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• Monsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer

  July 2009 edited July 2009

  There are many reasons why each map style has it's own drawing tools (The tools are specific to a map style, and not just an addon). One of the major reasons here is scale. Because the drawing unit in a map is always "map units", no matter the type of map, the scale is not compatible between different types of maps. For instance, in a dungeon map, a 1' wide wall is one map unit wide, while on an overland map, one map unit equals one mile. This means that a drawing tool made for a dungeon environment that is intended to draw a 1' wide wall will draw a 1 mile wide wall on an overland map. Note that fill styles are also often scaled, which usually causes it to look bad if used directly in the wrong kind of map.
  The second is the amount of references in the map. Each included fill style means there would need to be a definition in the map for it. The more definitions, the more resources (memory, cpu, disk), the map requires, so it is not efficient to include every possible fill style in the map. (And it needs to be in the map, otherwise you couldn't distribute a map with custom fill styles).
  The last reason is because of the sheets in the drawing. An overland map requires a very different sheet setup from a dungeon map. While the drawing tools add any missing sheets, they don't know where to put them in the drawing order, so they are all added to the end of the list. This usually ends in the result from "foreign" drawing tools to look strange, at least until you can reorder the sheet in an appropriate order.
  
  What you need to do is to import the fill styles you wish to use.
  This can be done in several different ways:
  1. Insert a map containing the fill styles you want, then immediately undo. This will remove the inserted map, but leave the fill styles behind. This is usually the easiest option to get the appropriate fill styles, but be aware that the fill scale might be wrong. This option should also let you use the drawing tools belonging to the map style you inserted, since the fill they are using now exists.
  2. Define new fill styles manually in the fill style box.
  3. Use the "Tools -> Import bitmap fill styles" to import all bitmap files in a folder as fill styles into he current drawing.

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• wayward

  July 2009

  Thanks for the explanation Monsen, I figured out the part about scale, especially concerning things like roads or walls and such. Really there is only a few fill styles I want to use in CD3 maps from DD3, not all of them and vice versa, otherwise there are really too many and it will get confusing . I am making a list of the ones I really want for an underground city and will use your recommendations to import them into the map that I want. Thanks for your quick reply, this forum is great.

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• Monsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer

  July 2009

  Note that if you are making a series of maps that always needs the same extra fillstyles, you can create a new template that incorporates these, so that you don't need to import them each time. Just create a new map of the desired type, add the desired fill styles, then save it as a template (.fct file).

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• wayward

  July 2009

  That will certainly save time, thanks. I will be doing a number of fairly similar style, size maps and saving any time and energy with them certianly helps

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