Last time, we discussed how to do ruined walls in Perspectives 3. In this article, we’ll continue on the ruined perspectives track, and this time I will be looking at how to make battlements.

Battlements have been an important defensive feature of castles and keeps for hundreds of years. The crenelations gave archers on the wall a way to shoot at incoming enemies, while still having ample cover available to them. It would be a real miss if we couldn’t have these important features on our castles. We don’t want our fantasy castles to be too easily overrun, right?

I’ll start by making the actual battlements, and then I’ll turn them into ruins. For this, we will use a very different technique from last time, a technique that can also be applied to all manners of custom objects, not just ruins.

This article is also available as a video, if you prefer that format, or simply need to see me perform some of the steps from the article. Continue reading »

Perspectives 3 is a great add-on. It can be really rewarding to see your building appear in all it’s 3-dimensional glory.

There are some interesting challenges when mapping in the isometric view offered by Perspectives 3 however, and that is based on the fact that while the drawing might look 3-dimensional, it is actually still a flat surface. What Perspective does is to use angles in such a way as to make things appear 3-dimensional when it is not. As long as we can use the premade tools, we don’t have to worry too much about this, but these tools have their limits. For example, they are great for creating a house with, but there aren’t any easy tool to draw a ruined, crumbling wall. And it is a this point we need to start drawing some elements ourselves, and that can get a bit tricky when working in the isometric perspective.

In this article, I’ll discuss how to draw various elements to make a convincing ruin. It is based on the keep I made in this thread.

This article is also available as a video.

Continue reading »

“For the vast majority of users, Dioramas 3 will not be the main reason that they buy CC3+ for. Yet, for those who cannot opt for the ridiculously expensive plastic or resin miniature terrain it is an absolute game-changer, welcoming them to real 3D landscapes. Just make sure that both your printer and your fingers are nimble enough.”

Prolific game reviewer Antonios S. has been busy checking out more ProFantasy and posting his reviews on RPG.net. Check out his impressions of:

• The Cartographer’s Annual Vol 11 (2017),
• Perspectives 3, and
• Dioramas 3.

Two months ago we offered a pre-release of Perspectives 3 to our newsletter recipients and owners of Perspectives Pro. The offer was taken up enthusiastically and people started posting their first maps on the community forum just a few hours later. It also helped us to identify a few bugs, which we were able to fix, and we can now officially release Perspectives 3.

Here are a few images taken from the Profantasy forum of what users have created with Perspectives 3. Click on the images to go to the specific thread.

Tomb of Old King Akhanashen by tonnichiwa

Egyptian Tomb by Shessar (with custom art)

Temple pool by Shessar

Ship’s Landing by tonnichiwa

SciFi Airlock by Dkarr (demonstrates custom textures and symbols)

Custom door and windows by Shessar

Shessar has collected the custom art resources in this thread.

If you have previously installed the pre-release version of Perspectives 3, simply re-download the setup from your registration page and reinstall it. Just make sure you’ve updated CC3+ to the latest version (3.73) before you do. CC3+ Update 7 is available among your CC3+ downloads.

The March Annual is now ready for download and your enjoyment. The Temple of Bones is an isometric dungeon style created by TJ Vandel and meshes seamlessly with earlier work by Herwin Wielink and the upcoming Perspectives 3 (in beta testing right now).

The issue is now available for CC3+ from the registration page for all subscribers. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2016 yet, you can do so here.

With 2016 upon us, we’ve been working hard on Perspectives 3 and it’s in late beta with no significant problems so far. The new Annual is in its second month and our users have once again amazed us with their cartographic talents.

News

• The Cartographer’s Annual 2016 is available for subscription, and you can download the January and February issues immediately, if you do so.
• The Cartographer’s Annual Vol 9 (2015) is now complete and available as a single package from our store. If you are already a subscriber and want the physical box, you can order the media at shipping cost only from your registration page.

Resources

• We’ve made one issue from the Cartographer’s Annual 2015 available as a free download as a sampler.
• The Vintyri Cartographic Collection is awesome resource for your city mapping. It adds hundreds of symbols to City Designer 3, all based on historic medieval towns and buildings architecture.

Articles

• Take a look at what’s on the Cartographer-On-Duty’s desk, including a report on the state of Perspectives 3.
• Check out the December and January collection of user maps from the community forum.

So, where is that Perspectives 3 you are talking about so much, you ask, and rightfully so. The truth is, I was a bit hasty with my previous assessment. We ran into some hiccups with the central Perspectives dialogs and to sort them out before we could move on. The good news is, we’ve now got the beta version out to the testers now. I’m now working on the documentation (Essentials guide and help files), but we might still do a pre-release for alpha users before Perspectives 3 gets its full public release. Watch this space.

You can see in the dialog screenshots (click them for larger versions) that we’ve significantly enlarged the previews for the isometric rooms and buildings. We’ve also simplified the setup. Where in Perspectives Pro you had a separate color setting that combined with Perspective and House settings in a way that could be a bit confusion, now the color settings are built into the others. That became possible because the wall shading is now handled through shaded polygon entities, instead of different colors. That also means that you can adjust lighting and shadows globally on the map, in a similar way to City Designer 3’s roof shading.

Here’s a little preview of the other Perspectives 3 bitmap style, created by Kai-Uwe Wallner. It is based on the artwork for Dungeon Designer 3, and Kai-Uwe did a magnificent job in converting the dungeon artwork by Dave Allsop into 3d objects. Because he created full models of the objects, we were able to create 8 views of each symbols, doubling the number of orientations you can show them on the map.

