A little help with basics
There is a lot of information on here to sort through, I guess I'm not even sure of what search terms to use. I only have CC3. I taught AutoCAD and use it pretty much every day, but it's the mechanical side of it, not the pretty architecture side. My point is that I think I should know what I'm doing, but I don't.
I started tinkering around for the game I'm running. The first map is one I created by adding a whole lot of detail to a vague shape from Forgotten Realms.
http://tyrion.net/CC3_Gwynneth.JPG
This second I just did myself. FWIW, it was intended as an isolated island, enchanted all to hell. I suppose any influence may have been from Terry Brooks's Magic Kingdom for Sale. For example, the Rainbow Kingdoms of the Golden Marches each had a king who was a stereotype of the 7 deadly sins. It was entertaining to play.
http://tyrion.net/Map_Nimbral.pdf
(Sorry, I don't remember why I made one a JPG and on a PDF. It made sense at the time)
Ok, so having experimented and tried to learn on my own, here are my questions....
1: Why can't I made the frickin text appear on top? Over land, sure, but as soon as I throw some trees or rocks in there, it seems random whether a tree symbol is over or under the text. I go through the commands to put the text on top, but that does nothing. I've found I just have to delete symbols from under text. You can see this is the second one for "Riverlands," but I actually liked the effect there.
2: How do I get smooth transitions between terrain types? I've seen some samples where a desert does what it should - there's a fading region between grass and tan. I just have choppy lines.
3: Similar to the previous one, there's this pdf on this site, http://www.profantasy.com/library/SS1_Example.pdf "Kingsport and Surrounding Lands." I understand some of this is from more symbols, but I'm not sure how much is from using CC3 better and what's in this SS1. I can see that fading to the desert, and I can see there's a white highlight on the coast. Obviously there's also text over the mountains, which just fails tragically when I try. How about those fancy roads?
4: I lay out a land mass and start working with it... and then later I wish some coast line were different. I can edit points, I guess, but it always goes horribly awry. I get random triangular masses sticking out awkwardly.
I just feel like I'm missing something huge. I'm working on another map that's desert, and it's just pissing me off. I'm just not sure what I'm missing. Maybe what I'm missing is days of tedious work to get a small detail done, but that seems unlikely.
Thanks for your help.
I started tinkering around for the game I'm running. The first map is one I created by adding a whole lot of detail to a vague shape from Forgotten Realms.
http://tyrion.net/CC3_Gwynneth.JPG
This second I just did myself. FWIW, it was intended as an isolated island, enchanted all to hell. I suppose any influence may have been from Terry Brooks's Magic Kingdom for Sale. For example, the Rainbow Kingdoms of the Golden Marches each had a king who was a stereotype of the 7 deadly sins. It was entertaining to play.
http://tyrion.net/Map_Nimbral.pdf
(Sorry, I don't remember why I made one a JPG and on a PDF. It made sense at the time)
Ok, so having experimented and tried to learn on my own, here are my questions....
1: Why can't I made the frickin text appear on top? Over land, sure, but as soon as I throw some trees or rocks in there, it seems random whether a tree symbol is over or under the text. I go through the commands to put the text on top, but that does nothing. I've found I just have to delete symbols from under text. You can see this is the second one for "Riverlands," but I actually liked the effect there.
2: How do I get smooth transitions between terrain types? I've seen some samples where a desert does what it should - there's a fading region between grass and tan. I just have choppy lines.
3: Similar to the previous one, there's this pdf on this site, http://www.profantasy.com/library/SS1_Example.pdf "Kingsport and Surrounding Lands." I understand some of this is from more symbols, but I'm not sure how much is from using CC3 better and what's in this SS1. I can see that fading to the desert, and I can see there's a white highlight on the coast. Obviously there's also text over the mountains, which just fails tragically when I try. How about those fancy roads?
4: I lay out a land mass and start working with it... and then later I wish some coast line were different. I can edit points, I guess, but it always goes horribly awry. I get random triangular masses sticking out awkwardly.
I just feel like I'm missing something huge. I'm working on another map that's desert, and it's just pissing me off. I'm just not sure what I'm missing. Maybe what I'm missing is days of tedious work to get a small detail done, but that seems unlikely.
Thanks for your help.
Comments
2.Along with sheets come sheet effects. If you want a smooth transition between the landmass and a moutain background for example, the landmass should be on a LAND sheet under the MOUTAIN,BACK sheet. Apply a BLUR or INNER EDGE FADE to the last sheet. To use sheet effects, click on the icon looking like a pile of paper sheets, usually middle-top left of the screen. Select a sheet by clicking on it, check Activate Sheet Effects and click ADD.
Note : most template already have those effect added. You just have to activate them.
3.Sorry, don't have the time to sort the symbols out, but for the rest, again, sheet effects, a white GLOW on the COAST or LAND sheet.
4. You could fractalize the coast using the icon middle left showing a straight line and a fractal one sort of parallel.
Yes, sheets are something huge you are missing.
Hope it helps.
I consider them almost a must for new users :-)
http://www.profantasy.com/community/user_tutorials.asp
Sheets... ok, thanks. I guess that's where I'll focus. I saw they existed, but I assumed text would automatically go in the text sheet, and that it would automatically be on top. So I dismissed it as my problem and assumed I was otherwise dumb. Thanks, I'll look at it.
I have one more question... Should using these effects seriously slow down my computer? It's a couple years old. It's an AMD 5200, 2 gigs of RAM, and... I'm not sure, some 256 video card, I think.
I ask because CC3 is strangely going very slowly. It's taking 3-5 seconds to redraw, and before when I was using no special effects it was < 1s. That said, it's been a while since I've used it and I'm wondering if I should look at some obnoxious Windows update as the culprit.
Now if only there were a forum that would help me figure out all the details of the plot for the game... sigh...
How many videos did you say you'd viewed? I thought you said through 'G'. I downloaded all of them and only came up with A, B, and C. Did I miss some?