I often use boxes to put information like a map key or the map title in as I like to separate these things from the map itself. Creating such a box is easy enough, I usually just use the Box command to draw an appropriate box with a nice fill on a dedicated sheet, slap a quick effect on it like edge fade and/or transparency and I am done. If you did the first map tutorial in the CC3+ user manual, this was one of the final steps when we completed the map in the text chapter.

But, what if I want to make it a little neater, like for example adding rounded corners to it? CC3+ doesn’t have a ready to go rounded corner tool out of the box, but we can easily assemble one ourselves with a few simple steps. And of course, once you have made the shape, you can throw whatever fills and effects on it that you want.

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Ever wanted to add your own buttons to the CC3+ toolbars? Perhaps you have a command you use frequently, or just want quick access to a symbol catalog?

CC3+ doesn’t have a built-in editor to do this, but all it takes is a few simple changes in a text file to make it happen.

In this blog post, I am going to go through the basics for adding a new button to your toolbar. To keep it simple, I’ll just focus on buttons, although there are other things you can do in the menu as well, such as adding pop-up menus when you right click a button, but I’ll just cover the basics for now.

If you like, you can also watch the basics of this article as a video, and then come back to check out additional details in the article later.

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Most of you have heard about macros. If you are an existing CC3+ user you’ve used them, knowingly or not, and you might even have written your own. For some people, the word macro may sound a little scary because it is associated with programming, but they’re really not that complicated.

Macros are used in a lot of places in the program. For example, when you start a new map or load an existing map, CC3+ uses a macro (stored in the OnNewMacro/OnOpenMacro map notes) to show you the appropriate toolbars and load the filters needed for the style of the map. A lot of the drawing tools uses macros to accomplish the more complex stuff, for example the forest drawing tools use a macro to call the commands to fill the area with trees, or the fields drawing tools in several styles use a macro to align the fields to the first edge of the polygon (These macros are stored with the drawing tools).

Lastly, CC3+ also has a macro file that contains named macros. These are often called from the toolbar buttons and menu elements in the program, so editing this file may change how the program behave.

And then we have script files….

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Dear map-makers! Welcome to the July newsletter and our look at what the last month had in store.

News

• The July issue of the Annual 2022 is available, providing a style and toolset for complex coastlines and island groups. It was inspired by Ralf’s recent trip to the Outer Hebrides.
• Visit the ProFantasy booth (#423) at GenCon Indy in early August.

Resources

• The next batch of free monthly symbols by Mike Schley is available. We are switching from overland symbols to dungeon/battlemap symbols for a while with this set.
• Watch or re-watch last month’s live mapping videos from our playlist on YouTube.
• Check out the community’s Maps of the Month for June to get inspired for your own map projects by the work of your fellow map-makers.

Articles

• Remy presents the bookmark function of CC3+ and how to utilize it for organizing your maps.

Reminders

• CC3+ has been updated to version 3.98 (Update 28) which is available from your registration page.
• Fractal Terrains 3+ has been released and is available from among your FT3 downloads on your registration page.
• Join our community of map-makers on the Profantasy forum and/or the Facebook group.

The July issue of the Cartographer’s Annual is now available. Inspired by my recent trip to the Outer Hebrides it focuses on island chains and archipelagoes with their highly complex outlines, which can be difficult to reproduce.

It’s both a style pack with its Island Chains overland style and tool bundle, providing symbols and tools that make drawing the eponymous islands a breeze. The accompanying 6-page mapping guide takes you through creating a map in the new style as well as how to make the issue’s tools available in any other overland drawing style.

The July issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2022 yet, you can do so here.

If you own a lot of ProFantasy products, or have installed one or more of the large community symbol packs, you will have a lot of symbols. By default, CC3+ will give you easy access to the symbols belonging to the current map style through the symbol catalog buttons immediately above the map window, but sometimes you may wish to search for other symbols not made for the current style, which may fit anyway. But how to best find these symbols? Let us check out a few ways which may be of assistance to you here.

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It is my pleasure to announce the Master Mapper of 2021, the yearly title we bestow on the most outstanding map-maker of the ProFantasy community. It is never been an easy choice, seeing all the wonderful maps created by our map-makers, but in the end we all agreed on a name for 2021: Hans Anders Bergström, or Lillhans as he is know on the forum. He created an insane amount of highly innovative and wonderful maps, inventing his very own technique of simulating water colors and hand-drawn lines in the process, astounding the whole community and us with what could be achieved with the tools at hand. We therefore name him the Master Mapper of 2021. Congratulations and thanks!

Hans Anders has been with us on the community forum since 2019, and the number of maps he has shared in that relatively short time is immense. With the Master Mapper title we want to specifically thank him for:

• Creating lots of highly innovative maps and shared his creation process with the community.
• Starting and participating in lively discussions, helping actively and contributing to the shared skill set in the Profantasy community.
• Coming up with new and unexpected ways to use Campaign Cartographer’s tools and freely sharing them with the other map-makers of the community.
• Contributed to the resources available for Campaign Cartographer via the Cartographer’s Annual.

So, thank you Anders, we are looking forward to all the future maps, styles and symbols you will come up with!

A few weeks ago, I hosted a live stream taking a closer look at the drawing tools. Making this the perfect time to talk a bit more about the more advanced aspects of the drawing tools and how to utilize them properly and explaining a few things in more detail than appropriate for a stream.

Examples of advanced use of drawing tools is to draw aligned fills, drawing a path and have symbols placed along it or drawing a polygon and having it filled with randomly placed symbols. Basically, a lot of the things you can do using multiple steps with regular CC3+ commands can be automated and streamlined by making a drawing tool for it.

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People who have browsed the Community Atlas website have probably noticed that you can search maps, not just by name, but also by text in the map. So, how to I manage to do that, the maps on the website is just images, right? Granted, there are tools available that tries to understand text in images, but these are not good with noisy backgrounds like a map is. However, the community atlas website is of course backed by the actual community atlas product, the .fcw files themselves, and this is where the text comes from.

This is all done by using an excellent command in CC3+, the create index command. This command was originally made for searching through multiple drawings quickly without the search function having to read each map file every time, but the index it generates is a nice plain text file which can also be used by other tools, such as a web search. If you own products such as the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas or World War II Interactive Atlas, these come with an index file out of the box allowing you to quickly search the maps therein, but of course, you can also easily make your own index file for your own set of maps.

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Have you marveled at the beautiful city maps that Mike Schley has created for the D&D role-playing game and other brands? If not, head over to his web page to see a great selection. Myself, I am a particular fan of his isometric city views like the Candlekeep map you see as the first listed on that page. They give a great overall impression of the location, while also haviong enough precise information to make them really useful as a gaming tool.

Of course I’ve been advocating for a symbol set using this art style for a while here at Profantasy, and I’m now more than happy that I have the first symbols on my desk for by an upcoming set by Mike himself. He’s been busy creating the inked outlines ofr the buildings and kindly provided a few colored ones as well, that I can show off here. Take a look!

So far my job concerning this product has mostly been looking over the incoming symbols, nodding and saying “Yes, they are great, thank you” by way approval. I’m looking forward to diving into creating all the symbols for CC3+ when more of the colored versions come in, and trying my hand at creating isometric city maps with them myself.