One reason to import an image into your map is to use it as a guideline for your mapping. For example, maybe you want to import that scan of your old hand-drawn map, or importing a real world city map to re-map it in CC3+. Inserting the image is easy enough (Insert File from the Draw menu), but one of the important things when you want to use an image for reference (or using it as part of the final drawing) is to get it to scale. You could wing it, but that often comes back to bite you later, as a lot of the default sizes for effects, line widths and so on assume your map is to scale. I’ve talked about the importance of scale in an earlier article, but for this one, I’ll just focusing on scaling imported images.
We are happy to announce a new version of Fractal Terrains: Fractal Terrains 3+.
Joe Slayton has been hard at work to update Fractal Terrains with a 64-bit core, greatly improving the speed and editing detail of his world building tool, while also adding more functionality and ironing out various kinks. This version is a free upgrade to Fractal Terrains and available from your registration page among the other Fractal Terrains 3 downloads. As it is a 64-bit software and uses a different setup architecture from FT3, it is a complete new install, meaning you can install it in addition to FT3 and uninstall that older version at your leisure.
Here are the release notes on 3.5.1, the version number of Fractal Terrains 3+:
FT3+ Verion 3.5.1
– Includes “The One-Day Worldbuilder” Annual issue by Sue Daniel (CC3+ required).
– Added export settings for common CC+3 styles (Mike Schley, Jon Roberts, Herwin Wielink).
– Added FT3-style CC3+ export setting “Jherion”
– Fixed river generation.
– Fixed CC3+ export settings save.
– Fixed CC3+ export setting advanced contours.
– Fixed crash with Expand Land in Offset.
– Fixed crash with climate painting toolbar.
– Fixed some visual elements in dialogs being offset from their ocrrect location.
– Color Key will now update correctly on changes.
– Explicit coastline map feature now available on Advanced export options.
– Fixed crash with odd-sized selection import.
– Prescale offset editing is now on by default.
– What once was large, now is small. World editing preselects are now 1024, 4096, and 8192 instead of 256, 512, 1024.
FT3+ Version 3.5.0
– 64-bit (higher resolutions possible).
– Faster calculation and rendering.
– Uses @FT3Cfg.xml for saving settings.
– Single application look, better matching the OS defaults.
– Better CC3 output (better geometry, better rivers).
– Handles FCW templates better, including sheets and reading compressed templates.
– Added ProFantasy-style normal map calculation.
– Added Equal Earth map projection.
– Color key should better fit its window.
– Globe bar can be resized.
We’ve also added four fast and easy CC3+ export settings that give you a beautiful base to work from in CC3+’s most poular drawing styles.
The latest CC3+ update is currently in beta, and you can download it from your registration page over at the main ProFantasy website if you wish to try it out. Of course, this is a beta, so only install it if you don’t mind potentially running into glitches and other issues (this is why we test new versions before releasing them after all)
In this article, I will take a short look at the new features that appear in this version. If you have the beta installed, you will have them right now, but if not, you will get access to them when we release the finished version of the update. In any case, there are several nice new features waiting for you in this update.
We have another gallery of wonderful user maps posted on the Profantasy forum and in the Facebook CC3+ community last month. All for you to browse and admire!
“Schopp und Umland” by Ute Gundacker is a WW2-style map from an actual village in my home country, so I really needed to include this, even if it had been any less beautiful.
Calibre is so prolific, and creates such beautiful maps, that I had to include two of them for the August gallery.
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When mapping, there are times when precision matters a lot, and times when it doesn’t matter at all and simply eyeballing sizes and positions gives the best result. But in this article, I am going to talk a bit about the former, when we want perfect precision in our work, when we need that road to be exactly 10 feet wide, or entities needs to line up perfectly with each other. In CC3+ we have multiple tools available for that purpose, such as snap grid, modifiers and coordinates. I’ve talked about these things in other places before, but I’ll put all these into the context of precision work here.
