Ongoing development and bug-fixing for CC3+ has resulted in plenty of material that we are making available with Update 14 for CC3+. You can download it from your registration page. Try out the new Symbols in Area command and see the the long list of updates and changes:

CC3+ Version 3.80
=================
– Added SYMFILL, SYMFILLM, SYMFILLOPT, SYMFILLLOAD, and SYMFILLSAVE commands as analogs to the ESC* commands for 2D elements. This feature allows creation of map features analogous to those generated by the FOREST tool, but with frilled edges and sparsely-placed internal symbols.
– Added SYMSORT option to FOREST to provide an option to make the output a little cleaner-looking.
– Added ESCM, ESCOPT, ESCLOAD, and ESCSAVE commands to allow use of ESC in drawing tools in a manner similar to FOREST and to create libraries of ESC options.
– ESC can now use the width of symbols as the distance to place them apart.
– Added MKDIR command to allow creating a directory from a macro.
– Modified bitmap options dialog to support display of dpi and resolution information.
– Updated system so that all list boxes (including owner-draw ones) will use the operating system listbox drawing color rather than color 16 (which gets to be a light gray on Windows 10) or the previous value of color 20 (which can be modified by users).
– Added GETGXRETCODE command to support accepting default values in macros
– Added ZOOMSEL and ZOOMSELM commands to allow zooming to the currently-selected entities.
– Added SETFLATTOOLBARS command to allow setting flat toolbar styles from the command line.
– Added GETVIEWL, GETVIEWW, GETVIEWX, and GETVIEWY macro commands to allow getting the current view window from macros.
– Added GETSELL, GETSELW, GETSELX, and GETSELY macro commands to allow getting the current selection extents from macros.
– Added GETDISTFMT to allow saving the DISTFMT state. This command simplifies use of the GET family of commands by allowing the units formatting to be changed and restored.
– Added PSCALESETUP, PSCALEON, PSCALEOFF, and PSCALEX commands to allow for pseudo-perspective scaling of symbols and entities.
– Added SIMPLIFY command to allow simplifying paths to a specific feature size.
– Added support for mouse scroll wheel on symbol catalog and LIST (i.e. text) windows.
– Added “Save to clipboard” operation to text windows.

– Fixed bug that was preventing regular scrolling from using the thumbwheel in text windows.
– Fixed a memory leak in drawing filled multipoly with many nodes that was causing some complex FT drawings to crash CC3 in a matter of a few redraws (e.g. panning the screen for a few seconds).
– Fixed dpi issues in CCL and GLS dialogs as part of the perpetual dpi-related cleanup.
– Fixed system hang when window size reduced to zero height.
– Fixed system crash when drawing area window is minimized.
– Fixed problem where final partial row of symbol catalog would not draw.
– Fixed GOSHEET command to match behavior of SNEXT and SPREV commands.
– Fixed missing COASTLINE sheet in CC3 standard overland template.
– Changed CC3 standard overland style coastline to solid fill to avoid pixelation error
– Fixed Perspectives House Outlines not show on startup
– Fixed Floor fill style selection in PEROPTB (Advanced) not updating preview)
– Fixed problem with IPROJ not working with entities freshly-drawn from a drawing tool
– Fixed problem with EFFECTSCACHE showing wrong sizes on 64-bit Windows.
– Fixed problem where using a space character in FRX settings names would cause XML parser failure and CC3+ collapse at startup. System now correctly sanitizes FRX names so that they are valid XML tag names. – Fixed CC2 references in labels such as Open dialog filters to read CC3+.
– Fixed problem where IPROJ was changing entity color to unexpected value when shaded polygon option was used.

New Zealand is one of the most avid sailing nations of the world and while traveling along it beautiful coasts I often came across marine charts detailing the waterways. I always loved these maps and decided at some point I’d have to create a CC3+ style that recreated their detail and beauty. This is the month where it happened!

The vector style “Marine Maps” let’s you recreate navigational marine charts within CC3+. With three dozen news symbols and drawing tools and a 5-page mapping guide it’s snap to produce a detailed picture of your real or fictional coastline.

