Hello, new user with CC3 performance, importing bitmaps & choosing style queries
Hello all. After about a 10 year break, me and a few friends are having a crack at doing some D&D adventures again. Over the weekend I bought CC3, DD3, CD3 and the two symbol packs. I have been playing around with making battle maps and I'm really impressed with the program. Just when I think it cannot do something, I realise it is my lack of knowledge at fault, rather than CC3. Great stuff.
Anyways, I do have a few questions to do with DD3 and I'm hoping you guys could shed some light on them. I've done some digging though the forums and solved quite a few of my queries, but a few still remain.
When I activate sheet effects, performance becomes very slow. I know the map has to be redrawn if I move around the map etc but I've got a pretty fast pc (i5-2500K CPU @ 3.3Ghz, 8gb Ram, Nvidia GTX670 GPU, Windows 7 64bit) so I thought it should handle this program easily. Looking at the program that monitors the GPU performance, it never seems to be working hard at all, as if there is somehow a missing link in letting the GPU know it should be trying a bit harder. I gather this may just be the way it is, but could this get addressed in a future update or is there something tricky I can do? I have increased the memory cache for bitmaps to 1800mb.
If I use the "Import Bitmap Fill Styles" from the tools menu (I downloaded the CSUAC symbol package), is there a way to get these new designs available to be selected by right clicking on the dungeon floor/wall buttons on top left of screen, or do I need to select these bitmaps from fill style option (FS box top right on screen). At the moment, the best work around I have found is to edit the properties of the entity, then choose a new fill style that way. Would that be best or am I able somehow to get those new designs to show up in the sample options by right clicking on the floor/wall/corridor dungeon buttons?
And as the grand finale, the most frustrating query I've currently got...If I create a new DD3 dungeon map (using my own settings and not from a template) and, go to make, for example, a floor area I would right click on floor icon on top left of screen, then choose a design for flooring. If I want to use a floor design from one of the symbol packs (for example SS2A) I only get these pink coloured options (see screen shot). Should I be able to freely choose different styles of floors or wall textures, regardless of style or do I have to stick to the DD3 ones? - same thing goes for terrains too. Of my CC3 puzzling, this would be the most tricky for me, so would be great to solve!!
Thanks for your time and any advice.
cheers
Mike.
Anyways, I do have a few questions to do with DD3 and I'm hoping you guys could shed some light on them. I've done some digging though the forums and solved quite a few of my queries, but a few still remain.
When I activate sheet effects, performance becomes very slow. I know the map has to be redrawn if I move around the map etc but I've got a pretty fast pc (i5-2500K CPU @ 3.3Ghz, 8gb Ram, Nvidia GTX670 GPU, Windows 7 64bit) so I thought it should handle this program easily. Looking at the program that monitors the GPU performance, it never seems to be working hard at all, as if there is somehow a missing link in letting the GPU know it should be trying a bit harder. I gather this may just be the way it is, but could this get addressed in a future update or is there something tricky I can do? I have increased the memory cache for bitmaps to 1800mb.
If I use the "Import Bitmap Fill Styles" from the tools menu (I downloaded the CSUAC symbol package), is there a way to get these new designs available to be selected by right clicking on the dungeon floor/wall buttons on top left of screen, or do I need to select these bitmaps from fill style option (FS box top right on screen). At the moment, the best work around I have found is to edit the properties of the entity, then choose a new fill style that way. Would that be best or am I able somehow to get those new designs to show up in the sample options by right clicking on the floor/wall/corridor dungeon buttons?
And as the grand finale, the most frustrating query I've currently got...If I create a new DD3 dungeon map (using my own settings and not from a template) and, go to make, for example, a floor area I would right click on floor icon on top left of screen, then choose a design for flooring. If I want to use a floor design from one of the symbol packs (for example SS2A) I only get these pink coloured options (see screen shot). Should I be able to freely choose different styles of floors or wall textures, regardless of style or do I have to stick to the DD3 ones? - same thing goes for terrains too. Of my CC3 puzzling, this would be the most tricky for me, so would be great to solve!!
Thanks for your time and any advice.
cheers
Mike.
Comments
Unsing this function only makes these fill styles available in your map, it doesn't automatically create drawing tools for them. To use them with the buttons you mention, you simply need to create new drawing tools that utilizes these fill styles, for example by making a copy of an existing drawing tool, and then edit the copy to use the new fill style. This is done by clicking the "Advanced" button in the fill style dialog.
This is related to the fill styles above. Each map template only contains the fill styles from the style belonging to the map. To get the fill styles from other styles, these must be imported. The easiest way to accomplish this is to start a new map in the style you wish to use the tools from, then save it. No, go back to your original map, and use Draw -> Insert File to insert this file into your map, then immediately hit Ctrl+Z to Undo. This will remove the elements from the file you inserted, but the fill style definitions will remain behind. Now the drawing tools from that style should work fine. Note that there are maps ready for insertion in the #System\Fill Styles directory so you don't normally have to create the new blank map as described above, but unfortunately, none for the SS2 styles. However, simply creating the new map first manually isn't that difficult or time consuming.
Yep, when working with maps, i have had the effects off, and it's good to know a little on how the nuts and bolts of the program functions.
I've started making some maps for each stlye (where there is not a map in the \Fill Styles directory) and will fill them up with all the floor, terrain and water designs for that style, then by doing what you have described, put them a nice template so all of those styles are available and all the CSUAC bitmaps too. Then i'll be unstoppable
Cheers muchly.
If you want a template with all those styles for later use, then simply save the destination map as a template.