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Following the Live Mapping: Repeating Textures session, recently presented by Ralf Schemmann, I will be writing a short series of blogs, or a series of short blogs, illustrating how I go about generating my own seamless tiles. My methods are similar to those described by Ralf in the Live Mapping session, but I thought you might like to know a bit more about the workflow I use.
In this first blog I will be covering how I make seamless textures in CC3 using the available symbols from a chosen style. This is one of the quickest ways to make a new seamless tile since it involves no drawing or any kind of work in any app other than CC3.
To make things even easier I have made a new template, which you can download from the link below and place in your C:\ProgramData\Profantasy\CC3Plus\Templates\Other folder:
This is a very simple template, consisting of a black square on the BACKGROUND sheet, and the frozen MAP BORDER layer. This black square is where you will be making your new seamless tile and will automatically define the extent of the export when it is time to export your new tile.
There is a series of red lines on a sheet and layer that are both called CROP MARKS. These are also frozen so that you don’t end up picking them at any point and moving them around. They are helpful guides intended to show you the extent of the tile you are making once the black square is all but covered in symbols.
The template is loosely based on the Mike Schley Overland style, and is designed to generate tiles that are 1000 px x 1000 px, but it can be used to generate symbol tiles in any style if you locate the relevant symbol catalogue by browsing the directory and adjust the export size.
For this example I will use the MS overland trees to create a seamless tile that I can use in conjunction with the published tree fills that come with the style. This will help to break up any unwanted tile patterns caused by mapping extensive areas of unbroken forest using only the published tree fills.
The first step is to pick the set of symbols you want to use, and start pasting them all over the black square at the default symbol size (usually 1) until there is no more black to be seen between the symbols. Don’t worry about pasting them so that they are in the correct order. Just cover the black square.
Use Symbols-Sort Symbols In Map , right click in the view window and pick All, then press D for do it.
Now to move this block of trees and copy it so that we move the edges to the centre, just as Ralf did with his sand texture in the Live Mapping session referenced at the top of this blog.
Turn the SNAP and GRID buttons on and make sure you have the 50 mile, 2 snap grid selected when you right click the GRID button.
Pick the Move tool and select all the trees with a box selection and press D for do it. Then pick the trees at the central snap point and move that point to one of the four corners. It doesn’t matter which one, as long as you snap the central point to one of the corners, like this.
Using the Copy tool, copy and paste this block of trees 3 times from this corner to all the other corners.
Once you have done this sort the symbols again as above, and hopefully you will have something that looks a bit like this
Now for the magical part.
File-Save as… Pick the PNG Bitmap file option in the Save as type: box, and open the Options dialog. The template you are using has been set up to generate 1000 x 1000 pixel sized tiles, so set the height and width of the export to 1000 x 1000. Make sure the checkboxes are ticked as shown, and CC3 will automatically export just the area covered by the black square, and no more or less than that.
I exported my example fill to a subfolder within the Bitmaps\Tiles folder. I called my personal folder User, but you can call yours whatever you like. It’s yours.
Ralf covered how to import your new fills in the Live Mapping session linked to at the top of this article, so I won’t make this article any longer than it needs to be by repeating it again right here.
This is the result of importing my new fill and drawing my first polygon with it. Remember that I said the template is designed to give you a tile that is 1000 x 1000 map units? Combine this information with the fact that symbols and fills are ideally imported to overland maps at a resolution of 20 pixels per map unit, and you get a scale of 50 map units to set for your new fill. this should perfectly match the scale of the original symbols you used to create the fill in the first place.
When you have had a practice using just one random collection, try mixing collections, or even using a background texture and spacing out your trees. You can also do this with other symbols, so you could try hills or mountains
ProFantasy’s sister company Pelgrane Press publishes the award-winning 13th Age roleplaying game.
