My first CD3 Map -Test-

Highland_Piper

Based off of Gandwarf's tutorials I tried to make my first CD3 map. Now I have never been very good at making city maps. Dungeons and Overland maps have always been my strong point but I do find it easier with CD3. This is only a half effort map, I'd like to eventually develop my own style. Other than this style I really enjoy the John Speed style city maps as well.



I am really going to have to get proficient at making varied types of city maps. We are starting a GURPS Fallout campaign really soon and we are expected to map out London during the course of our adventures. So I will also need to learn how to use the The Cartographer's Annual Vol 1 September Modern Maps as well.

I have two different Fantasy Campaigns that I am running and I would like to get more towns and villages mapped. I want to use different styles to indicate how advanced each place is. Hand drawn maps for villages (unless they have a church or abbey then the map can be a bit more advanced), up to CD3 maps with full effects for the larger cities.

I'm doing it this was to help the players get a feel for the game and this should really help me with my city map making skills.

Gandwarf

I like it Highland_Piper, although you skipped some parts of the tutorial I think ;-)

Mapping out London... wow, good luck. Fortunately CD3 is great software and if you get proficient at it you can churn out cities in no time.

bonzer

Highland, I like this map, a lot. There is plenty in it but it is well spaced out. Mind you I am looking at it from DM's point of view, and could use it as a village almost anywhere. I like the way it appears two areas have developed (NW and SE) and this adds flavour. Very good map. I can hardly wait to get to the tutorial if you can do this after missing some of it!

Bonzer

Highland_Piper

Yeah I did skip some steps, I did mention it was a half effort attempt.

Highland_Piper

Next attempt, still not finished. I'm trying to develop my own style.

Gandwarf

I like the town, the layout and the forests. The colors you used as the floor of the forests are too much I think. They should blend in more with the ground.
How are you saving these maps? They look a bit grainy.

Stormcaller3801

My only problem with your maps is the fact that they're wholly superior to every city map I've attempted to date.

So fix that, and we're good. :P

Highland_Piper

Yeah I don't understand why it is so grainy. The first map is really grainy as well. As for the colors of the forest floor, that is another problem. I created a custom colour that was a nice dark Olive-drab colour, but for some reason CC3 keeps changing the colour like a VF. So sometimes its dark brown then bright green.

The grainy texture really does irritate me.

JimP

Hmm. I like the grainy style. It gives the map texture, rather than having areas of smooth color as large areas of smooth non-grainy colors is out of the ordinary.

I would love to know how you did it.Yeah, I realize you don't know.

Highland_Piper

I would like to know, because I followed the same tutorial as eveyone else.

I think it has something to do with the exporting. PNG's never seem to work properly from CC3 as you can't upload them to any web page without an error message. JPEG still does it as well as BMP

So there is something wrong with my export features.

Gandwarf

How do you save your maps Highland Piper? You probably need to save in a higher resolution to get rid of the grainy style. You can set the resolution while saving your map. Unfortunately I don't have CC3 on this computer, so I can't describe what options you need to click.

Highland_Piper

I've been saving them at 1280x1024. This did not happen last time I used CC3. Same computer but new hard drive so I had to reinstall CC3. Only thing different is I now own CD3

-EDIT-

Tried it at 2972x2400 and it still comes out grainy

Gandwarf

At what size did you start the map?

JimP

I save as bmp, and use Irfanview to convert the bmp to png.

Highland_Piper

Started it at the standard 1000x800

pvernon

PNGs from CC3 need to be opened and saved in an art program like "Paint Shop". After that they work proporly.

Highland_Piper

Well I tried that trick in Photoshop and it still will not upload to my wiki or my photobucket.

Latharion

Posted By: JimPHmm. I like the grainy style. It gives the map texture, rather than having areas of smooth color as large areas of smooth non-grainy colors is out of the ordinary.

I would love to know how you did it.Yeah, I realize you don't know.

I agree with you, Jim. I was wondering the same thing myself. I even tried to find the texture he is using from CC3 but was unsuccessful. I like the grainy look that seems to give the map character and creates the illusion of vegetation (grass or crops etc...)

I'd love to know the "trick" to this unintentional style development.

Highland_Piper

I don't think its the texture it is the exportation that is the problem. It only does it with CD3 maps. There are like holes in all the symbols. If you zoom in you can see them. I'm thinking I better contact tech support on this as it really is irritating me.

Gandwarf

Did you try the PDF Creator way? First printing as PDF and then converting to JPG or PNG?

Highland_Piper

I used Adobe Acrobat to export it to a pdf and it looks great. So the problem is with CD3. It takes 25-30 min to create a pdf of it so it is not a viable option.

Garth Jones

I had a problem like that recently. It turned out I had the GRID turned on when I saved the map as a PNG - the dots from the grid are really small and the result looked a little like yours. If you look at my thread 'A CD3 Map to Share' the first version has the grid on and the second doesn't. If that's your problem, then it's a quick fix!

Cheers,
Garth

Highland_Piper

I was so hoping that was it, but alas no. I did not have grid turned on. It saved it with and without GRID turned on and it is still grainy with holes.

But thank you Garth for the help!

Gandwarf

Maybe share the FCW file here so we can have a look?

Highland_Piper

Yeah, sure thing. I hope it is as simple as something I did, but at the moment it really does appear to be some kind of export problem. Why else would the pdf turn out proper and everything else not?

Simon Rogers

Don't use Adobe, use PDF Creator. It lets you carry on using CC3 while it spools the PDF. PDF Creator will also let you export directly to PNG and other formats. It's free. Do a search in the forum - I'm sure there is a thread.

Simon

amdobritt

Posted By: Latharion

Posted By: JimPHmm. I like the grainy style. It gives the map texture, rather than having areas of smooth color as large areas of smooth non-grainy colors is out of the ordinary.

I would love to know how you did it.Yeah, I realize you don't know.

I agree with you, Jim. I was wondering the same thing myself. I even tried to find the texture he is using from CC3 but was unsuccessful. I like the grainy look that seems to give the map character and creates the illusion of vegetation (grass or crops etc...)

I'd love to know the "trick" to this unintentional style development.

Highland_Piper, think u could do png export of just the background? That grainy look is really nice.

Latharion

I just did some testing with the map, and it seems the bitmap conversion, the jpeg conversion and the png conversion all introduce a large amount of noise that is not noticeable from within CC3. The settings I used for this test were an output size of 1280x1024, bitmap set to 24bits, jpeg compression quality set to 100 (meaning no compression) with progressive turned off as well as on, and png compression set to "Fast". All four versions ended up with digital noise being introduced. I set the effects on for one set and off for another set just to eliminate the possiblity of a sheet effect causing the problem. Could this be a new bug that CD3 introduced or perhaps the latest patch?

The good news is that the easy way to attain the above effect is simply to save the file as a bmp, jpg, or png from within CC3 and there you go.

Highland_Piper

Is any one else having this problem?

I sent this problem into tech support with a link to this forum thread.

Latharion thank you for figuring it out this far.

Latharion

I did have a thought. If someone out there who does NOT have CD3 or the latest patch installed wouldn't mind grabbing the map that Hightland_Piper uploaded and doing a save-as to a bmp, png or jpg to see if they get the digital noise. I think the problem may be related to either CD3 or the latest patch (with the latest patch being the most likely suspect). Since both were released together, we need a CC3 copy that hasn't yet applied the latest patch or CD3 (because it includes the latest patch, it will be difficult to try CD3 without the patch). Please post your results.

JimP

I get nothing but red Xs. I had CC3 and CD3, but not the newest CD3.