Creating fills
ahawk1972
Traveler
Does anyone know of a good tutorial on how to add custom fills and save it to be used on other maps?
Thanks!
Thanks!
Comments
Basically...
Put the fills in a new folder inside Bitmaps/Tiles (if you have hundreds use a subfolder system to categorise them in a suitable fashion) before you import them.
Make sure they all have sensible names, like Ocean 01, Forest 01, and add your initials to the end of each filename to prevent any confusion with the built in styles.
Open CC3 and click Tools/Import bitmap fill styles, browse to the new folder (and subfolder if you created any) and double click on one of the fills inside it.
First time only...
First time tick the create other resolutions box at the top right of the dialogue. Leave the rest of the settings a default, and click OK.
First time it will take a while to process the files to create those other resolutions.
Any time after the first time (like when you are importing them to another new file) you leave that box UNTICKED. They're already created.
(and if I lose this comment as well I am just going to scream!)
I went on for quite a bit about all the different variables, but I don't think I've ever used anything other than default myself, so you'll probably be perfectly ok.
Edit: also, you need to be certain that they are ALL png files, not jpg. For some reason jpg are invisible to CC3 when importing fills.
Easy conversion is to download the GIMP if you haven't already got it, open the jpg in the GIMP, and instantly use File/Export... which exports a png file of what's on the screen. You just have to put it in the right place then.
If you use the same fills often in the same type of map, you can edit the template that map is based on, so that every new map based on that template will automatically have those fills, but that is only helpful if you make a lot of maps from that particular template.
Note that symbols are usually put in symbol catalogs though, to easily use in other maps. I recommend creating a new map of type Symbol Catalogs -> Blank Overland catalog. Then import the symbols, open up symbol manager, select all the symbols you just imported, and hit the save as catalog button, and put the catalog somewhere smart (usually near the images, but one directory level up).
Check page 76 in the manual for more details.
If you have a bunch to do, you can use Ifranview (also free) to do them all at once. Bit a playing around to figure out all the options, but it does a decent job.
It hadn't occurred to me to want to bulk process a load of fills, but that's probably because I create most of my own and they are automatically png files the moment I create them.
I share a lot of them here and at Cartographer's Guild, but that's when I turn them into jpg for uploading because png are usually too large to share online in a forum comment.
So I can see where you are coming from. I think I would be fairly interested to know about Irfanview if I was on the receiving end of all those jpg textures I've made in the past.
Remy - thanks for that info on the plugin. I hadn't realised that, but I shall stow that away for future reference
A surprising number of professional mappers who once used PS are turning to apps like Krita, and to be honest you can't see any difference in the end result 'before and after' the jump to Krita.
I understand a lot of professional artists use it for those impressive comic novels you see.
However, I wouldn't worry too much about getting into Krita unless you use a tablet to draw
I use CC3 to do mine, which is better than GIMP as well. GIMP is only better than either if you have a long story to write down one side of your map.
Krita's brush engine, however, is just incredible (if a little complicated to start with). If there's an attribute you can possibly imagine for a brush to have, its there in the controls to be tweaked.
The added bonus (though I've never really tried that hard to make a good one) is that if you hit the W key you get a live seamless texture to draw your own texture on - real time. I will be using it to create woodland fills for my own top down CC3 style - things that I can't do in Genetica (the seamless tile app I've got).
If these are all your own original artwork then you have a right to share them if you wish. You have to be careful though about the rights attached to source images when you make seamless fills out of other people's artwork or photographs. I've got loads more than I've ever shared that are made from non-seamless source material I downloaded from sites like Textures.com. These are the ones you occasionally see in my maps, but which I've never shared.
If your fills are all entirely yours without any strings attached like that, though, it sounds like you need a host to store them for download.
I put most of mine in a set of albums on Cartographer's Guild because I can upload much larger images there. I've also put quite a few in threads on this forum.
Maybe Monsen or Ralf might have an idea about what is the best way to go with this?
We encourage people to share their own creations, so anything you make yourself is of course fine.
This forum doesn't have the best interface for uploading such a gallery of files, so I recommend you put it on a web server and provide some preview images and links here in the forum. If you don't have access to a web server, I can also host them for you.