The October issue is now available for CC3+ from the registration page for all subscribers. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2017 yet, you can do so here.

If you’ve been following the blog posts collecting user maps from the Profantasy forum, you’ve no doubt come across the maps of Charles W. Robinson who has been meticulously mapping his game world in CC3+. We asked him to write a few lines about his world and mapping project(s). Thanks, Charles!

The Ramblings of an Old Gamer

My name is Charles W. Robinson. Ralf recently asked me if I would like to submit an article for the blog about my world, and I am so honored to do so. I did not really know what to talk about and Ralf said to simply talk about whatever I wanted, hence my title above. I have only been mapping for about a year, and I really like the new Campaign Cartographer 3+ software. I also love the interaction and the great new friends that I have made on the forum.

The History

The name of my fantasy world is Kelleemah. It was originally created way back in junior high school in 1982. The original world was slowly built up from a host of regional maps that I created for my gaming group. Each region was created as the group explored the world and we played all the way through high school. I had joined the military in 1986 and I made my first world map for Kelleemah in 1987 for my new gaming group. It was a paper and pencil map and I placed all the regions that I had created before, within this new map and made changes as needed. I also added a lot of additional regional maps. All of these were done on the old square grid paper that was popular during the heyday of fantasy roleplaying. The world map was huge and consisted of several sheets, duct-taped together. I had army green duct-tape all across the back. We jokingly referred to it as green dragon skin. After many years of running campaigns and building up the mythology and history of my world, I finally put it to the side in 1996. It had become harder and harder to find gamers.

I came back to fantasy roleplaying in 2007 during the 15 month surge in Iraq. I had ran into some fellow old school gamers and we started up a campaign. I had my spouse send me all of my old roleplaying stuff and I redid my world using a spreadsheet program of all things. My green dragon skin map was reborn. We had a lot of fun and I continued to play when I moved to Hawaii. I have retired from the military now and live back home in Southern Illinois. I have not had time to play since retiring, but I still love fantasy roleplaying.

I had originally found the Profantasy website while I was in Hawaii, and I purchased the old Campaign Cartographer 3, but I did not do much more that make a couple of islands. When I saw that the new version had come out, I decided to purchase it. Since last year, I have been remaking my old world again. As such, I have been exploring the software to see what I can do with it and have been making a lot of regional maps. So far, I don’t have a group of gamers yet. I have just been too busy. I really like the software and have been having an absolute blast!

I have become known for my detailed maps over the last year and have been working at a small scale. Some really like my maps and others have not. That is okay. Everyone has their own tastes. As a piece of advice for mappers out there; I say, make the map for yourself or your client. If it meets your/client’s needs then that is what matters. Don’t worry about trying to please everyone. A second piece of advice is; make it your own. Explore and find out what works for you. Develop your own style.

Setting the Stage

I went through a very specific design process for my gaming world. During the mid-80’s, roleplaying games were under attack by many religious leaders that did not really know much about it. I am a Christian and have obviously played for a long time. As such, I wanted to design a world that my religious friends could feel comfortable in playing in. This overriding goal drove the creative process and overall theme of Kelleemah. In addition, I also wanted to represent several historical cultures in my world. My father was also military and I have lived many years of my young life in Europe. For me, I felt that developing the mythology was central to creating the maps. I wanted the maps to reflect the cultures and their mythology.

The following is a very abbreviated overview of the key mythologies that I developed for my world. The central concept of my world is focused around the Grigori. For those who do not recognize the term, it relates to Christian mythology about angels that rebelled against God and took human wives among men. They brought a lot of bad things to the world and God had to send his angels to defeat them. In my fantasy world, the Grigori, which means the watchers, were banished to this world after they were defeated. This world was cut off from the rest of the Planes/Worlds and the Grigori named it their Kelleemah (their Shame). Most of them repented and tried their best to atone for their sins. The reason for this design idea was simple; this gave religious players that did not feel comfortable having their characters worship “false” gods to be able to worship the “Hidden God” of the Grigori. Since this takes place before the coming of Christ, it worked well for my Christian, Jewish, and Muslim friends. This became my Creation Mythology.

