Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus has been getting a lot of love on YouTube lately, by an old and a new tutorial channel.
Joe Sweeney has started a whole new series of videos, redoing his classic mapping tutorials with CC3+ as the “Master Mapping Class“.
And another CC3+ user, Tony Crawford, has started his own set of introductory videos on CC3+ and its add-ons on the “Crawford Cartography” channel.
For a while now Remy has been quietly running a very interesting column over on the Profantasy forum: his “Command of the Week” series. Once a week he takes a look at a CC3+ command, explaining its use and highlighting its special utility. In his own words:
“CC3+ contains a huge amount of various commands and features. In this series, I plan to highlight some of these. There won’t be any special progression to this series, and the command will be selected from the entire range, from the simple basic commands, to more advanced features intended for the more advanced users. Feel free to use this topic to discuss the command presented. If you have a command you wish to have showcased, feel free to request it, and it may get presented.
This series is called the command of the week, but it could also explain a feature or effect. The explanations will tend to explain the technical parts of the command, and is intended to highlight the basics (and complexities) of the command, but won’t be a detailed tutorial on how to use it. It is up to you to use it creatively in your maps.”
Often I find myself nodding as Remy explains a command I use all the time, at other times I am surprised as he digs up a command I had almost forgotten about. Sometimes they are useful for beginners, at other times you’d need to be a little more advanced user to get the most use out of it. But Remy’s comments are always very interesting and useful, and by now he has accumulated 30 commands of the week.
So if you are interested in finding out more about CC3+’s many useful command and tools, head over to the latest command of the week “Sort Symbols in Map“, which also contains an index of all commands covered so far.
This month we go back to the very first drawing style every created for the Cartographer’s Annual: The Mercator Historical overland style, originally published in January 2007. Yikes! Has it really been that long?
Why are we doing that? Since the 2017 Annual has recently been updated, the Mercator style is already available for CC3+ after all? Well, it gives us the opportunity to do two major things: First, we can significantly expand the range of symbols available for the style. Second, we can update the documentation (i.e. the mapping guide) to take more of the CC3+ features into account. And we make this beautiful style available for everyone who doesn’t own the Annual Volume 1 yet.
For those who don’t know the style yet, it is based on the works of 16th and 17th century cartographers, and captures the flair of early exploration and the wonders of Terra Incognita – the Unknown Land.
The 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.
The June Annual is not the only new download available now from your registration page – you can also download the Random City command by Lee Saunders for CC3+ from the same place. Coincidence? Hardly!
For the Annual we’ve created a lengthy tutorial on how to use the Random City command and what to do to customize and enhance the maps the command creates for you. That way you can quickly create a base map and continue to map the city after that as far as you like.
The Random City command was originally created for use with City Designer 3 and is listed separately under CD3’s downloads. But it is also included in the June Annual download, and if you do not own CD3, you can use it with the basic city style in CC3+.
In addition to the Random City command itself, the June Annual contains a 9-page tutorial and 2 example maps created with the command, one done with City Designer 3, the other with CC3+ alone.
The 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.
While the May Annual issue was already available for download yesterday, our announcement is a day late, die to the May holiday. I hope you had a great day off and don’t mind.
We are thrilled to have a new contributor to the Annual: Jon C Munson II from our community forum. He created a set of intricate and beautiful mining equipment symbols, and after expanding them with some cave features and matching textures they made a great set to publish in the Annual. Thanks Jon (who by the way is available for commission work if you need more symbols in his style)!
The symbol pack “Munson’s Mines” contains more than 70 symbols and 20 textures for creating mine layouts. They are are usable on their own in the included Munson’s Mines drawing style, as well as in combination with the Dungeons of Schley style of Symbol Set 4.
The 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.
Good news for all fans of the magnificent Tome of Ultimate Mapping! Remy Monsen has updated and expanded its content to cover CC3+ and all its new and shiny functionality. In the process the already voluminous book expanded to more than 700 pages of mapping goodness (another 90 pages added).
Covering all ProFantasy products and add-ons from Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus and Fractal Terrains 3 to Perspectives 3, Source Maps and the Annuals, the Tome includes a huge range of diverse topics, like designing cities, combining multiple drawing styles in one map, and writing macros for CC3+. Take a peek at its content in the Tome 3+ preview.
If you own the Tome of Ultimate Mapping v3, the Tome 3+ is a free update for you, and if you own the older edition of the Tome of Ultimate Mapping (for CC2 Pro), there is an upgrade offer available. In both cases you should have received an email with the offer. If not, you can check with us via email.
If you don’t have the Tome yet, you can grab it here.
With Ralf back from his long trip we’ve dived with renewed vigor into updating the remaining add-ons for CC3+. Helped by Jeff Salus, this month sees two new updates for the Annuals. Remy is working on an updated Tome, and Ralf on the Source Maps products and Dioramas.
News
Resources
Articles
This month we are venturing into the far future and outer space with the High Space Galaxy style by Joe Sweeney. Designed for Storyweaver‘s space opera setting High Space we are happy to add it to the range of matching styles and packs that have been published previously in the Annuals (see High Space Systems and HighSpace SciFi Tiles and SciFi Aliens).
