CC3 questions...
Rosemont_Line
🖼️ 1 images Traveler
I have basically four questions about issues I have been having... this post will be rather huge, but I figured this was better than making separate threads, so here we go:
1) Fractalise. I get the idea behind this command, but the execution is confusing me. So I pick it, and make my selections in the window that pops up, then it says to "select polyline." So I do so, and nothing seems to happen. No matter how wildly I alter those numbers, there is no visible change than I can see, even after redrawing. So, first off, to "select polyline," do I want to click INSIDE a landmass, or right on the EDGE of a landmass, on the actual "line"? That's partly why I can't tell what it's even doing. Second, is there any way with this command to just select every landmass on the map and change them all to whatever settings you pick? Third, are there limits to what it can do, meaning, some polygons/edges are just... un-fractalisible? Maybe if a line is too straight, or whatever, the command has no effect? Because as I said, it doesn't appear to do ANYTHING when I use it... but that could be because of number one, above... Finally, fourth, is there any way to check and see what the fractalization numbers for a landmass currently are (like you can check various other properties with "List"; basically is there any way to see the existing fractal data for a polygon)? That last part does tie into my second overall question..
2) Things have been running notably slower within the program lately. This seemed to happen after I messed around with the Fractalise command. I had already read that the more, uh, "fractal" the polygons in your map are, the more work the program has to do on redraws, etc, which can slow everything down. So this very well may be why... ideally, I'd treat it like effects: leave it "off" while I continue to work on the map, and turn it "on" when I go to save a JPEG or what have you. So, again, I'm missing something with regard to being able to tell when using the Fractalise command is actually DOING anything, as noted above, and I need to see if there is a way to check the current status of a polygon. Maybe when I first started playing with it, I upped the fractalization of some of my landmasses, and now that's slowing things down; problem is, with no visual change that I could see and no way that I know of to check, I don't know which ones I'd need to revert them to a "less" fractalized state to make things run more smoothly. Of course, maybe that's NOT what's slowing the program down, but I have a hard time imagining what else it could be... but if Fractalise IS what's slowing things down, how come I can't see any change? You see why my head is spinning with this. O_o
(continued below, because my post is too big! Yeesh)
1) Fractalise. I get the idea behind this command, but the execution is confusing me. So I pick it, and make my selections in the window that pops up, then it says to "select polyline." So I do so, and nothing seems to happen. No matter how wildly I alter those numbers, there is no visible change than I can see, even after redrawing. So, first off, to "select polyline," do I want to click INSIDE a landmass, or right on the EDGE of a landmass, on the actual "line"? That's partly why I can't tell what it's even doing. Second, is there any way with this command to just select every landmass on the map and change them all to whatever settings you pick? Third, are there limits to what it can do, meaning, some polygons/edges are just... un-fractalisible? Maybe if a line is too straight, or whatever, the command has no effect? Because as I said, it doesn't appear to do ANYTHING when I use it... but that could be because of number one, above... Finally, fourth, is there any way to check and see what the fractalization numbers for a landmass currently are (like you can check various other properties with "List"; basically is there any way to see the existing fractal data for a polygon)? That last part does tie into my second overall question..
2) Things have been running notably slower within the program lately. This seemed to happen after I messed around with the Fractalise command. I had already read that the more, uh, "fractal" the polygons in your map are, the more work the program has to do on redraws, etc, which can slow everything down. So this very well may be why... ideally, I'd treat it like effects: leave it "off" while I continue to work on the map, and turn it "on" when I go to save a JPEG or what have you. So, again, I'm missing something with regard to being able to tell when using the Fractalise command is actually DOING anything, as noted above, and I need to see if there is a way to check the current status of a polygon. Maybe when I first started playing with it, I upped the fractalization of some of my landmasses, and now that's slowing things down; problem is, with no visual change that I could see and no way that I know of to check, I don't know which ones I'd need to revert them to a "less" fractalized state to make things run more smoothly. Of course, maybe that's NOT what's slowing the program down, but I have a hard time imagining what else it could be... but if Fractalise IS what's slowing things down, how come I can't see any change? You see why my head is spinning with this. O_o
(continued below, because my post is too big! Yeesh)
Comments
3) Not at all related to fractals, but to using "default terrain" to create areas of desert, plains, etc. So, I've started using these with various effects, and I like how they look, but there are two issues. One is this:
The parts circled (especially the lower one) are what I am concerned with. Despite the presence of the "Edge Fade" effect (as you can see from the rest of the perimeter of both the light "desert" terrain and the darker "plains" terrain), we have these points where they just stop. It looks like the two terrain types running into each other is the problem, since it looks fine when it's just a single terrain type running into the green of the landmass. Any tips on avoiding this issue when placing multiple terrain types very close to each other?
Also, in that same picture, to the lower left of the circles, where the desert covers most of that huge peninsula... the edge fade effect, which is of course a very good thing, causes the perimeter to be faded on ALL sides of the desert terrain shape, which causes that look where it's desert, then it reverts back to green grass for a tiny bit right at the coast. Any way to make the desert (or whatever other terrain you are working with) appear to stretch all the way to the edge of the coast without losing the edge fade effect?
