How big can a map be

Clercon

Hello Everyone,
I think I'm running into some serious problems when it comes to CD3. So I'm making a map of the city Ankh-Bathor, which is a very big and important place in my fictional Etrakien world. Usually when I make a smaller city map the .FCW file ends up being about 1-2 MB big. Well Ankh-Bathor ain't your ordinary town and there seems to be some problems with CD3 when the .FCW file hits the 11 MB size. As soon as my map goes beyond this point a lot of the tools stop working. When I click at the "all city drawing tools" for example I get the following message: The instruction at "0x00435273" referenced memory could not be "read". If I delete some houses so I go below the 11 MB size the tools start to work again. The same goes for all kind of buttons like "Zoom extents" and "Sheet effects". Some thing work though, so it doesn't seem that everything is effected. Has anyone else experienced this problm? Can i solve it, or can Profantasy solve it?

Hopefully someone has an answer to this, cause I do really want to finish my "litle" town. I'm attaching a picture of the map as well so you understand the size I'm working with.

Clercon

Here is a small closeup so you can see more of the details, if you're interested.

Highland_Piper

As you know the size of the map you want you should break it down into manageable sections and build it that way. Export them as a png or tiff and 'glue' them together in GIMP or Photoshop if you want it as one piece.

Ralf

I haven't seen this happen before, but then I think we've never had such a huge city map yet. We'll be looking at the issue and I'll let you know when I know more.

Clercon

Thanks Ralf. If you want my FCW file for testing just let me know.

/Pär Lindström

Ralf

Yes, please send it over to me.

Simon Rogers

Goodness me, that's a big map! Please email it over, and we'll see if it's straightforwardly too big or if there is another problem.

It's also beautifully laid out - the buildings are very well placed.

I can say now that even if CC3 can handle it there is no way you'll be able to do the entire map in one file, even if you have the fastest PC in the world. There isn't vector software available which could handle so many entities.

Solution:
This is based on our approach to the Forgotten Realms Atlas.
First, create an overview map. This should include the major road networks and areas of the city, each labelled.
Grab a copy of the map, save it, and crop to the first area (say that peninsula you've zoomed into)
Repeat this with each area.
Then, start adding houses to each section.
You can have multiple copies of CC3 open to copy duplicated buildings to other sections.
Then, link the overview map to each area - you can do link to file and place this over the city section text.
Put arrows on each section map, and link those to adjacent sections.

When the whole thing is finished you could try to create a massive map including everything which may or may not work - one way to give it a better chance would be to reduce each house to an outline. This isn't too tricky; it just involves selecting and deleting certain layers. This would reduce the size of each building by 90% or so, and give you a decent chance of having every building appear.

Clercon

Ralf, I've sent you the files now.
Good luck :-)

Leonal

Wow, I love the layout and detail of this map! I hope your issue is solved and that you will also share future maps!

Clercon

Thanks for the Comment Simon and Leonal. Of course will I put up the end result on this site. But it might take a while. I've been working on the current version for 10 months. Not all the time, I've done some other maping as well during this time. But this is a loooong project :-)