Symbol size and scaling

Back with yet another question.

So I created a new symbol in my Fantasy Worlds (annual 28) map to use as a Fortress. In the past, I have imported other symbols (from the Modern Political mapping style) to use for cities. My map's default symbol scale is set to 4.6, because that makes the city dots appear at the size I want them to. For mountains and such, I just manually scale them when I place them since they're mountains and will have some variance anyway.

So I created my fortress symbol, using my city dot symbols as a guide to get the sizing right. On the right, the existing city dot (that's what it looks like scaled at 4.6). On the left, my new fortress (this is what it looked like right BEFORE I used symbol definition on those objects and made a symbol out of them; that's actually 3 boxes placed on top of one another):

So far, so good. I moved the 3 boxes to the Sym Def layer, used Define Symbol... and the resulting new symbol is massive when scaled to 4.6:

So! what I want is for the resulting symbol to be as big as it appeared to be before I made it into a symbol, i.e. to match the size of the box objects in my first screenshot. Using "Scale" from the Symbol Manager on the new symbol, and setting that to 1.06, didn't seem to do anything - I still had to manually set the symbol size to something smaller each time I place this new symbol in order to make it not gargantuan (and then manually click "Set Normal" when placing city dots to go back to my default 4.6). How can I set this up so that the new fortress symbol can be the correct size without having to manually adjust it each time I place a symbol?

Comments

  • You have forgotten or missed a step in making the symbol. I am sorry, I can't recall the setting, but this issue is something Mr. Remy covered specifically in one of his videos. I apologize for the useless response.


    Cal

  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer

    On my phone right now, so I don't have a detailed guide for you but the easy way to approach this is to use a symbol scaled at 1.0 as a guide when making your new symbol.

    When you define a new symbol, CC3 assumes the size you make it in is the default scale.

    And scaling it to 1.06 in the symbol manager won't do much, as that just enlarges it by a tiny amount. To set it right you need to scale it to something like 0.22. Remember, scale 1.0 is the size you made it at, so anything above 1 when scaling makes it larger.

    JimProflo1Ciel
  • CielCiel Traveler

    Oh that makes sense! I just put down another city dot, but scaled to 1 (instead of my 4.6 default) and created another 3 squares to match that city dot, and it came out perfectly. It's the size I need it to be when scaled at my 4.6 default. So thanks!

    And yeah, of course "1.06" would be a small increase - I had a brain cramp and was thinking, since it was "being scaled by 4.6", I could set it to 1.06 to scale it less. Forgot that's not really how it works, lol. But, this should be all good now. Thanks again as always!

    JimP
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