The second part, I call the Migration Mythology. This covers the arrival of four groups to Kelleemah. The central concept is that a great earthquake struck Eden and a great chasm swallowed up the tree of knowledge and damaged the tree of life. The tree of knowledge has never been found and the tree of life has been slowly dying. There are no longer any leaves upon the tree. It is believed that this event may have damaged the barrier between worlds. After the earthquake, dragons and giants appeared in the lands of the Kelleemah. Since this first event, a great storm of heavenly lights has enveloped the world three times. The span of time between each of these events has been hundreds of years. With each one, new beings are drawn onto Kelleemah. The first one brought the beasts and their gods (Such as Centaurs and Minotaurs), the second one brought the fey and their gods (Such as Elves & Dwarves), and the last one brought man and their gods. In addition, several foul beings were also drawn to Kelleemah along with their gods during these events (Such as Goblins and Orcs). This Migration Mythology brings the other races, besides the Grigori into the mix.

Another aspect of the Migration Mythology are the Shedim Wars. Shedim is the term used for Devils and Demons of all kinds. With each migration, Shedim have also come into the lands. But, unlike the other races, the Shedim came organized for war. Never has Demons been known to work alongside Devils, but this has been happening here in Kelleemah. Each time, they came from the most southern lands. Hordes of Demons swarming out in front of organized formations of Devils. The Demons wreaking havoc and panic while the Devils enslaved survivors and destroyed any organized resistance. Some believe that the Shedim actually arrived the same time as the Dragons and Giants, but used dark magic to hide, plan, and organize. Each time, they have been defeated, but at terrible costs. The first Shedim War was led by the Devil known as Satan. He was killed by the “Sleeping” god of the Centaur upon the Blood Fields. According to legend, Satan spread his arms wide accepting the blow with a smile. The power that was unleashed destroyed the gods axe splintering it into shards that scattered all throughout the world. Since then, the god has never awoke, instead laying in eternal slumber. Some believe, that Satan’s spirit lives on, and has become evil incarnate. The Devil known as Lucifer took the name of Satan, using it as a title of Kingship. He was Lucifer, the Great Satan. He was not destroyed as his predecessor was, but simply disappeared. Once he disappeared, the Shedim fell into disarray and fled the lands of Kelleemah. The third Shedim War was led by Asmodai, and he took on the title of the Great Satan as Lucifer did before him. This time, it was a mysterious hero who saved the world of Kellemah. It is said that a band of heroes had infiltrated the lines of the Shedim. Asmodai and his guard were caught unaware by this band and was ambushed. In the end, Asmodai and a man shrouded in a grey mist were all that were left. These two fought back and forth with neither landing a cutting blow for hours. Asmodai could not be killed by a mere mortal, and was surprised when the shadowed man finally struck him in the leg; for the blade bit deep. Asmodai new fear at last, and he fled along with all of the Shedim armies. It is said that the wound has never healed and Asmodai sits crippled on his throne. Mephistopheles disdainfully refers to him as “The Devil on Two Sticks”. It was during this route, that Mephistopheles, a Captain of Lucifer’s guard, decimated the armies of the fey by sinking the southeastern portion of Kelleemah beneath the ocean and drowning them.

Next, is our third part. It is not so much, a mythology as it is history. My world history is divided up into Ages, with no set time for each Age. They simply represent major events. As such, the age between the 3rd Shedim War, and the present, the Chess Wars, was known as the Faith Wars (You never do see an Age of Loving & Peace in these kinds of stories). The concept that drives this time period is that Deities draw their power from worship, and therefore, the more worshippers you have, the more power the Deity has. Because of the barrier between worlds, the Deities that have been drawn into Kelleemah have been cut off from most of their worshippers. As such, they are not as powerful. This led to the Faith Wars, were Deities and their followers fought for control of Kelleemah. Many Deities were destroyed, and it only ended when the Grigori known as the Lords of War stepped in and ended it by force; for the Arch Angels of the Grigori are as powerful as any Deity in Kelleemah. A number of major Deities still exist, and a large number of minor Deities as well. A major Deity is very powerful, immortal, and cannot be harmed by mortals. A minor Deity, is far weaker, but is powerful compared to most mortals, and is immortal in the since that it will not die from age or illness, but it can be killed by mortals. The major Deities have agreed to withdraw from world, living in lands that can only be reached through great magic. Only avatars of the major Deities are allowed among their followers, and even then, there are rules as set by the Grigori. The minor Deities were allowed to stay in Kelleemah among mortals if they wished.

