CC3 Newbie Questions
Hi everybody,
I recently started working with CC3, and after watching the tutorial videos here and going through the "Our first map" guide of the User Manual, I'm starting to get a grib on things. However, there are a few specific things I couldn't figure out yet, and I'd be grateful for some hints:
Undesirable effects at edges of maps
Let's say I have a map with a big landmass that is touching the edge of the map on multiple sides, with ocean on one or two sides. Now I want to use an inner glow effect to give my shoreline a nice look. How can I do this without having the same effect all along the edges of the map where it's touched by the landmass?
What are outlines?
When I right-click the default landmass button, some of the choices I get have a black outline while others don't. Now, if I place one landmass with outline and another without, and then use the "Edit Properties" tool on them, I get the same properties for both (well, Line Style is "Solid" for one and "Coast" for the other, but changing that doesn't have any visible effect). What is this outline in CC3's terminology, and where can I modify it?
Blur and textures
I'd like to use the blur effect here and there to create smooth transitions between different areas, but I don't want my textures / fill styles to be turned into one solid color. I tried putting a blur effect at the top of the list with a texture effect further down, but that didn't work. Placing the blur effect on some individual sheets and the texture effect into the global list didn't work either.
What's the best approach for a first draw?
That's a more general question. If I want to start working on a map, and I don't yet really know how big the final map is going to be, what's the best approach / what tools are there that I can use? Is it possible to increase the size of a map after the initial creation? Can I copy a small map into a larger one once I run out of space? Can I just start working on a really huge map and remove unneeded sections later?
Thanks a lot!
Kibou
PS: If you are a newbie, too, and have questions on your own, feel free to post them here as well.
I recently started working with CC3, and after watching the tutorial videos here and going through the "Our first map" guide of the User Manual, I'm starting to get a grib on things. However, there are a few specific things I couldn't figure out yet, and I'd be grateful for some hints:
Undesirable effects at edges of maps
Let's say I have a map with a big landmass that is touching the edge of the map on multiple sides, with ocean on one or two sides. Now I want to use an inner glow effect to give my shoreline a nice look. How can I do this without having the same effect all along the edges of the map where it's touched by the landmass?
What are outlines?
When I right-click the default landmass button, some of the choices I get have a black outline while others don't. Now, if I place one landmass with outline and another without, and then use the "Edit Properties" tool on them, I get the same properties for both (well, Line Style is "Solid" for one and "Coast" for the other, but changing that doesn't have any visible effect). What is this outline in CC3's terminology, and where can I modify it?
Blur and textures
I'd like to use the blur effect here and there to create smooth transitions between different areas, but I don't want my textures / fill styles to be turned into one solid color. I tried putting a blur effect at the top of the list with a texture effect further down, but that didn't work. Placing the blur effect on some individual sheets and the texture effect into the global list didn't work either.
What's the best approach for a first draw?
That's a more general question. If I want to start working on a map, and I don't yet really know how big the final map is going to be, what's the best approach / what tools are there that I can use? Is it possible to increase the size of a map after the initial creation? Can I copy a small map into a larger one once I run out of space? Can I just start working on a really huge map and remove unneeded sections later?
Thanks a lot!
Kibou
PS: If you are a newbie, too, and have questions on your own, feel free to post them here as well.
Comments
Like Kibou, I am just starting out and have some basic questions. I have been using the tutorial by Joe Sweeney on Youtube as a grounding. I am not a book learner but I learn exclusively by doing. So a very big tip of my hat to Joe Sweeney for letting me copy his work and learn hands on.
I have gotten to the point where I have drawn the continent and I want to create a sea inlet.
But Joe has never modified the edges of his map, creating an inlet or a peninsula, or filled in the land gap with sea. I have thought about using contours and even switching the layer to be drawn on but I am at a loss how to do this. As you can see from my Twitter picture (yes, I am appealing to communities across multiple social media for help) I have a space ready for a sea inlet to be created in the south west corner. Look where the beige contour breaks.
I am working with contours at the moment, preparing my canvas for the later elements I will add, like mountains, so there is not much on my map. If I have to start my map all over again, because erasing the land will erase the entire continent, I do not have much to lose. (And I prefer it that way.) But I do not know how to create an inlet after the land has been created. If I could, I would just erase the land in the shape of the inlet and let the sea appear from behind. Is there even a capability to do this? Must I just accept the land as it is, without modifying it? Will the black outline of the land be lost in the area where the land gets erased (or will the black outline adjust)? What should I be paying attention to in this process?
I would very much appreciate any guidance. And it should have to be very step by step simple because I am not a comprehensive reader - I have a difficult time with reading comprehension. I learn much better by doing things. I appreciate any help that is presented in a slow, gradual build up. The important thing is that I understand.
I hope this gets an answer, and I hope it is favourable. I am a little worried at my impasse.
Outlines can occur in two ways:
1. Some fill styles are setup to have the entity outlined. In that case, you have only one entity.
2. The tool you use creates two instances of the same polygon. The first is filled but the second is not, or only a thick outline if filled.
