Issues with HW Overland Map

Mirithol

Hey all, I am working with Herwin Weilink's overland style from annual 6. I have two problems:

1) With sheet effects off and using the default terrain tool I placed hills, farmland, forests, mountains and marshes. When I turn on sheet effects, all but the hills disappear from the map. The hills have no pre-set sheet effects. The others (listed on sheet effects as Terrain Marsh, Terrain Hills, etc.)have a pre-set "Edge Fade, Inner" with edge width 5; Inner Opacity 90; Outer Opacity 0. A few have Inner Opacity 100. The Forest also disappears, but the tree symbols remain, as do the mountain symbols, but not the Terrain mountains.

2) While the river tool works, none of the roads appear. Clicking on the river tool gives me a box with a sample to choose from. This doesn't happen with the road tool. Should it?

Any ideas? Thanks in advance for the advice.

Ralf

How large is your map? If it is very small, and the edge fade width exceeds the actual size of your objects, they will simply disappear. If you make the map very small, you need to adjust the size of the sheet effects.

Mirithol

You are a wizard. Thank you. The map is 60x80 for a small island my players are adventuring on. How do I change the sheet size?

Moskva

That style has preset effects for 1000x800, 2000x1600.

What you can do either copy your map into a new standard size map, or simply adjust the effects

"Edge Fade, Inner" with edge width 5; so change that to say 0.5 and you'll be fine.

Mirithol

Thanks Moskva. Reducing all of the "Edge Fade, Inner" by a factor of 10 solved the problem. Note to others: Be sure add a new master sheet before you change all of your values so the original remains for your next big map. I think that is what Ralf meant above. Now I need to play with the effects to make it pretty.

The roads still come up like a white, misty ghost road (actually a cool effect which I may use later) in some cases, and in others just white, blocky curves at the corners, but no straight lines connecting the curves.

Thanks again for the help.

Ralf

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Can you post a copy of your map, so we can see the effect on the roads?

Mirithol

Hi all. Sorry for the delay - moved. Hopefully this captures my troubles with the roads.

Mirithol

From the last post, the white squarish objects are where the roads turn. The straighter portions don't show up at all. I'm going to have to figure out how the "ghost road" in the north-east happened. Not what I was looking for, but I like it. Some effects must have creeped in. Still lots of work to be done, but trying to get the bones right.

Thx - Miri

Dogtag

If I had to guess (which I do), I'd guess the line width of the roads is too high. If the map is 80 miles wide and the island is around 50 miles across, the line width is probably too close to "1" when it should be more like 0.1 or even less (0.05 or 0.03). Try reducing the Line width of the roads using the Change Properties button .

Also, the style of the line may put the dashes too far apart (hence only parts of the roads show). Perhaps change the Line style as well (Change Properties button again).

I hope that helps,
~Dogtag

Mirithol

Thanks Dogtag. Using the Change Properties button seems to help. I have changed the color, width to 0.1 and Line Style to solid. When I draw a road I get the blocky boxes. Then I hit the Change Props button, click on the the 3 boxes to the left of those descriptors and hit OK. Then redraw. Sheet effects blurs them nearly into oblivion, but one hurdle at a time.

Most of my issues seem to arise from taking a large format and shrinking it to fit a single 100x80 island. This island is modeled after Borich in the Palladium World and there are several more islands about this size I'd like to map. Is there a better way at the start to deal with the smaller format and, perhaps, avoid these issues? I am learning about CC3 in the process though.

Appreciate the help and insights ~ Miri

Dogtag

Hi Miri,

Glad that helped a little. The "vanishing blur" issue is, as you say, and as has been discussed above, due to the effects being set for a larger scale. I'm afraid that will probably require some trial and error experimentation to find settings that give you the look you want. The good news is that once you've found the right parameters for your effects, you can save your custom settings to re-use later.

To save your effects settings:

1. In the Drawing Sheets and Effects dialog box, check the Activate Sheet Effects checkbox.
   The effects controls on the right side of the dialog box become active.
   
2. Modify the sheets and effects as desired.
   
3. Click the New button.
   A small Save the current settings as... dialog box displays.
   
4. Modify the current name, which is the default value, or enter a completely new name.
   
5. Click OK.
   The little dialog closes and the effects settings are now saved with the new name.

You can now re-use your custom settings in other maps. The sheet names and the effects applied to them are all saved. If you apply your custom settings to another map that does not contain all the sheets you just saved, CC3 will prompt you to ask if you want to add them (just the sheets and effects, not the entities on the sheets). This ensures you always have the sheets and effects you want, so you don't have to constantly re-create your process.

I recommend that you save your settings as you go. That is,save the current settings with a new name before you start experimenting. That prevents you from overwriting the pre-built settings. Then, re-save your custom settings whenever you find parameters that give you your desired effect.

I hope that helps,
~Dogtag

Mirithol

Yes that helps and thank you. I haven't botched the original settings up too badly yet, so all is well.