Finally, we come to the fourth part. This is the Prophecy Mythology. This centers around ancient artifacts that are themselves gods, twenty swords forged from the axe shards of the “Sleeping” god of the centaurs. These are the gods of the Fee Peoples, and are said to hold the souls of their greatest heroes. The Prophecy Mythology speaks of the fate for each of these god swords. Many believe that if the fates of these swords come to pass, so too will the end times. My many campaigns are centered around these swords.

How Mythology and History Relates to My Maps

I believe that often, the world history and its mythology should drive map creation. The oldest ruins should be named by the oldest races. It explains why the races of man outnumber the others, for the other races have suffered more from the Shedim Wars than the newly arrived mankind. It explains the many demon infested areas throughout Kelleemah. It also helps to explain unnatural phenomenon on the maps. I researched (and continue to research) the mythology of my human cultures, and incorporate them into the world of Kelleemah. My last fantasy map that I did, Niflheimr, is a good example of this. It represents the lands of Hel from Norse Mythology, which the Vagoth are based on. Where Niflheimr would normally be on another plane, here it is actually part of the world. I will eventually have several maps of Kelleemah, with each one representing a particular age. This is because, some of my campaigns take place in different time periods. The map that I am working on now is the present, during the Chess Wars, an age where mortals have been carving out their own empires in the aftermath of the Faith Wars. There is far more mythology to this world that has been built up over time, but it literally fills up books. This allows me to be very detailed for both the maps and the stories that go with them. I always post stories with my maps. For me, it breathes life into them and gives them context.

What I have done as far as mapping is concerned, is that I have started in the top left corner of my world and I am branching out from there, building regional maps. This means that I have started with the Vagoth, which are modeled after the Norse. And, you get to meet the Dwarves of the Sellevokian Colonies, and the Light Elves of Perinusa and the Hidden Folk. As the map expands, more and more cultures will be revealed. Even among the fey, there are many elves of different cultures, as well as for dwarves, and gnomes, to name but a few. There are over 20 cultures of mankind within Kelleemah. I also intend to create the maps for my campaigns, 21 and counting, using the other mapping tools that Profantasy provides. I also will be getting Character Artist 3. It will help me to really showcase the different cultures of Kelleemah. And, I am really looking forward to the underground style that comes out in June.

Final Words

Writing this has been a real treat, thank you Ralf! I think the biggest struggle with writing this is has been trying to figure out what not to put into this. Like I said, I have books of notes, stories, mythologies, history, non-player characters, and campaigns. And, I keep adding to it. I hope that this has made some kind of since and did not bore you too much. I just want to thank everyone that has taken interest in both my maps and the world of Kelleemah. I hope that you find inspiration from these for your own creative efforts, and that you enjoy, and maybe even adventure in the world that I have created.

Thank You,

Charles W. Robinson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/charleswrobinsonprofile

We have the Feburary Annual issue ready for you to download and enjoy: the overland style Empire of the Sun. It’s a wonderful design by TJ Vandel that lets you create overland maps in a quasi-historical style reminiscent of Japanese and Chinese cartography. With more than 350 symbols, the style allows you to easily put together varied landscapes and coastlines.

The February 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.

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!

This is another bit of synergy between the sister companies Profantasy Software and Pelgrane Press. Pelgrane’s Kickstarter project for the “Dracula Dossier” was a huge success, and for the many locations detailed in the campaign, they needed a unified map-style that different cartographers could use.

Realizing that the same would be useful to ProFantasy’s user base, we set about creating a floorplan style which could also be published as an issue of the Cartographer’s Annual. The style had to adhere to a few guidelines from the Dracula Dossier art direction: A clear and straightforward look, that fits the game’s modern setting, legibility at a variety of different scales and in various environments (books, pdfs, web), and of course matching the book’s layout and color design.