Written by the co-designers of 3e and 4e, it’s the game that that they play at home. 13th Age combines the best parts of traditional d20-rolling fantasy gaming with new story-focused rules, designed so you can run the kind of game you most want to play with your group. Combat is fast and exciting, skills are simple and flexiblew and based on the character’s history, and each character is tied to the setting and the powers of the world – the Icons.
If you play D&D, it won’t take you long to get started.
Free 13th Age Maps and Tools
ProFantasy worked with Pelgrane to produce some amazing cartography for 13th Age.
We’ve bundled up this CC3+ content for you free to celebrate the 13th Age Humble Bundle. It includes a map-making style, map collections and the 13th Age QuickStart rules.
You can download it here.
The 13th Age Humble Bundle
The 13th Age Humble Bundle includes almost everything for the 13th Age roleplaying game line at a low, low price.
Combining streamlined combat with excellent indie story game design, and packed with a collection of beautifully-crafted books, music, digital maps, and more such as 13th Age, 13 True Ways, and the 13th Age Bestiary, take your character from a plucky adventurer all the way to become an epic hero! Plus, your purchase will support Oceana (supporting the reduction of plastic pollution).
Get the Bundle here.
This month’s annual, Village Battle Map, shows how you can combine multiple assets of Campaign Cartographer 3+ to create these unique, large areas of role-playing battles for your gaming fun.
I love maps like these and have quite a few for my campaign, and boy did they come in handy over the pandemic’s worst when online play was the only kind of gaming we were doing. A map this large works well with my VTT. However, if you want to print something this large out, please follow along the Large Exports edition of this year’s annual.
In this map, I combined the elements of DD3+, CD3+, the free assets available from the Vintyri Project, the CSUAC2 and Bogie’s Mapping Objects, and I even grabbed a symbol from an earlier annual, Munson’s Mines. This kind of mapping is a longtime favorite of mine, blending multiple styles and symbols. Normally, I’d add in some of my own homemade symbols and fills, but due to licensing I am unable to share them, so I left them out of this map, but you mapper, go nuts…..add symbols, create or purchase textures for fills, and make the most detailed map you like. I’m a fan of the little details and so are my players.
For your enjoyment, I decided to make it with a bit of a built in adventure hook…..notice the blood in the river? Perhaps your players approach this village and find it empty, with a few buildings looking “tossed” or perhaps there was a struggle? Or some magic where everyone just disappeared….a Thanos Snap, if you will. Whatever sets off your imagination, enjoy the map, and hopefully you’ll all share your creations with us in the Forums! Happy Mapping!
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.
You can’t make a good dungeon without having some secrets, right? Hidden traps, secret doors, concealed corridors, illusory floors, invisible enemies and fake treasure. Now, placing invisible enemies on the map is dead simple (trick being not actually placing them at all) but how can I make a map with a secret corridor that I can reveal and hide at will, and not betraying it’s existence when it is hidden?
CC3+ has nice tools for adding corridors to your map, but you have do decide if they should break the wall or not when connecting to an existing room or corridor. And this is where the challenge begins. It is easy enough to temporarily hide something by putting it on it’s own layer so toggling the visibility of the corridor is easy, but if you chose to have it break the wall when placed, you would still have that hole there when the corridor is hidden. Now, that isn’t actually a good way to keep it secret. On the other hand, if you chose to not break the walls, then there will be walls blocking the corridor even when it is revealed, which look a bit weird, and we can’t have any of that, can we?
One rather standard feature of most CC3+ maps that I see many people are somewhat confused over or fail to use properly is the screen. For example, I get a lot of atlas submissions that have things sticking out on the outside of the screen. Thus, I thought I would dedicate a small article to talk a little bit about this feature.
The screen is that white polygon that can be found right outside the map border on most maps. But why is it there? What is the intended functionality of it? And how to best manipulate it? And how to avoid it being part of our output when we export our map to an image? I’ll talk about all these things here, to hopefully give you a bit more insight into this feature.
Note that this article is about the screen entity found on most maps, and not the Screen Border sheet effect.
