A simple question

rdevelyn

I think I must be missing something fairly fundamental about the way CC works, though I've been using it now for some weeks.

Let me give a very simple example of where I'm just falling totally flat on my face.

Assume I want to draw the walls to a room which looks like the outside of a figure 8 - i.e. two interlocking circles but without any walls in the middle.

I start off drawing two interlocking circles.

Then I break each circle at its intersection with the other one (two breaks per circle).

Then I delete the two little internal arcs.

Now I've got my right shape, but it's made up of two arcs. I need to join these two arcs together.

I think I understand that to do that I must first of all convert them to paths. Well, I do, then I try to join the paths up, but I always end up with a mess - the joins just don't seem to work.

Please - I've struggled with this simple problem for 2 hours now. What am I doing wrong?

Richard

Gathar

It' my first day with CC, but maybe I can help you... I've tried to reproduce what you said, but had some problems until I saw that by right clicking on the "explode" button, there is a line to path command. Since the arcs touch each other, if you select both when you convert line to path, it should form only one path. At least it worked for me

Otherwise, if you use the combine path command in the same menu, you can press 'f' and 's' to select which endpoint of the first path connects to which endpoint of the second.

Mateus090985

Everytinhg is right, but when you join the paths you have to choose to wher it will link. From the tome of Ultimate Mapping:

"After having selected the two paths you wish to join, the command line will read: Select Next Path/[Finish] Flip Selections (‘F’ – First, ‘S’ – Second): Use the F and S keys to flip the endpoints used for the joining."

rdevelyn

I still get a star effect when the paths join.

My application is actually a bit more complex than that - lots of circles. I've attached it here.

Maybe someone could tell me how to join these arcs into one continuous line (the walls of my temple).

Cheers

Richard

rdevelyn

BTW - you don't see the problem until you set the wall thickness to 10 or so. Some of the path combinations work fine, some, although they seem to be combining at the right ends, just don't.

Richard

pdj

I would suggest creating compex figures like the one in your example map at line width 0, then using explode and line-to-path to join them into a poly as mentioned above.

You can then use one of the curved poly drawtools to Trace it at the greater line width and delete the original. I tried this approach with your example and it worked fine

Monsen

Is this what you wanted [see attachment]?

If so, what I did with your map is the following:
- Use "Line to Path" on all the segments simultaneously. Since these form a closed polygon, this will also automatically join the lines into that polygon. Note that it will also be filled, but we will fix that in a moment.
- Use "Delete Node" to delete one node in each corner. This is required because we currently have 2 nodes in each corner (one from each of the two arcs that met here), and this is what is causing the weird effects. Pay attention to the figure when deleting nodes. If the corner changes shape after deleting a node, simply hit undo to reverse that deletion, and continue on to the next corner.
- Use "Change Properties" on the polygon, and change the width to the desired wall width.

If you still have misbehaving corners after doing the last step, hit undo, and use delete node on that corner again, before repeating the last step.

rdevelyn

Thank you very much for your comments.

I followed Monsen's instructions - which was great. I can even understand the reasons! I was wondering, though, how do you get CC to show you the nodes? I seemed to be just clicking in the dark and seeing the results.

I also noticed that the drawing had imperfections when the line width was set to 10.

PDJ - I have problems with Trace. I've seen it in the tutorials, but whenever I want to use it it doesn't come up as an option. For example, if I select Smooth Poly from Monsen's map, I can click somewhere on my wall to start the thing off, but then I don't get any trace option after that to follow the walls around.

Richard

Mateus090985

Posted By: MonsenIs this what you wanted [see attachment]?

If so, what I did with your map is the following:
- Use "Line to Path" on all the segments simultaneously. Since these form a closed polygon, this will also automatically join the lines into that polygon. Note that it will also be filled, but we will fix that in a moment.
- Use "Delete Node" to delete one node in each corner. This is required because we currently have 2 nodes in each corner (one from each of the two arcs that met here), and this is what is causing the weird effects. Pay attention to the figure when deleting nodes. If the corner changes shape after deleting a node, simply hit undo to reverse that deletion, and continue on to the next corner.
- Use "Change Properties" on the polygon, and change the width to the desired wall width.

If you still have misbehaving corners after doing the last step, hit undo, and use delete node on that corner again, before repeating the last step.

• THETEM~1.FCW

Your attachment gave to me a idea for an annual. In my opinion would be interessing to have one annual with a big number of complex shapes that I can just paste on my mpas and them put them in what textures, colours, etc I want.

JimP

I don't use trace. I'll look for some on my website and post links.

JimP

Here they are. I'm linking to the entire dungeon level, and then to each page showing the large png. On most of the large png pages is the zip file.

Large white letters are corridor names. The rooms are numbered. Some doors have arrows showing direction they open.

Sorry, had some broken links.

All of level 3 & All of level 4

trapazopidal room
dh3e_4

4-leaf clover
dh4d_05

quarter circle
dh4d_06

square room, rounded corners, half-circle statue rooms
dh4d_07

a mess:
dh4d_09

partial circle, square on one part
dh4d_10

I forget what this is called:
dh4e_05

dh4f_05

tops of two half-circles connected by a small opening.
dh4f_10

Yes, my players hate these rooms.

All done with Dungeon Designer, Add Room, polygon room with an orange wall of 2 feet width.

rdevelyn

I think having a set of shapes to cut and paste is a good idea. Understanding how to produce them is even better. I learnt a lot from this discussion.

I've attached a JPG of how my temple looks in the end.

This is the finale of my adventure so having a plain square temple (which is what I did at first) was just too boring! As you can see, it's in the middle of a lake.

Final image needed a little gimp-ing, but I'm quite pleased with it. All comments gratefully received, of course.

This is going to be part of a module I'm publishing for Pathfinder, BTW, as a downloadable PDF. That's the reason I'm going to so much trouble :-)

Cheers

Richard

pdj

Posted By: rdevelyn

I have problems with Trace. I've seen it in the tutorials, but whenever I want to use it it doesn't come up as an option.

You only get Trace when using the drawing tools you access via the buttons at top left (those defined for walls, roads, contours and stuff). The shape-drawing tools accessed from the buttons on the right don't have trace,
I don't know why.


Congratulations on your map - I think it's neat. The bold composition makes it really striking.

Peter

rdevelyn

Thanks for your help and thanks for the comment (though I can see I've forgotten to put shadow on the statue - I always forget something!)

Richard

Monsen

Posted By: rdevelynI was wondering, though, how do you get CC to show you the nodes?

I don't think there is a way to directly show them (somebody please correct me if I am wrong here). But nodes will always be where the line changes direction (corners), so their position is usually clear from the shape of the polygon. If you use a line with width greater than zero, the true guideline runs at the center of the wide line, and it is also here the nodes will reside, and not on the edge.
If you are using smooth paths/polygons, you can use Ctrl+F to toggle frames (Then immediately issue a redraw command to actually see them). This will show the guideline for the entity. For the smooth paths/polygons, the nodes will be at this guideline, not on the actual entity.

You can also always use the LIST command on an entity to get the exact coordinates for all the nodes in the entity. From here, you can also easily see if there are two nodes at the exact same location, as you will then have two lines in a row with the same coordinates.

rdevelyn

Ok - thanks again.

Richard

Monsen

You're welcome.

Nice temple btw.

rdevelyn

Thank you.

You know it's funny but apart from changing the position of the sun I use the sheet effects exactly as they're provided by default. They seem to do the trick just as they are.

I say it's funny because the tutorials talk a lot about fiddling with these but I couldn't see the point.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Richard