4) Finally, this:
This happens with other terrain fills that have objects in them, as well, such as marsh and scrublands. See how at the edge, it just STOPS, and if the point where the polygon ends happens to be in the middle of a bush, then you get half a bush?
Whew. I may be missing something obvious with some of these, but I'm quite rusty with CC3 (and never mastered it in the first place!). Anyone who reads through my giant post and can advise on any of this stuff has my thanks!
Also, note that fractalise does not work on all types of entities. It does not work on lines and arcs, but it does work on paths and polygons (which landmasses are made of). Also make sure the line you are trying to fractalise is not on a frozen layer.
When fractalising any object, you always click on the edge of the object (this goes for every CC3 command).
There is no way to automatically select all your landmasses, but note that after selecting a line to fractalise, the command line stll reads "Select Polyline", so you can continue to click on line after lien, without having to restart the fractalisation command. You can even click multiple times on the same line to continue fractalising it even more. If you clicked on the line and the command ended, it means that the line you selected was not a proper entity for fractalisation, this might be that it was not a proper entity type as described above, or that the entity was on a frozen layer.
As for the current fractalisation, there is no way to check that directly. This is because fractalisation is not in itself a property. What the fractalise command does is that it takes your entity, adds extra nodes (number determined by depth value) in between the existing nodes, and moves these a little (the strength value). Once this is done, you end up with a path/polygon with more nodes than before. If you use LIST (Info -> List) on the entity, you can see the number of nodes (and their position) for the entity). A highly fractalised entity will have a lot of nodes.
2. Yes. Fractalising to much can slow the program down. As I explained above, fractalising is not something you can turn on/off, because it is not a property in it self, the fractalise command permanently changes your entity by adding more nodes to it. As I also mentioned above, a highly fractalised entity is difficult to further fractalise because the nodes are to close together to get a visible difference, so if you have tried to fractalise the same entity multiple times without seeing anything, this entity now probably have an insane amount of nodes. Unfortunately, this is not easily reversible, as manually deleting the nodes is way to much work. If you have a backup copy of your map at a previous stage (it is always a good idea to save backups at different stages), you can copy the entity from that map, and replace the over-fractalised one.
3. Sheet effects first combine all entities on the sheet, then applies effects. This means that the effect doesn't follow the edge of each of your terrain entities, but the combined edge of them all. There are basically two ways to deal with this. One is to make sure they don't touch/overlap. The other option is to make a separate sheet with the same effects, and keep overlapping entities on different sheets. Thsi will cause the effects to be applied seperately.
For the coast problem, I would recommend keeping most of your desert on a sheet without the fade effect, then put the parts of the desert you wish to fade on it's own sheet. Make these partially overlap so the fade on the "inside" is hidden, since it fades into a desert using the same fill style.
4. Remember that these are not objects. Not as CC3 sees them anyway. This is just a tiling background image. CC3 doesn't really know anything about what this image contains. Using a fade effect on the entity makes this less noticeable, and if you want, you can also manually edit the entity to make it just a bit smaller or larger to get the contents right (Although this can change between zoom levels, depending on the fill style setting)
The massive fractalising (that I didn't even realize I was doing, due to not understanding how to use the command... the visual changes created by inputting different numbers into the fields of the Fractalise window are hard to figure out, but at least I have a general idea of what the heck is going on with the command now) I had done was causing the slowdown. So I just made new duplicates of my landmasses from scratch by tracing over the old ones, then deleted the old ones, and everything runs fine now.
Gonna experiment with your suggestions on effects/terrain tomorrow when I have more time. And I'm sure I'll have more questions later, haha... any and all help is appreciated. Thanks!
Good luck with the mapping, and don't hesitate to ask if you have more questions. We're here to help.
So, another question...
Is there a way to control what Sheets and Layers certain entities go on, without having to change it every time you draw something? i.e., by default, the "Plains Light" terrain goes onto the "Land" sheet and the "Water/Rivers" layer. Now, for the sheets, I don't want my terrain on "Land", because I want to apply different effects to terrain fills vs. landmasses. Of course, there is the "Insert on current sheet" checkbox for terrain (though this only works for sheets, I'm not aware of any such option for layers), but what I want to know is if there is any way to change that default placement. So that you don't have to change sheets and layers manually every time you want to insert something else onto the map, or have to insert the object them move it to a different sheet/layer. So is there any way to set it up so, for example, the "Plains Light" default terrain fill just ALWAYS goes onto a specific sheet and layer?
I see a lot of options under the "Symbols" menu, and I wouldn't be surprised if what I want to do is in there somewhere, but it's a bit daunting.
For symbols, you can change this from the Symbol Manager, but this can only be done for symbols which you have already used once in the map, otherwise you must open up the symbol catalog and edit it. I'll recommend you just click the options button on top of the symbol catalog and temporarily deselect the "Symbols choose their own sheet" setting.
For the symbol scale, go to file -> Drawing Properties. Here you can set the symbol scale for the current map. This will be saved with the map.