The Continent of Dorina

A brief note about this article

The main reason I have never written about the special effects I use in my maps before now is because they have to be applied differently on each new map I draw. Differences in map style and the random variability of the way I chose to warp the colour scheme each time have made it very hard to nail down any particular method to the point of there being a right or a wrong way of doing it, and it’s nearly impossible to make a definitive set of instructions when nothing is set in concrete. I have often used similar combinations of effects on similar sheets in different maps once I discovered a useful result by experimentation, but I don’t think I have ever used exactly the same settings on any two maps. So what follows is more a train of thought and an explanation of my method as I develop two example maps of the same place in two different styles in tandem. However, and having said that, there are a few simple instructions on how to generate and process sea contours in the first of the special effects to be described.

This article focuses on two versions of the continent of Dorina shown above in the Mike Schley style (MS) and the Herwin Weilink style (HW). I have chosen these styles because they are available to all CC3 mappers, and because they are so different in nature that the special effects will have to be applied differently to each one. By describing this process and providing the finished FCW files for reference purposes, I hope that those of you who have requested tutorials about how to get similar special effects to mine in their own maps may at the very least gain some useful information and ideas.

The effects I will be working on in this article are oceanic contours, global colour shifts, contrast adjustments, snowfields and something I’ve called ‘midnight’, which entirely changes the nature of the map in a way that makes it vaguely reminiscent of a view seen under brilliant moonlight.

First off, then, I should probably start with the basic stuff – how much I have already warped the default styles to produce the initial maps before we get started on the special effects. Please note that for some reason I set the scale of these maps completely wrong, but it was too late to go back and start again by the time I got to the finishing touches. I didn’t realise until I was adding the scale bar and it was out by a very large factor.

Dorina – MS

The MS style is beautiful in its clean and radiant pastel colours. Unfortunately for me it is those very same pastel shades that make doing the kind of special effect I do quite difficult to achieve on an MS map. While I can appreciate the loveliness of many very different styles my personal taste tends more towards richer, darker colours. If you open the Dorina – Mike Schley.FCW file you will see that the sheets have been dramatically altered, so that while I tried very hard not to take it too far away from the intended appearance as to be unrecognisable as an MS map, I have used lots of Adjust Hue/Saturation and RGB Matrix effects. I have also swapped out some of the textures for others in the same set and changed their colours accordingly. I love the grassy texture of the Marsh_MS fill, and so I have abused it by using it for anything that is at all grassy in nature. There are other fills I’ve substituted, but even though I’ve bashed it about quite badly (and I cringe to think of what the purists would say) all the fills are MS fills and part of that style. There is nothing there that doesn’t come from the Mike Schley mapping style.

Dorina – HW

You might think the HW style is made for me, with my already stated preference for darker, richer colours, but my taste is less subtle and a couple of degrees lighter in tone. I have done exactly the same thing with the HW map as I’ve done with the MS style – lots of colour changing sheet effects aimed at making everything a little brighter than before. I haven’t swapped out so many of the fills, but I do very much like the grassland fill and I’ve used it in several shades on different sheets. There are couple of sheep and cows and a horse that remain from the MS version where there is no HW equivalent.

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Campaign Cartographer 3+ is a a very configurable and extensible program. In addition to the core program, users can purchase official add-ons, providing not just new artwork, but also new tools. Users can easily add new artwork such as symbols and fills, and many users with an artistic talent create such resources themselves and import into CC3+ for use with their maps. It is also easy for users to create their own drawing tools and organize symbols into symbol catalogs. For the more advanced users, it is possible to customize the menus and toolbars, and write macro commands which can be used to add additional functionality or automate tasks.
But, the most powerful option is the possibility of writing your own add-ons, or XP’s. While you can do a lot with macros, you are still limited to the commands actually provided by CC3+. Clever combinations of these commands can yield interesting results, but sooner or later you will run into things you can’t do. And this is where XP development comes in. By writing your own add-ons for CC3+, you get direct access to the building blocks of your drawing, and can write your own commands for CC3+ to do all kinds of stuff.
In this series of articles I will teach you how to write these add-ons yourself. A word of warning here; these articles will teach you about XP development, but I’ll have to assume you actually know something about programming, and in particular, C++. If you don’t know that, I recommend you find yourself a free C++ tutorial on the internet and start there before coming back, as you will have problems following the tutorials otherwise.

In this first tutorial we’ll look at how to set up your programming environment, as well as making our first code.

Note that you can easily find all the articles published in this series so far by using this link.

