Why do my maps disappear and leave a red X?

World of Darknoth

My maps from CC3 (and previous versions) have always seem to disappear leaving a white background with a red X in the center? This has happened to virtually every map I have made and I cannot recover them. Do other people have this problem? What causes it? Can I do something to prevent it?

Monsen

The red X means that the map is referencing a raster image which is no longer in the same location as specified in the map file. Make sure that external images are in the same location as when you made the map. It sounds weird that you are experiencing it on all your maps though, as maps using ProFantasy artwork should always work fine as long as you have the same products installed as before, and besides, they are normally not one big image, so even if you were missing raster resources, you should normally still see outlines of drawn entities and such.

World of Darknoth

Thanks for the response, regretfully I really don't understand what your explaining. You said:

"Make sure that external images are in the same location as when you made the map"

Can you explain what this means? I've got campaign cartographer on my C drive and I'm assuming that this is where the maps are stored normally, under the Profantasy download. I have lost maps here before and tried to make a copy under the c-drive Profantasy as well as on a external means in order to have a back up. The white background with the red X appeared on both copies of the map. I just don't understand how this happens or maybe how CC3 works.

I've considered trying similar map making programs but since I have already boughten CC3 along with add on's, I really would prefer to use it without losing my maps.

Monsen

When you use images in a CC3 map (raster symbols, or insert images through draw -> insert file) CC3 will only reference these images on the disk, and not embed them into the map itself, simply just storing the path to the image in the map. This means that each time you open the map, CC3 will look at the path on the disk where the image is supposed to be, according to the path stored in the map itself. If it cannot find this file in the location specified in the map, it will instead show a red x indicating that the image was not found. This typically happens if you use custom (non-ProFantasy) artwork, or if you previously used CC3 addons which are not currently installed. Also note that if you export cosmographer planetary maps from fractal terrains, this also causes a raster image to be exported which is referenced from the map, so if you don't keep the accompanying image with the map, you will see this behavior for those kinds of maps.

World of Darknoth

Ok, this is making some sense. The current map I am working on is as such:

I took a map made by another person (who did not use CC3 but rather another program). I inserted her map into CC3 by changing her JPEG map to a bit map. I then started using symbols from CC3 to add to her map. I don't believe that it was stored under Profantasy however.

Is this my issue?

I started the map over (inserting her map and making my own additions( and made sure it was saved under Profantasy within the C drive. Will this prevent the red X issue from happening?

Or am I still way off on my understanding of how this works.

I just wanted to say thank you for responding to my post and helping me out. its very much appreciated.

Monsen

Where you save your own map doesn't matter. The important location here is the location of the bitmap file of the map you inserted. When you insert an image into a CC3 map like that, the CC3 map will only reference the image, it will not be embedded it in the map file itself. So if you later open up the map, and if the inserted image no longer exists in the same location on the disk as it did when you inserted it, CC3 will no longer find that image, and will show the red X instead of the image.

To reduce the chance of having such issues, I recommend first putting the image you intend to insert into the same folder as your map (if you started a new map and haven't saved it yet, do so first, so that it will have a known location on the disk). Then, when you do Draw -> Insert file, click the 'Bitmap options' button in the dialog, and make sure the 'Make Path' setting is set to 'relative to drawing'. Now select and insert the image (which should be in the same directory as the map). Now, if you move the map around, take backups, etc, always remember to include the bitmap image as well, since this will be needed by the map at all times.

World of Darknoth

Well it happened again. I created started 5 maps by selecting the background box, then inserting a bmp map. I then saved it under C drive, profantasy. A few days later I opened them up and two were gone leaving the giant red X. I have tried to follow people's advice and simply don't understand how the program is suppose to save my maps without this happening.

Question? Why would two of the maps turn into red X's and not the rest? I suspect in a few days I will lose the others as well, after all I performed exactly the same pathway and created the maps the same way.

Help!