My first questions about create maps with own catalogue

brandor

Hello cartographers,

I have now installed my CC3+ and I am starting to create my own maps. Yeah :)

As I find it too boring to start slowly and simply, I want to start straight away with my own symbols and my own catalogue.

In principle, everything is working quite well. However, a few initial questions have already arisen.

Briefly, what I've done so far:

- Drawn lots of trees, mountains and houses with a pencil, scanned them in, cropped them and saved them as transparent PNGs

- added the trees, mountains and houses to a new catalogue via import PNGs

- defined the symbols as groups and added the random option.

- saved the catalogue

- created a new OverlandMap

- loaded my own catalogue

- and created the first mountains, forests and small settlements on the map.

Very nice so far :)

My questions:

1) Is it very time consuming and complicated to create a custom set that I can use and select as a base when creating a new OverlandMap? For example the sets Mike Schley, CC3 Standard Overland or the Annuals by Herwin Wielink, which are included in the basic installation and can be selected for each new map? If I use one of the default sets, all the symbols don't match mine and tend to get in the way.

2) If 1) is not trivial, what kind of set would you recommend as a basis for pencil drawings? Is there perhaps an AddOn? The normal sets contain elements that are drawn with the computer. That doesn't go so well with my hand-drawn graphics.

3) How do I get the trees into the "Vegetation" section, the mountains into the "Minerals/Mountains" section and the houses into the "Structures" section?

4) The paths and rivers have a very smooth computer style. Is it possible to set an option for the rivers and paths so that they look a bit more uneven? So more like drawn with a pencil?

5) I think I have understood the concept and the difference between sheets and layers. But in purely practical terms, not everything is clear to me yet. Would it be better to categorise trees, mountains and houses in the layers or group them together on the sheets?

That's enough to get me started. I still have more questions, but not all at once ;) It has already become quite a lot.

Thanks for your help.

Brandor

Monsen

1)

Ralf have done both blogs and live streams about creating your own styles. Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni49aWN8wjE and https://rpgmaps.profantasy.com/tag/create-new-style/

2)

Check the list of annuals at https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/10366/cartographers-annual-all-the-issues-linked-in-one-place/p1 , you may find something that matches there.

3)

You need to set up symbol catalog settings and filters. This is documented in-depth in the symbol management chapter of the tome, as well as in these articles: https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/7329 and https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/7338

4)

Roads and rivers use lines in CC3 by default, which always have a fixed width. To make things varied, you can use polygons instead, since this allows you to draw both edges, but it is also much more work. You can also experiment with the displace effect, which may provide you what you need.

5)

Use layers when you need a logical organization, and sheets when you need to either have different effects applied, or need to control ordering in the drawing. Very often, most/all symbols end up on the SYMBOLS sheet, while the layers divide them into things like vegetation, mountains, etc. Think of sheets as things that affects the visuals in the map in some way, while layers are purely logical ordering that can later help you do things like select all the vegetation in the map or things like that.

JulianDracos

Another way to do varying widths for rivers is to use the split command. You can then edit each segment to be a different width. I do this regularly to mimic how rivers tend to start off small and then become large by the time they get to the ocean.

brandor

Hello, thank you very much for the numerous tips. The links in particular are very informative. I've already had a look at some of them and am currently in the process of creating my first own map style. :) 

I have to say, I'm pretty excited about what's possible with CC3+. It does seem a bit confusing and complex at first, but I suspect that this will change over time once you've been working with CC3+ for a while.

And I'm sure I'll have another question or two in the near future ;)