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As we are slowly heading into spring here in the northern hemisphere, it’s time to take another look at the wonderful maps the mapping community has produced. Here are five maps that caught our eye this month. Be sure to check out the forum and the Facebook group for lots more!

Thiatas Ashadarawesh produced this amazing world map in Fractal Terrains 3. Worthy of a “Best Coastline” prize.
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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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Traveller by Marc W. Miller was the among the first science-fiction role-playing games ever published and remains a popular game to this day. It’s sector maps and starship deckplans are iconic images of the rpg hobby and of course we had to include compatible material when we produced our science fiction add-on Cosmographer 3. Let’s have a look at what we included.

The Big Picture

One of the signature styles of Cosmographer 3 is the big “Galaxy Map” style, and you might be tempted to recreate Travller’s huge “Charted Space” map in its beautiful blue, white and black colors. But you’ll find that is not necessary – as were tempted just as much and included this map as an example among the drawings that come with Cosmographer 3. Edit it to your liking and print it as a huge poster map if you like. Of course the matching template is there for you, if you have your own galaxy to map!

All the Sector Maps You Need

Apart from containing normal templates for Traveller’s sector maps, Cosmographer 3 also contains a very powerful data import feature. It draws the numerical data of a selected sector from the web (www.travellermap.com) and generates a full sector map from it, including x-boat routes and allegiance codes. Watching the import and auto-generation process alone is just pure, unadulterated fun.

You can create such map in the bitmap style as shown on the left, or in the classical black and white print style of the published Traveller books.

Of course the smaller subsector maps are also available as templates, again both in traditional black and white (as on the left) or Cosmographer’s bitmap style. Wile they can’t be automatically generated like the sector maps, you can easily copy the necessary content of the sector map over into this smaller section.

Let’s Swing around the Sun Once More

One of the less iconic but no less useful type of maps used in Traveller are the system charts, showing the planetary orbits of a star system. These show the distances of the various planets and other celestial objects from their central star.

As usual the templates are available both in a black and white vector style and a full color bitmap version (depicted here). As they are much less setting-specific than the sector and subsector maps, these are useful for almost any science fiction setting beyond Traveller.

Zoom in Closer

What would Traveller be without its world maps? Well, at least a lot less iconic. Of course Cosmographer 3 includes templates of the classic icosahedral projection, subdivided into hexes. These come in a variety of sizes, scaled to the standard UWP (Universal World Profile) designations of the Imperial Scout Service.

One of the two versions of the style depicts the world as if shown in a satellite image (while keeping the hex map aspect) and the other as a clear and simple vector abstraction, ideal for planning and hex crawling. The symbols depicting the terrain features in this style were taken directly from the Traveller 5 draft document (Cosmographer 3 was released before T5).

And How Do We Get There?

Last but not least, Cosmographer 3 has the templates for the most important aspect of the Traveller setting: the starships. The classic black and white style is straightforward to use and shows everything clearly, but of course the Traveller ships can also be mapped in Cosmographer’s own more elaborate bitmap style. We’ve included templates for two of the most used ships in Cosmographer 3, the 100t Scout and the 200t Free Trader. The maps are outlines only, so any custom interior design can be added to the deckplan in minutes.

After Cosmographer 3’s release we ran a poll to see what other ships our users wanted to see and added the three most popular selections as extra downloads for free.

All of these maps and styles and much more non-Traveller specific resources are available as part of the Cosmographer 3 add-on for Campaign Cartographer 3+.

Dear map-makers! Here is the February newsletter with lots of mapping articles and our latest products!

News

• The Token Treasury: Monsters, the first in a new line of products, has been released.
• Take a peek at What’s on the Cartographer’s Desk to see what we are up to in the coming weeks.
• The February Annual issue: Isometric Towns is available.

Resources

• Check out a selection of beautiful user maps in the Maps of the Month.
• Remy Monsen does some very cool stuff with interactive maps in CC3+, moving a party of adventurers (or more precisely their viewpoint) through a dungeon, opening doors and triggering effects.

Articles

• Sue Daniel describes her method of creating the Isometric Towns style from the February Annual issue.
• And in a second article, Sue starts a tutorial on how to create new house symbols for City Designer 3, including dynamic roof shading..

The ProFantasy monthly newsletter typically features a map gallery, articles on map creation and development news. If you sign up to be notified by email, you’ll get exclusive offers, too.

We will only use this email address for sending newsletters from us and will not pass on your email address to any other organisation.

If ever you want to cancel your subscription, each email includes your link to unsubscribe.

You can read all past newsletters here.

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.

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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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.

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.
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