You can see the first map in the new “Dracula Dossier” style on the right (click the image to see a larger scale version). It details the underground remains of “Carfax Abbey”, Dracula’s estate during his stay in England. You can read a preview of the site’s description here.

The Dracula Dossier annual style will be available later this year, closer to the release of this exciting campaign for Night’s Black Agents.

City Designer 3 is now compatible with CC3+, and to celebrate, here is a round-of maps, tutorials and resources for cities.

• An 8-part city creation tutorial- Mapping Cities part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5, part 6, part 7 and part 8.
• Learning CD3
• Kartotum – a city creation example
• Making City Maps – the styles and tools ProFantasy provides for city design
• Making a City part 1
• Making a City part 2

We’ve been working hard on making the add-ons compatible with CC3+. It’s not straightforward, as not only maps and templates need to be updated, but interactions with our polished, updated code and the legacy code in add-on functions can cause new bugs in legacy to rear their ugly heads. It does mean that add-on code gets a polish, too. So, we are please to announce that a much faster, CC3+ compatible Dungeon Designer 3 with all-new icons is now ready.

You’ll first need to update your CC3+ to the latest version (3.66). You’ll find the update among your downloads for CC3+ on the registration page. Or if you haven’t installed CC3+ yet – perhaps you were waiting for it to work with DD3 – download the latest full setup for CC3+.

Then you can download the DD3 compatibility update for CC3+ from your registration page and install it. It will add all Dungeon Designer functionality to CC3+. Enjoy!

In addition to preparing CC3+ for DD3, the Update 1 fixes some additional bugs that came up during the early adopter phase and adds some additional resources. Here is the list:

CC3+ Version 3.66

• added CC3 Overland Hex style
• added Text drawing tools to Mike Schley Overland style
• added “Open Autosave File” option to the File menu
• includes preparation for DD3 integration
• updated tutorial maps with current effect settings
• Insert File fixed to recognise @ path
• Symbol Manager display fixed to show all Symbols
• Control points fixed to work in CC3+
• Templates fixed to correctly swap fill style resolutions
• restored drawing dialogs to the Draw Menu: Path, Polygon, Circle, Arc, Lines, Offset
• fixed some DPI scaling issues in the Symbol Manager

[Ed’s note: this great tutorial introducing editing was written by new CC3+ user R A Jacobs who is on a mission to learn CC3+ – follow his journey here. It features the first map by another brand new CC3+ user Kalthorine. See his original post on the forum.]

Before We Start…

Selecting something on a screen by pointing and clicking is a very common activity that you probably do hundreds of times a day on a computer. When you think about it, it’s like picking things up with your fingers. You move the mouse to the icon that you want to open, or move, or delete; you select it by clicking on it and then you do some action. Modern User Experience Designers have made selecting objects on a screen very easy; often times, you only need to click within the vicinity of an object in order to select it.

And, what I learned this weekend, is that that is one of the reasons why you fail when you try to do just about anything in Campaign Cartographer.

Whaaaaaat?

Before you learn to do anything in Campaign Cartographer, you have to remember a few things:

1. This is professional software.   While some people report having no problems at all picking up the tool, for most, there is a learning curve; you have to both unlearn old habits and pick up new ones.  In some cases, there is a level of precision that is required in order to accomplish a task.
2. This is CAD software.  As I’ve learned, CAD software works opposite of the way you are probably used to working with most desktop applications (at least on Windows).  Instead of selecting something on the screen and choosing what to do with it (noun->verb:  “This mountain, delete”), CAD software asks you to tell it what you want to do and to what objects you’d like to do it (verb->noun: “Delete this mountain”).  The advantage of this approach is that you can execute the same action over and over quickly.
3. Watch the Command Line (CC3) at the bottom of your screen.  The Command Line is how CC3 communicates with you and provides hints on what you need to do next. CC3+ adds a new feature called a Command Prompt that provides more detailed instructions which float near the tip of your pointer to reduce the chance that you’ll miss them.  A great feature when you are learning this tool!
4. An entity is an element, object, symbol, line, whatever on the map.  Anything drawn in the Drawing Window is an entity.  Keep that in mind.

