DD3 Question

bonzer

Having made CC3 do (vaguely) what I wanted for now, I have tried messing with DD3. I am trying to do floorplans rather than a map at the moment. Is there a way to hide the grid on areas outside of a dungeon?

Also how can I have all areas outside showing as white (to save on printer ink)?

I regularly read these forums and though I seem to learn some new things, as is the way, I always end up trying something I don't understand.

Bonzer

Monsen

To have the map background show white instead of the normal bitmap, either hide the "Background" layer, or delete the elements on it.

I can't think of a way to only show the grid in the dungeon itself, except if you combine it with removing the background as you also asked about. In that case, you can change the color of the grid lines to white, which would make them invisible over the white background, but visible over the rooms.
If your dungeon is completely "nice and square", with rooms following grid sizes, you can also remove the default grid, and just draw in the grid only in the relevant places on the map.
A third option is to unfreeze the grid layer, ungroup the grid, and then use the trim functions (Like trim to entity) to trim the grid lines so that they only appear over rooms/corridors.

bonzer

Thanks Monsen. The idea to whiten the map background sounds good (well they all do), but the others are little complicated for me (at the moment). I'll have a play next time I try to do this. Unfreeze I know about, ungroup and trim - um, well, I'll have a go. I hope you don't mind but I have also asked Mogul as a map of his has just the grid effect I am looking for. It's in Gandwarf's City thread.

I like the way you answer lots of queries so soon. Thanks again.

Bonzer

ScottMcG

As I was trying to teach myself to use DD3, I began looking for a way of doing a "tear out" effect around the boundary of the a map. One of the intermediary steps along the way to finding a way to do this (inspired by a tip Monsen gave in another post, I believe) maybe be useful for achieving the limiting of the grid and background areas that you asked about.

I started with a simple battle-map formatted dungeon floor plan. ( I wouldn't think people would normally want a tear out style for a battle map, but I was just trying to learn different techniques all in one sandbox.)



I created a sheet called "TEAROUT" that is situated just above the GRID sheet. On that sheet, I create a polygon that encloses the "interesting" content of the map with a 1 grid square boundary.



Then, on the same layer, I create a box that covers beyond the display area of the map. In the images I've given these two entities different colors, and moved the box behind the trace polygon, for clarity, but it's not necessary.



Using the MultiPoly tool, i convert these two into a single entity that is a box with the trace polgon shape subtracted from the middle.



I then change the color of this entity to white, and show all of the other sheets again for the result.



I'm terribly new to CC3, so this may be old hat, but I didn't notice anything on how to do this on my first pass search of the forums, so I apologize if this is redundant, or didn't really address what you were looking.


-Scott


Edit: This is the first pass of my attempt at the actual tear out effect I was going for. I used a polyline as the trace entity for this, and then fractalized it with a strength of 30 and 5 iterations. I undid/redid a few times until I got a shape I liked. There may be a better way to make the jagged/fractal mask, but this is what my beginner brain could come up with.

Bidmaron

This came out very nice. If only these forums had a way to classify information better so things like this could be easily retrieved by those who would want to consult them....

ScottMcG

If you think this bit has standalone value, the only thing I know to do would be to post it independently with a more descriptive title. Is there a how-to, or tips-n-tricks category? Or was the what you were lamenting the lack of?

Joachim de Ravenbel

What ScottMcG suggested is what I call a mask. I frequently use this on maps to create a torn effect. Carefull, though, some sheet effects tend to appear on the edge of the map.
If you don't want to use multipolies, you can use the method I described here:
http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1144&page=1#Item_4

ScottMcG

I originally tried to create the tear effect along a smooth boundary with sheet effects. That was pretty misguided based on the poor results that gave. After that experience, I was pretty worried about sheet effects affecting the tear edge, as you mention, but I was lucky enough to not have any serious issues with it in this map.

Joachim de Ravenbel

Well, to neutralise the outside sheet effect, I generally make the mask quite large but export the map much closer to the *real* border. I also work with the mask sheet hidden till the end (well, not quite, sometimes I need to pat myself on the shoulder and look at what I've done so far, full effects on)
My first map here
http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=995&page=1#Comment_7498
was done with such a mask adding fractal polies across the middle (the drop shadow effect was added with Photofiltre, though).

ScottMcG

Oh, that's very nice! Very much the effect I was looking for, but yours is much more nicely done. I like your eye for the colors.

Joachim de Ravenbel

Well, I used a color 19 for the background but a texture effect modified it...

Bidmaron

I was lamenting that there is no classification system on this forum so that posts of lasting value (like this one) might be accessed by browsing a category of posts like 'border effects' or some such. This problem is not unique to this forum. Few have anything like that, but I could wish....

JimP

They could be stickied, but that would soon cause a problem.

Maybe an archive section for such discussions ?

jaerdaph

How about a sticky that lists links to the best tutorial threads?

pvernon

Now that sounds like a good idea.

sdavies2720

How about a more general "Popular Threads" sticky topic. Make a couple of categories (Tutorials, Maps, Styles, Tricks) within it, and anyone can nominate a thread to go into it. Moderators control what goes in. If you're looking for something great, it would be the first place to search or browse.

Monsen

hmm.. Not an entirely bad idea actually. Maybe even throw in a faq section too, and link to answers for the most common questions, either in the "real" faq, or to posts here.

I'll check with Ralf if he has any opinion on this.

sdavies2720

*Whew* Usually I post entirely bad ideas.

Ralf

Yes, we should creat a "Best of" sticky thread to list all the good things people have posted. Good idea.

JimP

Hmm.. Yes, a faq file/best of stickey should include often requested information. Like how to make a small detailed map part that is part of a large one.

ScottMcG

If somebody gets this rolling, I'd be happy to take my comments here and re-post them as a more generic map mask how-to.