Previously in this series, we have developed a set of tiles which we can use to build a space station of any size. Sure, more variation would have been nice, but the four tiles we made are actually enough for any size space station, as long as we accept that it has to be shaped like a rectangle. The previous articles should have given you the information needed to make more tiles though, such as making an inner corner to complete the set and allow for a more complex shape.

Last time, we did look at how to export and print the tiles. Printed tiles could be assembled on the fly at the gaming table, while the exported images are great for combining in just about any program, like an image editor, a Virtual TableTop, or even CC3+ itself. And this is what we will be focusing on in this article, how to use the tiles in CC3+. There are two options here, either we can import the images we exported as symbols and use those, or, instead of exporting our tiles in the first place, we could create symbols directly from the tiles themselves. This latter option gives us some interesting options we will look at in the next installment, but today, we’ll look at creating bitmap symbols.

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The summer is usually a bit quieter in terms of map-making, but our users have nevertheless created a bunch of beautiful maps last month. Let’s take a look at some of them that were shared on the ProFantasy forum or the Facebook group!

Ricko Hasche has utlitzed the latest free monthly symbols by Mike Schley to go a-viking with this amazing village map.
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The August issue of the Annual 2024 brings you a revamped and refreshed overland mapping style by Sarah Wroot, one of the earliest fantasy cartographers who contributed to Campaign Cartographer.

Sarah’s style “Sarah Wroot Revisited” takes beautiful hand-crafted line symbols and combines them with watercolor style backgrounds to create a wonderful artistic result. It combines easily with the hand-drawn style from Symbol Set 1 – Fantasy Overland (also created by Sarah Wroot) for a much wider variety of symbols.

The August issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can do so here.

I recently finished my 11-year long AD&D campaign with an epic final boss battle. And a good boss battle obviously need a good battle map.

My group is playing in-person, but we use a Virtual Table Top program displayed on a projection screen for our battles. This allow us to zoom out/in on various area, and have a more flexible approach to the area, but for those that prefer using physical miniatures, printing is of course an option as well.

For this project, I did most of the work in CC3+, but it involves using the VTT software as well (MapTool in my case). I’ll keep this article more an overview of the process rather than diving down into the technical details or making a detailed tutorial, but I invite anyone who has any questions regarding the process to drop by the ProFantasy Community Forums and post their questions there, and I will be happy to help.

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In the July Annual issue community veteran Quenten Walker revisits the Watabou Cities tool pack and style. The style referenced the Watabou online random village, town and city generator and leveraged it to create city maps in CC3+. Since its inception, the Watabou map generator has been changed and developed further. Quenten has taken it on himself to revise the style to take the changes into account and expand it to offer more tools and options.

The new style does not only contain a new bitmap fill selection, more drawing tools and more detailed instructions, it also leverages improved options of the Watabou Cities Generator to make creating cities, town, and villages randomly even easier in CC3+.

The July issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2024 yet, you can do so here.

In the prior installments of this series (Part 1 – Part 2), we looked at how to create mapping tiles using CC3+. Such tiles can be great for quick mapping, because you can just assemble them in whatever way you need to provide a huge amount of possibilities.

Now that you have your tiles, the big question is of course, how will you use them? I’ll consider 4 main methods. the first of them is simply doing as we did while developing them in part 2, just having the tiles placed off to one side in the map and make copies to slot into place, but I find that a bit inefficient. A far better option if you are going to use them in CC3+ is to define them as symbols, which I will look at in a later installment. Today, I’ll consider the last two options, namely exporting them as images that can be used in any application, including CC3+ itself, and printing them, giving you physical tiles to assemble on the fly at the gaming table. Bot these options have several things in common, so it makes sense to talk about them at the same time.

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Welcome to the 2015 Annual, mappers! So we wrapped up last annual (2016) with TJ Vandel, and we start 2015 with them 😊

(Download the FCW file)

Black and white mapping is not in my wheelhouse, to say the least. I love taking textures and layering them, creating new colors in the color palette. But, with every new adventure we learn new things and experience new options in mapping. Working with this style was pretty simple. It’s great for printing out maps at home, especially if you like to conserve ink, like I do. You can easily do a DM and Player versions in less than an hour.

For this map, I used an online generator of dungeons and simply traced out my rooms and added a little bit of flair (I just can’t resist trying to make things look “pretty”). The mapping guide is simple and even the newest of beginners can work with this style early on in their CC3+ learning journey.

About the author: Lorelei was my very first D&D character I created more years back than i’d like to remember. When I decided to venture into creating maps for my and others rpgs, I thought I owed it to her to name myself Lorelei Cartography, since it was her that led me to the wonderful world of tabletop gaming in the first place. Since then I have been honored to have worked with companies such as WizKids, Pelgrane Press, and ProFantasy.

Campaign Cartographer is not designed to be a tile-based mapper, rather it is designed to be fully free-form where you can shape things as you want. But sometimes, having a set of pre-made tiles available can allow us to throw together a map quickly, or to serve as inspiration.

Last month, we looked at planning the basic structure for our tiles. Planning is always important, especially with something like making tiles, because we need a structured approach if we want them to actually fit nicely together.

In this installment, we’ll get into drawing a few example tiles using the template we created in part 1. Continue reading »

Campaign Cartographer is not designed to be a tile-based mapper, rather it is designed to be fully free-form where you can shape things as you want. But sometimes,  having a set of pre-made tiles available can allow us to throw together a map quickly, or to serve as inspiration.

Most CC3+ styles doesn’t come with such tiles, but creating our own tiles for use in later maps isn’t difficult, although it is a bit time-consuming if we want lots of nice tiles available for our use, but it can also be a nice relaxing activity, and each individual tile can be finished relatively quickly once you have your basic framework ready.

Tiles can be used for multiple purposes, like battle maps, dungeons, space stations and cities. And of course, a tile in CC3+ isn’t fixed and locked once made, you can make a dungeon using tiles, and then still add or remove individual items after placing the tiles.

Tiles can also be printed and used for assembling a quick location on the table for miniature play.

In this article series, I’ll take you through the creation and use of such tiles, and we’ll look at some of the more advanced options available in CC3+ to make the best tiles.  Continue reading »

When you start a new map in CC3+, you’ll find that there is normally 20 or so sheets in a map. One of the main reasons of these is to ensure the correct drawing order, that symbols goes atop the floor and not below it and the floor goes atop the background terrain, and so on. Most tools will select the appropriate sheet automatically to ensure things goes where they are supposed without the user having to micro manage everything.

Obviously, these sheets are named so their purpose is understandable by people so you can know what their purpose is, but there is also some interesting tricks when it comes to sheet naming that can be used with the tools. This is something to keep in mind when you create your own sheets, as following the appropriate way of naming can help greatly.

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