Overview

For this post, I’m going to use the Khalkaeareon map created and posted by Kalthorine to the ProFantasy Community Forums.  Be sure to grab the map, not just the image of the map.

There are many ways to select something on a map in Campaign Cartographer 3+.  I tend to think of these options in terms of “Fundamental” and “Advanced” techniques.

Over the next two posts, we are going to look at what I consider to be the “Fundamental” select techniques.  Part 1, today’s post, will cover:

• Select All
• Select by Layer
• Select by Window
• Select by Clicking the Edge of an Entity
• Deselect an Entity

In Part 2, we will take on:

• Select by Entity Type
• Select by Entity Tag Number
• Select Prior

At some point in the future, we’ll cover the following “Advanced” techniques.  I haven’t yet had a lot of reason to experiment with these so I want to better understand the mapping situations best solved by these tools:

• Select by Color
• Select by Line/Fill Style
• And, Or, Not:  Adding to or removing from a group of selected entities

Let’s get started…

Select All

Why You May Want To Use This Approach:  You want to keep the template, tools, etc. that you have created for a particular map but you want to start the entire map over from scratch.  In more advanced cases, you want to keep everything on two or more layers but get rid of everything else.

By far one of the easiest ways to select entities in Campaign Cartographer is to just select all of them.  For now, let’s just assume you want to erase everything on a map and start over – but you don’t want to pick a new template or anything like that.

1. Click the “Erase” button from the”Edit” toolbox to the left of the Symbol Catalog.
2. Move your cursor to the Drawing Window.  In CC3, take note of the Command Line, it reads “Select Entities (0 picked):”.  In CC3+, you get this same text on both the Command Line and Command Prompt.
3. Right-click.  Select “All” from the pop-up menu.
4. Every entity on the map is selected.  The invisible outlines are presented in pink so you can see what you have selected.
5. Right-click. Select “Do it” to execute the “Erase” command (or whatever command you selected).

The goal of this tutorial is not to teach you how to erase entities, just select them.  We’ll leave it there.

Select by Layer

Why You May Want To Use This Approach:  You want to move everything on a single layer to a different layer; you want to erase everything on a single layer.

Next to Select All, selecting everything on a layer is easiest.

Over the weekend – you know, when I supposed to be making maps not learning about “Select” – Select by Layer came in handy.

I was following the Campaign Cartographer 3+ User Guide Tutorial on “Converting Your Old Maps” (pp. 84-86) and I kept getting stuck on Step 6.  By Step 6, you’ve loaded up and scaled a bitmap or PNG image of your old maps when you discover that your old map is just a bit smaller than what you want your new map to be so you’ve got to move and scale the old map.  You are going to do this by first aligning the inside corners of the two maps.  To do this, you need to select edge of the bitmap (“With the crosshairs, click in the lower left corner of the old map.”).

I could not get it done¹. It. was. so. frustrating.

It is, in fact, my inability to select a bitmap that led to the creation of this post.  Since the bitmap was on its own layer, a very simple way to have accomplished this would have been to Select by Layer.

To illustrate a practical use of this Select approach, let’s say you want to move everything from the MINERALS/MOUNTAINS layer to another.  To make a change like that, the tool you want to use is the “Change Properties” tool.

1. Click the “Change Properties” button from the”Edit” toolbox to the left of the Symbol Catalog. If you look at Figure 1, above, it is the button immediately to the right of the Erase button.
2. Move your cursor to the Drawing Window.  In CC3, take note of the Command Line, it reads “Select Entities (0 picked):”.  In CC3+, you get this same text on the Command Line and, additionally, in the Command Prompt along with more detailed instructions.  See Figure 2, above.  It will be similar.
3. Right-click.  Select “Layer” from the pop-up menu.
4. Right-click.  The “Select Layer” Dialog window will pop-up.  Click the furthest left box on the MINERALS/MOUNTAINS row and click “OK”.
   1. Alternatively, if you know the name of the Layer you want to select, you could just type its name.
   2. In CC3, you type the Layer name on the Command Line
   3. In CC3+, as you type, the Layer name will appear in the floating instruction text near your pointer and on the Command Prompt.
5. Every entity on the Layer is selected.  You can verify this two ways. First, the invisible outlines are presented in pink so you can see what you have selected, just like in Figure 3, above.  Second, the Command Line reads “Select entities (287 picked):”.  If you have CC3+, the floating Command Prompt reads “Select entities to change properties [287 selected]:”
6. Right-click. Select “Do it” to execute the “Change Properties” command or whatever command you selected.