I believe you find yourself in the first case. To be sure, perform an Info -> List command on an outlined entity. The number of entities selected (shown in the command line, bottom left of screen) is the number of the case. Solutions are
1. To get rid or add an outline around a fill style, click on the Fill Style Indicator (a box top right beginning with F:), select the Bitmap Fill tab and scroll down to the target fill style name. Then you uncheck/check the Outlined box.
2. To get rid of the outline, get the tag number of the outline entity (the one filled with solid or hollow) from the list command and use the erase command, right-click, More, Entity tag # and type in the tag number.
2. To add an outline, copy the entity from a given point to the same and change the properties to a hollow fill style (or solid with a line width greater than 0). Try a Edge Fade, Inner effect instead of the blur. Blur, err, blurs everything in the sheet's drawn area. Edge Fade, Inner will make the edges fade away you'll get a smooth transition (if the entities are on different sheets though...) Everything you describe is possible with CC3. Personnaly, I prefer starting small and enlarge if needed (often needed
Hope it's clear enough
1. Click on the landmass button.
2. You will see on the command line (at the bottom left of your screen) the following text: "Fractal Polygon: First Point (E : Edit)".
3. So press the "E" key to edit your landmass.
4. The command line states: "Pick start node"
5. So click on the continent's outline, where you want to create your inlet or peninsula.
6. Draw the new part to delete (inlet) or add (peninsula) by adding nodes (clicks).
7. When you get again near the original coast, right-click.
8. The command line says "Click end node to connect to"
9. Click on the coast where you want the edtion to end.
10. Click on the redraw button (or type Ctrl-R).
Et voilà!, edited coast.
But I do want to say that I do not want to remove a section. This to my mind means erasing the whole continent. That's bad. The continent was drawn in one go. So that, to me, constitutes a section. A whole section. I just want to take a small piece out of it. As you can see from the twitter picture, where I have left a small opening between the biege contour lines. I just want to take a bite out of that section of the continent. I do not want to erase the whole continent.
If you would be so kind to provide me with a search term for what I want to do, I would gladly search it. Remove something is not really what I want to do (suggests removing the continent). I just want to take a piece out of it. And I wonder if the way I have drawn the continent - using the New Drawing Wizard - limits me in changing my drawing of the continent? Essentially I want to change a drawing. I imagine that is too broad a search term.
See this discussion for example (I made a search with "to small" as keywords)
I mean the erase function seems to erase whole sections rather than chosen areas, like the area I want to choose for my inlet.
I am home now do I will attach the map. Note the effect of the process you recommend after I have completedd it? (if you can see the thin outline in the south west of the map).
As for the erase function, yes, it always delete entire entities, not just parts of them. This is why you need to use the edit feature described by Joachim, as this allows you to both add on to or take parts out of an existing entity.
For the future, please do not post such huge images. Let me refer you to the Posting Guidelines
By the way, I have no idea how to resize avatars or pictures or technical stuff like that. I thought a screen shot might help. And now I am referring to it so you can see exactly with pictures what would be impossible for me to say with words.
So, after I clicked on the landmass button, I saw on the command line (at the bottom left of my screen) the following text: "Fractal Polygon: First Point (E : Edit)".
Then I pressed the "E" key to edit your landmass. It did exactly as it was supposed to telling me "Pick start node" which to my mind makes the same connection in meaning as "The command line states: "Pick first node" "
So far so good at following directions.
Next I clicked on the continent's outline, where I want to create my inlet. As you can see that is where the drawing of the landmass began on top of the continent. I started on the left side.
Then I drew the new part to delete (inlet) by adding nodes (clicks).
Again, so far so good. Everything to my mind has been done right.
When I got to the original coast, I right-clicked. This closed off the drawing and diplayed it on top of the continent (on top of the grid).
The command line did say "Click end node to connect to"
I clicked on the coast where I wanted to end. Everything done exactly to the specifics. I printed out a copy of the instructions and went line by line because of my comprehension difficulties.
When I clicked on the redraw button (or type Ctrl-R), the landmass that I drew on top of the continent then had the grid placed over it.
There is no point 11.
I still have the same problem.
I had no trouble editing your coast (see attached) following exactly the steps described above.
Could you please try again, and if it still fails, attach the result FCW (save as another file).
So is there a way to have more control of the drawing of this inlet? Or do I only have a beginning, middle and end point to set?
What I did was:
-create a new sheet on top of all others
-draw a "Box" shape there that's a bit bigger than my map, set to solid fill-style and white color
-add a transparency effect so I can see my map through the Box
Now I just need to add a box-shaped hole to that big Box, but I have no idea how
I thought I could use the method I learned from your reply to Cowboy's post, but that uses the landmass tool, and I don't want fractal lines. The Box tool doesn't have the E for Edit, though.
