larger area with multiple roads, rivers, lakes and other obstructions, this is a far simpler method. Continue reading »

CC3+ comes with a bunch of fills, and with the official and un-official add-ons out there, you have a large amount of different fills available to you. But no matter how many fills you have, you always find yourself needing something you don’t have (or is that just me?).

In this article, we’ll take a look at some ways to get more out of your existing fills. We’ll look at using effects, layering fills, and manipulating fill scale, all in the name of producing more variety for our maps.

Note that all the techniques here uses the resources already in the map, which means you can still share your map file with others without them getting red X’es due to custom fills.

All images in this article are clickable to see larger versions. This is recommended to see the details properly.

Changing Colors

Both the ‘Adjust Hue/Saturation’ and ‘RGB Matrix Process’ effects are capable of changing the color of a fill style. You can utilize these effects to change the colors to achieve different goals. For example, you can use them to make subtly different shades of grass to break monotony, or you can use them to completely change the color of the grass, for example to make it look more brownish and dried up.

The image below shows how I’ve used the RGB Matrix Process effect to make an autumn version and a dried-up version of the standard Mike Schley style farmlands. A little color change goes a long way to provide a completely different visual look.

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A map in itself conveys a lot of useful information. It shows you the lay of the land, the location of terrain features, the names of various locations, and so on. But you often have lots of additional information that doesn’t fit on the map itself, such as GM-only information about the traps in the dungeon, lore information about the different places, statistics, and so on. All of this is things you may wish to have at your fingertips when using the map. So, let us explore various ways you can easily provide extra information with a map.

Map Notes

CC3+ has a built-in system for storing notes along with your map. These are not visible in the map itself, but embedded in the map file, and can be brought up when needed.

To access the list of map notes, either click the Map Notes button on the toolbar, or select Drawing Properties from the File menu and then hit the Map Notes button in the dialog. This will bring up a dialog showing the list of all map notes for this map. From here, you can select any map note and click OK to show that map note, or you can hit edit to change it. You can also create new map notes from here. Continue reading »

One of the more common questions from CC3+ users is about how to extract a region from a large-scale map and develop this region as a more detailed local map.

The basics for doing this is already explained in the User Manual that comes with CC3+, but for this article, I am going to go a bit more into detail and explain the various tools and processes involved in doing this.

The basic principles behind this operation is to create a new map of the desired size, then copy over the entities from the existing map, trim down these entities to fit the new map size, and finally add additional detail to the new local map. Let us explore the tools and procedure for doing this.

The main tools you’ll need for doing this is Clipboard Copy, Trace, Break and Split, as well as some minor Node Editing.

Let us get started. For this article, I’ll use the example map from the User Manual. You’ll find this map in @Tutorials\UserManual\Example.fcw (remember that the @-sign refers to your CC3+ data directory). My goal is to take the area marked with the red rectangle and develop that into a local map of that area. The marked area here is 30 by 20 miles.

Note that all images in this tutorial are clickable to see higher resolution versions to more easily see what the text describes.

If you are new to this, I also highly recommend loading up the same tutorial map I use and try to follow along with this tutorial, exporting the same area, rather than try directly on your own map. Following along on this map lets you more easily see that things happens the way I describe them, and lets you build familiarity with the tools before starting on your own map.

There is also a video accompanying this article, showing me perform the steps described herein. Note that this video is not intended as a stand-alone video tutorial, but rather as a visual aid to help you see how things are supposed to work. You do not need to watch the video to take full advantage of this article, it is completely optional.

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When you make a map, you may desire to have different kinds of views for it. For example, if you make a floorplan, you may wish to be able to see the roof of the house too, or if you make a dungeon map, you don’t want to show your players the version that also includes all the traps.

For this article, we’ll see how we can easily make features in our maps togglable. As an example, I will take a small building from CD3 and make a floorplan from it, and then add a togglable roof and trap.

I start by picking the building symbol I want to use as a base. After that, I start a new dungeon map, and simply use the dungeon room/wall/floor tools to draw the floorplan on top of the building I just inserted to make it match the building shape (I could also have used the automatic floorplan generator from CD3 to make this based on the outline).

Once I am happy with the floorplan, I simply make a new sheet to hold the building symbol, naming it ROOF. Then I move the building symbol to this new sheet, and finally hide the sheet since I don’t want to see the roof as I am working on the floorplan.

Next, I draw the floorplan. For my trap, I place a pit trap just behind the door, and then cover it up with a carpet.

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In CC3+, you can make maps in many styles. Out of the box, CC3+ comes with at least 6 different overland styles, as well as a simple dungeon and city style. Depending on what style you choose, your map will look very different visually.

You’ve probably already learned that some styles are just better for some types of maps, and that is indeed one of the points with the different styles, to provide good options for many different kind of maps, but also to provide variety.

Of course, even if CC3+ comes with many styles, and many more are added if you own the various add-ons, symbol sets and annuals, part of the great flexibility of CC3+ is the ability to customize it to your needs, and one of the things you can do in that regard is to create new styles or customize existing ones to fit your needs. So, let us have a look at what a style really is, and what elements make up a style.

This article will provide a detailed overview of the process of creating your own style, but it does assume some familiarity with some of the processes

Elements of a style

Each style is made up from the following elements, all of which should be familiar to you already.

• Bitmap Fills: Almost all styles need fills, and unless you are designing a vector style, these will be bitmap fills. Fills are a very prominent part of any style and are a major factor in setting the visual look of the style.
• Symbols: While you can make a map without using symbols, most maps do use them. Symbols are usually designed to match the fills of the style.
• Drawing Tools: These tools are set up to draw various shapes, such as landmasses and terrain, using the fill styles defined for the style.
• Effects: All styles have their own unique set of effects, tailored to that style of map.
• Template: The template is the glue that brings all these elements together. Bitmap fills are referenced from the template, macros load the correct symbol settings, the correct set of drawing tools is set as a property in the template, and effects are embedded in the template, ready to activate.

Note that almost all styles have all the elements above, but they can be shared among several styles. For example, both the bitmap styles in SS3 uses the same bitmap fills, but they have their own unique set of symbols. You can also make a style that collects multiple styles into one.

Let us dig into these elements and see how to make them

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