Once again, we aren’t really learning about moving entities between layers so we are going to leave off at this point and move on to the next task.

Select by Window

Why You May Want To Use This Approach:  You want to select more than one entity within a specific area of your map in order to move the group to another area of the map.  You want to select a tight grouping of related objects and change their properties.  You want to select a tight grouping of related objects and delete them.  Lots more.

Select All and Select by Layer are very ham-fisted tools. They select a lot of entities without a lot of finesse.  They have their place but, most of the time, you are going to want to work with a few entities at a time.

To start to get finer control over what you select, you can actually define a Window to select multiple items within an area at the same time.  To use this technique, you select two points on opposite corners of an imaginary rectangle (“Window”).  Everything inside the window is selected.

For this select exercise, let us assume that we want to move a the cluster of towers from near Drakenhold in the Upper Left Corner of the Khalkaraeon map.

1. Click the “Move” button from the”Edit” toolbox to the left of the Symbol Catalog. See Figure 4.
2. Move your cursor to the Drawing Window.  In CC3, take note of the Command Line, it reads “Select Entities (0 picked):”.  In CC3+, you get this same text on the Command Line and, additionally, in the Command Prompt along with more detailed instructions.  See Figure 2, above.  It will be similar.
3. Right-click.  Select “Window” from the pop-up menu.
4. You are now going to define a “box”.  Pick some point to the upper left of the group of entities you want to select and click.
5. Pick a point to the lower right of the group of entities to select.  As you move your cursor down and to the left, a “box” will grow around the group of entities you want to select.  When the box surrounds the entities you want to select, click again.
6. Every entity intersected by the box will be selected and will either turn pink or be surrounded by a pink border.  See Figure 5.
7. Right-click. Select “Do it” to execute the “Move” command or whatever command you selected.

There are some gotchas that go along with this approach.  This approach works on the concept of “intersection”.  Any entities that fall within the boundaries of the Window you define are going to be selected.  Because symbols frequently overlap, there is a good chance that you may pick up entities that you did not intend.  In Figure 5, I was trying to select just the three towers towards the middle of the image.  I got a lot more than I wanted.

So what can you do?  Here are a few ideas:

1. Reserve this approach for areas of the map where there are not a lot of overlapping symbols or other entities.
2. Zoom-in close and use very small Windows to limit how many symbols potentially overlap your window.
3. Deselect the entities you did not intend to grab.
4. Freeze the layers containing the entities you do not want to select.

Select by Clicking the Edge of an Entity

Why You May Want To Use This Approach: You want to execute a command on one entity – most likely to delete or move it.  You want to execute a command on a few entities from among a group of entities – most likely to delete or to move them.

Now we are zeroing in on it.  You want to select a single entity and execute a command on that entity.  To do this, you have to click on the edge of the entity.  Ah…but that’s the rub: Where is the edge of the entity?  You keep clicking the symbol you want to select and all you get is a cross-hair and you wonder, why can’t I pick up this symbol?!

If you look at either Figure 3 or Figure 5 above, you will see a pink colored box around the entities that are selected.  This is not the edge of the entity.  Let’s call this the “border”.

If you look at any sufficiently styled symbol, you will find a lot of edges within the icon. Again, this is not the edge of the entity.  Let’s call these the “lines” that define the symbol.  The edge of an entity is a line.

The core problem is that you expect Campaign Cartographer to work like your Windows machine.  In Windows, you click in the center of an icon on the screen to use it.  That’s not how it works in Campaign Cartographer (remember those habits I said you needed to unlearn in the Overview, above? Yeah. This is one of them.)