Here is the Evil Idol symbol from the Statues catalog in its 8 variations:

Apart from Perspectives 3 the Cartographer’s Annual 2016 is now full underway with the Here be Monsters and Empire of the Sun styles available for subscribers. But the coming month needs their attention too. Next month will see an isometric style, compatible with both the Herwin Wielink Isometric Dungeons from the Annual and Perspectives 3 itself. And then we have some historical houses/villas/manors floorplans in the work, as well as a woodcut-style for overland maps.

Also – even if it is hard to believe – the year’s conventions (GenCon in August and Spiel in October) already need attention. GenCon hotel bookings for exhibitors is coming in only a couple weeks, and that is a stressful time, as rooms are becomings increasingly sparse in downtown Indy. For Spiel, we are looking in what kind of anti-harassment policies are in effect at German conventions, a topic that’s not been talked about much here.

With that I leave you with a bit from the current Perspectives example map that is on my screen, a little farm or village scene created mainly with the Isometric House tool.

We are making good progress on Perspectives 3, November means Black Friday sale, and the December annual is demoing. Definitely sounds like the year is coming to a close, doesn’t it? Let’s take stock with this month’s newsletter.

The Big Sale

From 27th November until 1st December Tuesday morning, all of our cartography software is available at a 30% discount, including bundles and upgrades.
Use this voucher in the checkout to take advantage of the offer: BLACK@30%.
Get full versions in the store, and upgrades from your registered users page.

News

• A new version of the CC3+ manual is available for all registered users.
• The November Annual has been released, expanding on TJ Vandel’s Ancient Realms style with a set of beautiful vignettes.

Resources

• Check out the November collection of user maps from the community forum.

Articles

• Ralf let’s you peak at the big thing on his desk: Perspectives 3.
• Take a look at deluxe Battle Scenes map, both for the upcoming Annual and as a book my Pelgrane Press.

Perspectives is clearly dominating my desk this month, so let’s take a look at what’s coming in this new edition of one of my favorite add-ons.

Four Styles

In addition to the two old vector styles that Perspectives Pro came with (vector symbols in color and in black and white) Perspectives 3 offers two new bitmap-based style. One is based on the artwork from Dungeon Designer 3. In fact the artist, Kai-Uwe Wallner, created 3D models of almost all the DD3 symbols and exported these in 8 views to serve as our isometric symbols. This means you can create matching isometric views of your DD3 dungeon maps!

The other bitmap style was created by Herwin Wielink, in the same look as his Isometric Dungeon style from the Annual Vol 6. In fact, the two can be combined for an even greater variety of available symbols. And unlike the Annual style, floors and walls can be freely created at any angle in Perspectives 3.

Aligning Bitmaps

In fact getting bitmap styles to behave properly in isometric view has been one of the major design challenges, but we are happy to report that these have (mostly) been overcome.



A little programming remains to be done, but even without it Perspectives 3 performs wonderfully in creating isometric bitmap-based maps. Doors and windows for example, just like their vector predecessors, align to angled walls by simply moving the mouse cursor over the wall baseline when placing them.

Casting Shadows

Taking a cue from City Designer 3, the Global Sun option will also create dynamic shadows and lights on the walls, allowing you to adjust these on the fly. The difference in shadows in the image on the right has been created with only a quick adjustment on the Global Sun direction.

Like in Perspectives Pro, all the these tools and styles will be available to create outdoor maps with buildings. We’ll incorporate lessons that have been learned in the Source Maps line of maps into the tools and the manual to make this even easier and quicker.

The Plan

Our plan is currently to have Perspectives 3 ready for pre-order before Christmas, and then do the full release early next year. I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I do!

ProFantasy software is a small company, but our network of contributors is incredibly international ranging from part-time editors in Australia through freelance artists in Germany and Sweden to shipping and programming in the US. While the headquarters and office are in London, much of the day-to-day work is done from a small town in Germany. To give you a little insight what goes on at that German ProFantasy office, I am starting this column on the RPGMaps blog where I intend to five you a monthly status update on what is on this cartographer’s desk at the time. I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to ask any questions in the comments or over at the community forum.

Spiel’15 in Essen, the big boardgaming fair, definitely dominated the first half of October, meaning I was out of the office for a week. Prior to that, helpers had to be organized, stock brought in and assembled, and my absence to be planned for. You can read up on my time at Spiel here. Let me just say that it’s always fun, but also a very exhausting affair. Back from Essen, I was busy with putting material back into storage, settling the accounts and reporting back to HQ. Unfortunately I brought a stubborn cold back with me, which took the whole next week to leave my system. Crowds are dangerous!

Next up on the desk was getting out the CC3+ compatibility update for Symbol Set 3 – Modern. This also required preparing the next update for CC3+ (version 3.69). While the majority of work, like beta-testing and building the installations, had been done before Spiel, I still had some fine-tuning to do and the actual release to prepare. As I type this, SS3 and Update 3 should be safely out and available to our users.

But the big thing lurking on my desk is another beast: Perspectives 3. After Spiel I dived back into assembling catalogs, fine-tuning symbols, creating varicolors and all such things for an add-on with thousands of symbols. I’m currently producing a rough working version, so we can tackle some necessary programming work that using isometric bitmap artwork entails.

As you can see from the little sample, Perspectives 3 will not have one, but two new bitmap artwork styles – doubling the symbol work, yay! What you can’t see is that one styles will also have 8 directional views for each symbol, instead of the 4 in Perspectives Pro. Even more, yay! Hopefully next month the cartographer will have a couple more elaborate samples of Perspectives 3 on his desk. Until then!