By TolrendorDM

In January last year I had the somewhat crazy idea of setting myself a target, which I named The Cartographer’s Annual Challenge. With each month’s issue of the 2013 subscription-based CC3 add-on I would produce a map, with the only real constraint being that the content had to relevant in some way to my home-brew D&D® world/campaign, which I call Tolrendor. Twelve months on, I am very pleased to have achieved this: you can see the results here.

The motivation for starting this Challenge was simple. I have been a subscriber to the Cartographer’s Annual since its inception in 2007, and although I realise that for readers of this blog I’m mostly preaching to the converted, I can’t recommend it highly enough. I’ve had CC3 for many years, but the reality is that it was only after the beginning of the Annuals, with their informative mapping guides and well-constructed style packs, that I really started to achieve map-making that I was proud of.

But here’s the thing! The actual number of Annual issues that I truly used was extremely low. Oh, I had my favourites, including the original hex mapping style from July 2010 (shown on the right), the Jon Roberts trio of styles, and the recent Pär Lindström regional style, but normally I simply enjoyed viewing the example images and reading the mapping guides. The Annual Challenge was deliberately designed to break that trend.

At times this content constraint turned into quite a challenge! The very first January issue was a style pack called ‘Investigation Props’, designed for modern/Cthulhu detective style games. How was I to use that for a fantasy setting? I had to rack my brain quite hard, but eventually came up with the idea of producing a handout as a pre-session recap. This proved quite timely, as my PCs were in the middle of a town-based adventure, and needed to remember the relationships between the important NPCs.

My favourite map of the whole Challenge also originated from an issue where I struggled for inspiration. The August issue was designed to depict science-fiction star systems. Beautiful example maps, but not fantasy. Then I remembered the old AD&D Spelljammer setting, one of my favourite alternate settings. After a quick rummage, I also unearthed a notebook of ancient (well 30 years old…) notes documenting the Tolrendor ‘Crystal Sphere’. So I used the basic style with its orbit drawing tools and planet symbols, but with a parchment background and some Spelljammer ships (added in Photoshop) to give a ‘fantasy space’ feel.

There was a definite motivation behind the decision that each map had to be related to my D&D setting. I don’t get nearly enough mapping time as it is, so if I was going to spend the time on the Challenge, it made sense to create maps that would be used in my campaign.
This has been great fun, resulting in maps like this overland one, detailing an area of my world that had always been sketchy before (utilising the beautiful ‘DeRust’ symbols from the September issue), or this dungeon map for a new D&D® Next campaign (although it might be 13th Age now, but that’s another story…) using the black and white style from the October issue.

There was only one map, using the June issue, that broke these self-imposed rules, and that was simply because the style just cried out for it. My son has been drawing his own world, and when I showed him the example maps for this issue, he definitely wanted a ‘Scaryland’ version. This seemed a reasonable request, so I went with it. Besides, maybe one fine day explorers will find this ‘lost continent’ on the other side of Tolrendor.

The one thing I didn’t always (often didn’t…) achieve was my target of finishing each map within the same month that the issue was released. I managed quite well for the first four or five months, but the rest were done in ‘catch-up’ bursts throughout the rest of the year. It’s something I’ll have to try a bit harder on in 2014…

Yes, that’s right, I’ve decided to repeat the Cartographer’s Annual Challenge in 2014. I’ve really enjoyed setting myself targets for mapping and having to find some inspiration for each issue last year. My CC3 skills have improved out of sight, and my campaign has benefited greatly, so why not? My January effort is now finished, so I’m on the way.

So if you’re a Cartographer’s Annual subscriber, why don’t you join me in the Challenge … let’s all get mapping and sharing!

Article by Andrew Collett (TolrendorDM on the ProFantasy community forum)

Dear Cartographers, welcome to the January newsletter!

News

• Enter our cartography competition and win a complete suite of software
• Character Artist 3 has been released and is receiving very good feedback. Get it here.
• The Cartographer’s Annual 2014 is available for susbcription. Check out the January issue.
• We released a new update for CC3: CC3 Update 11. It includes the free new mapping style CC3 Hex Overland.
• Subscribers for the Cartographer’s Annual 2013 got a bonus issue in December and can now download the full setup (including the bonus) from their registration page.

Resources

• The December collection of community user maps includes lots of great map artwork.
• Download free character standees created in Character Artist 3

Map-Making Articles

• Fractal Terrains developer takes on CC3+
• Enter our cartography competition and win a complete suite of software
• Ralf takes a look at the “Internationale Spieletage” (or “Spiel” for short) from the ProFantasy perspective.
• Simon explains the the process of creating a brand new mapping style for CC3+.

Create a map of an island, less than three miles wide. The prize? The best will win an unlimited patron license to all our cartography software forever.

1. It doesn’t have to feature treasure, and it can be in any style, past, modern or future.
2. You don’t have to create it with CC3 but it must be originally created for this competition and not posted elsewhere.
3. You grant us permission to post the map, though you retain all other rights
4. Only one entry per person
5. If there are more than three entries, and the winner is not an amateur, then there will be an additional prize (a voucher worth $100) to the best amateur.
6. To submit, post your entry on this forum thread, or email us a file, no more than 2MB.
7. Competition closes on 1st March 2014.

Good luck, cartographers!