I didn't yet try the Export thing, but I think I'll postpone that until I really have some maps to print/distribute. Sorry for this must sound stupid, but what do I do after I enter the tag number?
If I press Enter, it just goes back to "Select entities (2 picked)". Where can I do that? I searched for some kind of "map properties" option in the menu at the top (File etc.), but I only found options that apply to specific entities.
The other solution is what I tried to explain: draw a thin box right of the map, another left, a third at the top and the last at the bottom. Make sure they overlap at the corners. 1. Use Info->List and select the outline/landmass/whatever. Right-click and do it (or just hit the "D" key). Every selected entity is detailed on a blue background popup. Try to identify the entity you want to erase by its color, fill style, line witdh etc. and note its tag number #.
2. Click the Erase button. Right-click, select More then Entity Tag #
3. Type the number noted above and press Enter. Only one entity should be selected at that set (Unless you right-click More then Entity Tag # then another number).
4. Right-click do it There is no parameter for the size of a map. Its size is defined by entities on it. In fact, a common trouble is when you inadvertently add an entity too far away: when you zoom to extents the screen looks blank because the entities on the map are too small compared to the map's size.
To enlarge a map, you usually have to
1. Scale the map border using the Right-click Scale Non Visual Scale -Y unless you want to keep the same x/y ration then you use the left-click Scale.
2. Scale the background
3. Add grid lines if any
You can also start a new map with the Decide Settings Myself radio button on. At this step you can specify the map's size.
Then you import the old map with Draw->Insert File (you'll have to erase the old map border, background, grid etc)
You can instead only import selected entities with the Right-click Copy -> Copy to clipboard. This last command is however still bugged (to my knowledge), you have to used it twice on the old map before pasting (ctrl + V).
1. Just click on the coast for the first point.
2. Release the mouse and move some distance than click again
3. Repeat step 2. as many time as you wish. Note how the part you edit shows in gray and rubber band cursor (when you move the mouse, the shapes adapt)
4. Before reaching the coast again, right-click.
5. Click on the coast again. Again, before clicking, note how the shape is shown and adapts to your mouse movement. Click when the shape is right for you.
6. Redraw.
The mistake I made with the erase tool was that I first clicked at the outline, selecting both entities, and then used tried to limit it down to one by using that entitie tag command, which didn't work.
It's longer and not very subtle here but it was just to illustrade how the And(both) combination works. The term might be misleading as it means both conditions and not both selections.
You can for example select all the blue (color 3) colored entities (first condition: entity is color 3) then restrict to the solid filled entities (second condition: entity's fill style is solid) with the And(both) to only select entities that are blue and solid filled.
There was once a nice article by Allyn Bowker about all the subtelties of selection in a feature called the Map Treasure Chest, in your CC3 registration page. Does anybody know where these articles went and/or if they are still available?
Is the following graphic version better?
I start click (#4) ON the coast, ON the line of the continent, right? That is what I have been doing. I do not click on the water, right? I try to end on the continent, on the line of the coast. I have also tried to end on the same point as I start (giving me the island BUT actually accomplishing the inlet - kind of like the software laughing at me).
I am trying to cut the continent a little behind (under) the contour line) rather than conform to it. Technically it should be the same operation you're doing, right? I should be able to follow it. This little bit of information should not matter. The contour line feature should not interfer with this operation, right? But I reveal it just in case it does. I just cannot believe I am not achieving the same result you are by following your instructions. It is like I am living in Bizzaro World. I can only imagine what someone else reading this must think of me. And I think pretty low of myself rigt now too.
I primary-click the last point on the continent - where I want to end on the opposite coast line. Then I primary-click to the origin point and then secondary-click. Success! But with the G-D island.
(I distinguish primary (left) and secondary (right) click because my mouse is configured for the left-hand - so the instructions are backward for me but, not being a total muppet, I get it. So this isn't a problem. Plus I can always create the inlet if I want the island.)
The first and last point (after secondary click) should be some distance apart. They are both nodes of the initial polygon. Perhaps you encounter troubles because you don't have nodes close enough to what your wish (a very small channel for example?). If that's the cause, assuming you start on the left as in my example above, add some nodes to the right, create the loop, come near the channel, go right to an existing node and right-click before reaching that node. Right. Not right. If you're doing maps and using this forum you can't be that low.
And I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your patience and time with me on this. I have had similar issues (comprehension) where the person thought I was sent to them by a colleague as a joke. It's no fun. And I appreciate your help.
Dude! Your questions and comments are typed in coherent English. That alone is a big plus! I'm sure your questions are easily answered by the pros out there, but I learned things from reading this thread. Thanks for asking!
And thanks to everyone who replied.
What is important is thus not to make the outline cross itself or you'll encounter the island effect (see below).
Note that you are not only adding the nodes you click, but also intermediate nodes created by the fractal setting.
The preview of what will happen is shown by a gray outline (see #5 above. If it's not apparent enough, I can trace it with another color) you need to examine carefully through the process. You're welcome!