First Overland Map: War of the Burning Sky

veghead

Total newb when it comes to Campaign Cartographer. My first effort was remaking the regional map that comes with War of the Burning Sky as a fancy player handout for an online gaming session. For a first attempt, I'm not disappointed at all. But... I would love to get suggestions on how to improve it and take it up to the next level. Ideas include: better smoothing between landmass areas, better use of effects, font changes, etc.

Any advice would be most welcome!

-Veghead

veghead

And here's a PNG version of the map.

jigsawman

That's the same style I used for my first map. It looks good to me but I might consider that single snowy mountain at the top so close to what looks like a dessert. The other things you might try is adding some color beneath your forests and mountains that blends out into the surrounding ground. if you are not using sheets, try and focus on that too.
JSM

Ralf

Very nice work for a first map, I do like the layout of the land a lot. Here's a few suggestions for tweaking it:

- Add a few single trees around the forests, representing scattered woodlands. that will make them look more natural.
- Why do you use the vector version of the mountains? I'd recommend using the same bitmap style as for the rest of the map.
- one mountain range in the west (above the Sindaire text) has slightly rotated mountains, that looks a little odd.
- the forest close to those mountains completely covers the river running through it. I'd recommend drawing to forest in two sections (one on each side of the river). That way the river will still be visible.
- check the "Spacing" value of your text settings. the multi-line label "Monastery of Two Winds" (you have a typo there) has the lines running into each other. You can avoid that by using a larger Spacing setting.

veghead

Posted By: RalfVery nice work for a first map, I do like the layout of the land a lot. Here's a few suggestions for tweaking it:

- Add a few single trees around the forests, representing scattered woodlands. that will make them look more natural.
- Why do you use the vector version of the mountains? I'd recommend using the same bitmap style as for the rest of the map.
- one mountain range in the west (above the Sindaire text) has slightly rotated mountains, that looks a little odd.
- the forest close to those mountains completely covers the river running through it. I'd recommend drawing to forest in two sections (one on each side of the river). That way the river will still be visible.
- check the "Spacing" value of your text settings. the multi-line label "Monastery of Two Winds" (you have a typo there) has the lines running into each other. You can avoid that by using a larger Spacing setting.

All useful suggestions. Thank you! Couple of questions.

1) With the trees, I used the "Default Terrain" tool. For the mountains, I placed them by hand. Is there a way to use Default Terrain to layout mountains? Do people do that? Or does everyone lay out mountains by hand because it looks better?

2) If placing mountains by hand gives the best result and I want to replace the vector mounts in the map with bitmap styles, what's the easiest approach? Create another sheet, move the existing mountains there, draw new mountains on top and then delete the extra sheet?

3) jigsawman suggested adding color beneath the forests and mountains that blends out. What are the best strategies for that?

4) I'm not particularly happy with the marsh/swamp land near Sequen. Any suggestions for making that look better and blend into the surround area better?

5) Do people normally add sheet effects to mountains and land features like that?

6) If I wanted to smooth out the desert like contours in the north part of the map, should I use something like an Edge Fade?

Thanks!

Ralf

1) No, mountains need to be placed by "hand" with standard CC3. The Annual Vol 3 (2009) has an issue on macros, which includes one that draws complete mountain ranges (written by master mapper Joachim de Ravenbel).

2) That would be probably the easiest method. If you want to do exact replacements of the symbols, you can also use the replace function of the Symbol Manager as described here.

3) There are drawing tools for that kind fo thing in the default CC3 style, namely "Terrain Default, Forest Back" and "Terrain Default, Mountain ..." Make sure to draw them on the LAND FEATURES sheet and the blending effect will be added automatically.

4) Move it to the sheet LAND FEATURES. If you hide everything but the LAND sheet on your map, you'll notice that some entities are on there which don't belong (a few terrain backgrounds and some rivers). Move these over to their correct sheets.

5) Normally these are pre-defined on the templates, but people often customize them or add their own, yes.

6) Again, move the desert on the LAND FEATURES sheet, and you'll see the Edge Fade effect. Your desert are currently on the sheet SYMBOLS.