We are very fortunate to have taken on Joe Slayton as a programmer for CC3+ work. From his free terrain general Wilbur, he created Fractal Terrains, now on its third version. You can get a better idea of his take on life and programming in this interview. He is a C and C++ expert and one of few people in the world who can work with the FastCAD code base and mass of additional code we’ve built up over the years.  He’s already wowed our existing developers Mike Riddle and Peter Olsson with his innovative approach – doubling the speed of CC3+ effects just for a start. He’s also honed code which is tangled with age to make it more consistent and easy to read.

Using Joe’s Fractal Terrains 3 is more like exploring an apparently infinite set of worlds than creating them from scratch, and the process of discovery makes the imaginary worlds it creates makes them more real. Just for example, here is something I knocked out while playing with FT3 and exporting into CC3. It took about fifteen minutes. I used Ralf’s Jhendor colour scheme with Roughness, Percent Sea and Large Size sliders a little over to the right, and I spotted this rather appealing island. I added rivers at custom resolution, then a bevel and blur on the coast in CC3.

Ralf has also used FT3 to create a campaign world, Jhendor. Here is a sample output from FT3.

So, if you are interested in world building, exploring variations on the real universe, or just starting from a billiard ball you can try the demo here.

CC3+ incorporates a new complete symbol set from expert cartographer Mike Schley. We’ve worked with a number of professional cartographers to create Campaign Cartographer styles, and the process is now pretty slick. We are either adapting an existing style (as with our recent World War 2 annual issue) or creating one from scratch. This is the process:

1. We take a cartographer’s existing map, or the cartographer develops a new map style, always by creating a small map sample. Here is an early one Mike Schley produced for the new CC3+ overland style.

2. Once we’ve approved this, the cartographer adds more symbols and tools to the example map, and then does more as stand alone files. For a full ad–on or symbol set, this is a very big job. Usually the cartographer works in Photoshop, with layers on, so we can easily extract elements to create CC symbols and drawing tools.

3. Once the map-maker has finished, Ralf duplicates the style in CC, developing the set of drawing tools and adding effects to match the original.

4. Ralf creates the full set of symbol catalogs in all resolutions, with varicolour areas.

The very first example map we did with Campaign Cartographer was of my campaign setting, the Jaw Peninsula, and we intend to continue this tradition with CC3+. You can see the history of the map here and Ralf has rendered the eastern section of the map in his new style. Click the image for the full high-resolution map.

And here is a close up

And just to give you an idea of how detailed the symbols are – little works of art – here is a close up. Click for extreme close up.

Character Artist 3 is out now!

Character Artist 3 lets you create attractive, high-quality portraits of characters for your games. When you’ve made your character, you can place a high-quality image onto your character sheet. You can add your portraits to counters, create silhouettes or make stand-up card figures.

Emails have gone out to all existing ProFantasy customers who haven’t opted out with a discount offer, an in addition, if you are an existing CC3 customer then until 1st January 2014, Character Artist 3 includes an upgrade to the next version of Campaign Cartographer 3 when it’s released in 2014.

CC3+, to be released in 2014, will be twice as fast as CC3, easier to use, and include a new map style and amazing effects.

ProFantasy Character Artist 3 example, a bard

Character Artist 3: First Portrait

Character Artist 3: Clothing, Cloak and Weapon

Character Artist 3: Faces in Detail

There is a new update available for Campaign Cartographer 3. Update 11 brings CC3 up to version 3.43 and includes the following additions and changes:

• added CC3 Overland Hex mapping style including
  – 2 templates (imperial and metric)
  – 53 hex symbols in 8 catalogs
  – 55 drawing tools
  – 1 example map
  – 1 5-page mapping guide
• added Character Artist 3 master filter functionality
• added metric versions of all CC3 template wizards
• added CC3 Basic City style including
  – 2 templates (imperial and metric)
  – 35 drawing tools
  – 100 symbols
  – 1 example map
• improved Symbol Style Toggle handling
• removed SS1 style entries from CC3 master filters
• removed duplicate map notes in CC3 standard overland template
• replaced ImageMagick file Convert.exe with newer version

Check your CC3 version under Help > About in the menu. If it is less than 3.43, head over to your registration page and download CC3 Update 11 from among the CC3 downloads on the Products & Downloads tab.

ProFantasy will be at Dragonmeet, London’s friendliest gaming convention, coming Saturday (December 7th). We are looking forward to a day of games, seminars, chat and general gaming goodness.

We are also doing a special offer to support all those people running public games at Dragonmeet. If you are a GM hosting a game at the convention you get 50% off any purchase of ProFantasy and Noteboard products.

If you want to hear myself (Ralf) talk about maps, paper minis, and the Noteboard, join the seminar “Multimedia in Gaming” (12pm to 12:30pm in the Council Chamber) which also features composer James Semple and artist Andrew Hepworth.

The latest Annual issue is now available for subscribers from their registration page. The November Annual consists of a new hex mapping style based on the Bitmap Overland style that comes with CC3.

Templates, symbols and tools allow you to create a hex-based setting map in minutes, giving you that old-school explorer feeling with modern graphics! Check out this sample map of “The Warring Isles”:

The bags are packed, stock and supplied enroute, hectic activity is slowly giving way to contemplative travel mood… meaning GenCon is around the corner.

If you are one of the lucky visitors, come find us at booth (#101) directly across the big Paizo booth. We are sharing with our sister company Pelgrane Press. Stop by pick up the latest Annuals, any other products you might be missing, a demo of Character Artist 3 or just a quick chat about mapping.

Please bear with us if we respond a little more slowly in the coming days than usual. GenCon takes a lot of attention and energy.