The edge of the entity is defined by the outer lines of the symbol regardless of where the border of the entity may be. To select by clicking the “edge of an entity” you must click the outer lines of the entity.  Clicking a line/edge in the middle of the entity will not select the entity.

In my (albeit limited) experience, it is much easier to select a single entity by working up close.  For this particular select exercise, let’s us assume that you want to move Drakenhold castle in the Upper Left corner of the Khalkaraeon map.

1. Find Drakenhold castle on the map.  It is in the Upper Left corner of the map.
2. Zoom in.  You can do this from the View -> Zooms -> In By 2 menu item, the Zoom buttons on the upper far right toolbar, or by right-clicking and choosing one of the Zoom options.  Get in close.  See Figure 6.
3. Click the “Move” button (see Figure 4, above, if you are not sure where the button is).
4. Move your cursor to the edge of the castle and click.  The symbol or entity should either turn pink or be surrounded by a pink border.  See Figure 7.
5. Look at the Command Line and Command Prompt (if you are using CC3+).  The Command Line should read “Selected Entities (1 picked):”.  The Command Prompt should read “Select Entities to Move, Scale, Rotate [1 picked]:”.
6. If you want to add more entities to the group, repeat Steps 1-5 until you’ve selected all the entities you want to manipulate.  Keep an eye on the Command Line / Command Prompt to ensure that you are only picking up the entities you expect to pick up.
7. When you are done selecting individual entities, right-click and select “Do It” to execute the “Move” command or whatever command you chose.

In Step 5, if the “Selected Entities” count is 0 or greater than 1, you’ve either failed to select the castle or you picked up something in addition.  You need to deselect and try again.

Deselect an Entity

Why You May Want To Use This Approach:  Using another approach, you’ve selected one or more entities that you did not intend to select.  Before you complete your command sequence, you need to reduce the number of entities selected.

As you seek finer and finer control over the number of entities you want to select, you are going to select entities that you did not intend to select.  Before you right-click and select “Do it”, you need to clean up the collection of selected entities.

First, double-check the Command Line and the Command Prompt to see how many entities are currently picked.  If you think you’ve got 1 but the command line says you’ve got more, you’ve got clean-up to do.

There are two basic ways to deselect an entity.  You can choose to cancel the command or deselect entities one at a time.

Cancel the Command

1. Complete Steps 1-6 of Select by Window but only try to select a few entities.
2. Right-click and select “Cancel” from the pop-up menu.
3. The items are no longer selected.

But wait! If the items are no longer selected, why are they still surrounded by a pink border?  To save resources, the Drawing Window does not refresh after every command.  If you still see pink borders, click the Redraw button to the upper right (see Figure 8), use View > Redraw or type CTRL-R.   If the pink border does not go away, then you did not deselect the entity.

Deselect Entities One At A Time

1. Complete Steps 1-6 of Select by Clicking the Edge of an Entity.  Select 3 entities.
2. With three entities selected, press and hold the CTRL key while you select one of the 3 entities you just selected.
3. The Command Line count of Selected Entities should decrease by 1.

In general, any time something doesn’t quite look right on the map, it is probably a good idea to “Redraw”.  To clean up my drawing left-overs, I find myself doing this frequently after deselecting entities and executing other commands.

My gut tells me that if I want to get good at Campaign Cartographer – to really master it – I need to spend time really learning these fundamental skills.  Just from playing around with these techniques and then writing them down for your benefit has been extremely helpful to me.

How about you?  Did any of this help? Do you have a trick for selecting objects within CC3 that gets you out of tricky situations?  What is it?  Leave a comment and tell me about it.

1. I wanted to do it “the right way” and follow the instructions verbatim so I could be certain I was learning the skill required. Yeah. Don’t do that. It doesn’t matter. The upside, is that I learned a lot anyway…about other ways to select items.

Another month has passed and the community forum has been busy. Let’s take a look with what our users came up last month.

Steve Travis continues his line of maps for the German DSA adventure “The Wolf of Winhall” with a map of the eponymous town.

Continue reading »