The Galaxy style focuses on galaxy maps and star clusters, but also adds material than can be used in the High Space System style (on its own or in conjunction with the issue from the Annual Vol 7). The 5-page mapping guide takes you through the steps of drawing a star cluster map.
The 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.
P.S.: Joe Sweeney has produce a video tutorial on making a map with the High Space Galaxy style. Check it out here:
Annuals for CC3+
We are happy to announce that three more Cartographer’s Annuals are now compatible with CC3+: Thanks to the hard work of Jeff Salus, if you have previously purchased one of them, you can now freely download Volume 7, Volume 6 and Volume 5 from your registration page. Be sure you use the “Setup for CC3+” to install them properly with the current version of Campaign Cartographer.
If you don’t own them yet, purchasing them from the web store will give you both the CC3 and CC3+ versions. Highlights of the three Annuals include the complete set of John Robert’s drawing styles: Overland, Dungeon and City.
You will also be pleased to hear that we are well underway for the next two Annuals (working backwards) to become available for CC3+. Look for Volume 4 and Volume 3 in the next few weeks.
CC3+ Update 10
To support the current and upcoming Annuals for CC3+ we have also released a new update for CC3+: Update 10 (version 3.76). Here is the change log from the Readme file for Update 10:
CC3+ Version 3.76
=================
– added Copy & Paste for sheet effects in Sheets & Effects dialog
– added preview in all fill style and line style selection boxes
– added status preview for layers and sheets in selection boxes
– added commands to control display of fill style types in style selection: FSCOMBOMASK (normal command) and FSCOMBOMASKM (macro version)
– added support for Annual Vol 6 and Vol 5
– added SHADEP command to draw shaded polygons will all possible options
– fixed CUTMENUON command
– fixed CD3 symbols to use @ bitmap link reference
– fixed CD3 house settings to include frills
– fixed importing symbols with @ links and _map references
– various fixes related to shaded polygons
– fixed editing macros from drawing tools
– fixed CC3B forest fill setting
– updated ImageMagick’s convert.exe to newest version
– updated CA Pro templates in CA3
As you can see it contains some other neat features. Especially the ability to copy and paste effects between different sheets can speed up work considerably when you are setting up your own effect settings. And the ability to see a sample of the fill styles when you are choosing one in any dialog box is also very handy.
After a full three months of travel, I’m back home in good old Germany and settled back into my own place.
For fun, I’ve created two little maps showing my itinerary with Pär Lindström’s excellent “Modern Journeys” style, published in the Cartographer’s Annual Vol 8 (2014), garnished with my own photos from the trip. This style is just brilliant to show overviews of travel itineraries.
The first part of the journey brought me to Australia, where I mainly traveled around the southeast and Tasmania. In Sydney I had the great pleasure to finally meet Joe Sweeney in person, the guy who creates all these lovely video tutorials for our software. One of the absolute highlights was hiking (or bushwalking as they say there) the Overland Track in Tasmania, one of the most beautiful multi-day hikes in the world. At the end of my stay I took a trip over to the other side of the country, staying a few days in Perth with Lindsay, our editor for all the mapping guides in the Annuals, and her husband. Again it was wonderful to meet people in person you only know via the Internet. Thanks for all the hospitality!
Cartography-wise I found this map of language families in Australia especially interesting, because it dispelled a lot of preconceptions of a monolithic aboriginal culture for me, which we tend to encounter in fiction and documentaries a lot.
Originally my plans were to travel to New Zealand only, but I am now very glad that I decided to include five weeks in Australia. While I saw only a little section of this vast country, both landscape and people were absolutely amazing and I wouldn’t want to miss a single day of my visit. Having only seen the southeast, Tasmania and Perth I now have more than enough reason to return and explore the rest of the continent.
New Zealand! It’s the dream destination of so many Germans – me included. Of course it is a very beautiful country, but our fascination with it seems to go beyond that. The popularity of the Lord of the Rings movies only added to an existing love for New Zealand – perhaps because it is pretty much the farthest away you can get from our home country on this blue planet. “Wanderlust” is a German word after all, and we have another one that described the longing to travel even better: “Fernweh”.
I did not really plan my itinerary to visit any filming locations of Peter Jackson’s movies, but there are so many of them on the islands that you often only need to take a little step off the path to see one. I’ve written a little piece about traveling through Middle-earth in another place. It’s in German, but if you read that language or want to brave a Google translation check the links.
I traveled the length of the country, from busy Auckland in the north down to remote Stewart Island south of the South Island. Some of the top highlights were walking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, swimming in the crystal blue waters of Able Tasman Bay, looking out across Lake Wanaka from Roys Peak, and reaching my southernmost point ever on Ulva Island.
Map-wise I was especially fascinated with the many navigational charts I encountered and I’m planning to create a Cartographer’s Annual issue around these.
As long as my trip may have been, it was still over much too soon. It was the weirdest feeling coming back: It felt like everything should have changed a lot after being away for such a long time, but in reality nothing much did. Everything was still the familiar old – which is a good thing. Did I take away something beyond a wonderful set of memories from this journey? Yes, I guess it would be: Do It! If you get the opportunity for a time-out away from everything, be it a month, three of them, or a year, grab it by the throat! You’ll never know when the opportunity presents itself again.
Just make sure you have a good map for your journey!
