The October Annual of 2019 is available now and we are glad to present a new contributor to our series of mapping styles. Gary Warburton – Dungeon Master Gaz on the ProFantasy forum – caught our eye with his wonderful “Legend” series of maps, depicting mythological Greece, and we were thrilled when he agreed to publish a similar one as an Annual issue.

He produced a neat new set of symbols for a Mesoamerican setting, a wonderful example map and here is the drawing style we created from that.

If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to the Annual 2019 here. If you are already subscribed, the October issue is available for download on your registration page now.

A new version of CC3+ is available now, adding full GUI access for more button sizes, as well as better custom palette handling, bitmap tracing, fractalizing and house symbol mirroring. Also a few smaller bugs where fixed.

Version Notes

CC3+ Version 3.91
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– Added PALLOAD and PALSAVE commands to load and save different custom palettes.
– Added GUI option (Screentools button) to allow user to pick any of the 4 available icon resolutions instead of just large/small.
– Added a TRACE and TRACED command to trace around a bitmap in a more general way than the CONTOURSM family of commands.
– Modified Fractalize (FRX) command to affect outlines even if they are separate entities.
– Modified roof shading code to flip angles by 180 degrees when specifying mirrored on bitmaps
– Fixed blur radius computation in effects when using Map Units.
– Fixed lighting direction on mirrored symbols (initial implementation in June was incorrect).
– When the system issues a “no matching drawing tool” message, will now show the tool name that it was looking for.
– Cosmographer 3 deckplan bitmap templates can now add new grids?
– Fixed bug in FastCAD core that was preventing higher-resolution icon sets from loading.
– Fixed crash on exit when writing XML file that was intermittently appearing as project changed.

Download this latest update from your registration page.

For September we are happy to present a new contributor to the Cartographer’s Annual: Hans Anders Bergström. His maps caught our eye in the ProFantasy community with their unique watercolour look, which is very different from that is normally created with Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. We approached Anders, and he agreed to let us create an Annual issue from his innovative work, even supplying a wonderful walkthrough of his process, which comprises the majority of the mapping guide.

At first glance it’s hard to believe Anders’ maps were actually created with Campaign Cartographer 3+, but his innovative work with sheets and sheet effects is really not that difficult once you know what he’s doing. And that’s exactly what this Annual issue does: it teaches you how to recreate Anders’ Techniques for your own beautiful watercolour-style maps.

If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to the Annual 2019 here. If you are already subscribed, the September issue is available for download on your registration page now.

Curious what’s around the next street corner? Let us show you.

From the sprawling imagination of award-winning cartographer Mike Schley comes a whole new style of cities for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus, featuring leaning shanties, decrepit ruins, gleaming palaces and soaring towers.

Unashamedly old school in outlook, but with the quality and beauty you’d expect from a master mapmaker, The Cities of Schley features more than six hundred high-resolution symbols and textures and all the tools, effects and templates you need to create breath-taking cities of your own. A simple setting allows you to transform a full-colour map into a black & white illustration, or a sepia-colored parchment. There are houses, workshops city walls, tombs and crypts, boats and wagons, shrubs and trees – everything you need to design great cities.

Check out the SS5 product pages for more information.

Weepingford Eample Map

Briarpond Example Map Detail

Step into the streets, if you dare, of the Cities of Schley!

It’s an extremely busy desk that the Cartographer is dealing with at this time: Not only is the next Annual issue waiting to be published and GenCon getting very close, there is also the latest Symbol Set to finish up. Everybody is eager to get SS5 Cities of Schley into their hands and I’m happy to report that the first beta version has been sent out to the testers. The chance to pre-order Mike Schley’s new symbol set and get your hands on the early access copy will arrive very soon after GenCon. In the meantime, here are two example maps created with the color version of the Cities of Schley style:

The Town of Weepingford

The Village of Briarpond

GenCon 2019 is just around the corner – next week in fact – and ProFantasy will be there of course! Visit us at booth 1417 to chat about mapping, check out our products and get a sneak peek of the new Symbol Set: Cities of Schley.

ProFantasy Software has released 31 map-making products for PC. For about half of our users our flagship Campaign Cartographer 3+ is all they need to create their maps. But our add-ons give you powerful new tools and symbols to create maps in a huge variety of styles and genres and offer you hundreds of pre-made maps you can use in your campaign.

There are lots of curated bundles which include groups of products at a discount. But this article is about the Big Kahuna, the Full Monty, the Whole Shebang – our bundle of everything single thing we produce

It provides great value at a discount of more than 45% on the RRP of all the constituent products, but its price point means it’s not for everyone.

The Whole Shebang includes 31 products, featuring more than 80,000 symbols, in 163 styles and hundreds of maps across genres including fantasy, SF, modern and historical. It can create character portraits, overland maps, dungeons, floorplans. cities, villages and 3D cutaway maps. It has maps of real word castles, temples and cities. Any map you see on our website or social media, and almost all maps created by are users are made exlusively with these products.

You can use the vast library of high-res art assets in other programs such as Photoshop, too, all covered by our license.

You can get the Whole Shebang here.

We’d be happy to answer any questions you might have about this bundle – email ralf@profantasy.com for more information.

Welcome dear cartographers, to the June newsletter! Now that half of the year is over, GenCon looms on the horizon.

News

• • The June Annual with Jean-Michel Bravo’s “Ancient Tombs” style pack has been available for download since the start of the month.

Resources

• • Use the Symbols in Area command (SYMFILL) to create drawing tools for scattered woods (as opposed to dense forests).
  • We have a new selection of Maps of the Month for June.

Articles

• Remy Monsen looks at “Entity Basics” in his new article on developing plug-ins for Campaign Cartographer 3+.
• Ralf continues the series of articles on creating your own map styles, looking at editing fill styles and creating new ones.

The June issue of the Cartographer’s Annual is now ready for download and installation. The style pack “Ancient Tombs” is a set of Egyptian-themed artwork including a huge number of new symbols and bitmap fills and comes with a complete mapping written by Jean-Michel himself. In fact this style is only the first of a trilogy, where the future part will look at creating isometric versions of the floorplans and a set of advanced techniques.

If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to the Annual 2019 here. If you are already subscribed, the June issue is available for download on your registration page now.

For the first time, ProFantasy will be exhibiting at UK Games Expo in Birmingham this coming weekend.

The show has been constantly growing in recent years and we are excited to see how the gaming community comes together for this event. You will find us in hall 1 at booth 1-697 as show in the hall map below. If you are visiting UK Games Expo, please stop by to say hello, check out our software and just chat a little about mapping!