Castle Wall/Tower Crenelations

GThiel

I've been trying to use the "CA46-Mapping-Guide-Castle-Walls" pdf to create crenelations on a tower. I can get everything to work, building the two circles using the DBLC command and creating the crenelations using the "CREN command." But when I try to get the segments to be filled, as described on page 4, item 4 of the pdf, nothing happens. Below is a screen shot of a test showing on the left the two circles created using the DBLC command and on the right showing what happens to it after the CREN command. Any Suggestions? Thank you in advance Jerry

Josh.P.

I've been testing on and off all day. Getting this to work is painful.

A full double line circle - cannot get this to fill
A full double line circle with a door added - fills correctly
A full double line rectangle - fills the entire shape twice. The inner rectangle and outer rectangle both fill completely.
A full double line rectangle with a door - fills correctly

Now this gets more interesting...

A full double line circle @1' with crenellations @1' - cannot get this to fill correctly
A small full double line circle @1' with crenellations @2' - fills correctly
A large full double line circle @1' with crenellations @2' - cannot get this to fill correctly

Honestly... i think this is broken.

GThiel

Finally got something I like, lots of work to do it tho. used DBLC to create two circles, CREN to make crenelations, then went in and used a floor on each crenelation to color it in. put all of these onto a sheet and put a glow and bevel on it. Under the crenelations, put a circular room the same size with the wall the same bitmap as the crenelations. Glowed the wall and put it on a sheet directly under the crenelation sheet, put the floor on another sheet below the wall sheet. removed a few sections where it would open out on to the adjacent straight walls (crenelated walls are still a work in progress.) here's a pic of the finished tower top.

Loopysue

Those lines look really quite thick. Maybe that's why they won't fill?

I haven't even read that part of the Tome, but generally speaking if you draw any kind of poly with a line width greater than 0 it automatically becomes just an outline.

Since I haven't even read that section of the Tome, though, I may be making a completely ridiculous suggestion

Monsen

Posted By: Josh.P.A full double line circle - cannot get this to fill
A full double line circle with a door added - fills correctly
A full double line rectangle - fills the entire shape twice. The inner rectangle and outer rectangle both fill completely.
A full double line rectangle with a door - fills correctly

I can explain why these four cases work as they do.
In the first case, you have two independent circles, which basically are two independent lines not touching each other. Each of them can be filled, but since they are completely independent, you cannot simply fill the area between them. CC3+ operates on entities, not areas bounded by entities. Using line to path on these circles won't do anything, since they don't touch.
Case two with the door, you break the circle and add connecting lines. You'll notice that you can now trace one continuous lines (several lines, but the next always starts where the previous ends) around the entire shape. In this case, line to path can conenct the individual lines into one shape, and fill it. Instead of dealing with thwo shapes as we did above, we now have one-
The two cases with the rectangle is the same as with the circles. The only difference is that the rectangles are actually built from four lines, so they get joined and filled, while the circle was only one line and didn't react to line to path. So, we end up with both rectangles filled, overlapping each other (Same can easily be done with the circles by using change properties on them)
And for the last case, adding that door actually joind the rectangles into one continuous shape instead of two disjoint ones, thus making everything work as it should.


I guess this is really a case of the method described doesn't work with the simplest possible base case, but it does work with everything else. For the basic case (circle or rectangles without breaks), follow the instructions, but use multipoly on them as the final step, this will allow the inner one to become a hole in the outer one. Multipoly is also a good tool for the crenelations.

GThiel

Here's a pdf I put together explaining the steps I used to make a crenelated tower top. It took me a while to figure out these steps, and Thank You to all those people who gave me hints and suggestions. Jerry.

Josh.P.

Thanks Monsen. That makes logical sense. Will test some more as Im going to need all this to work for a future map.

Josh.P.

So Monsen,

In your wisdom, should crenelations work?

It seem's very hit and miss with about 90% miss.

Joachim de Ravenbel

Hi,

The CA46 Castle Walls was not intented to create walls with no openings. I however fully understand the need to create such shapes now as I did it myself more than once...

Posted By: GThielHere's a pdf I put together explaining the steps

Your pdf is a very good description of the process to use. Use the double circle tool an multipoly both circles to create the low part of the walls. Change to upper sheet, create the same circles and use crenelation, then multipoly all the crenelation parts in one go.

Multipoly is a solution for any closed shape with a hole in it...

For more about using CA46, if you have the time to do so, please check these articles and for more on multipolys, check this .

Posted By: Josh.P.It seem's very hit and miss with about 90% miss.

What do you mean by miss? Could you please post a file with a miss?

Wyvern

I worked through some examples of this for the first time myself after reading the above, and I think the main problem is the Mapping Guide for this Annual issue isn't sufficiently clear as to what you can and can't do when following it. Like the others who've commented on the problems here, from said Guide, I'd also assumed you could just circumvent the process, and draw, for instance, a double circle and have that be filled, because the Mapping Guide says nowhere that this isn't possible. That leads to very rapid frustration, because the process only works as long as you follow it exactly as the Guide says, with virtually no deviations. This is tough if you don't want to add doorways or windows, or join up everything with walls (for the upper storeys of a freestanding tower, say).

What the Annual does is useful, just the Guide needed to be a good bit clearer about the limitations, and indeed the whole construction process, I think.

Josh.P.

By miss I refer to the part of the guide that describes how to fill the walls you create with a fill style.

As me toned above I tried to follow the tutorial provided but didn't want to put in as many windows. The result was only half of what I had made filled while the other half deleted a few lines from the walls.

More information is required IMO on how to make best use of this addon. I love what it is trying to achieve but what good is the crenelation tool of yo can't fill it? If I had not read Jim's learnings I would have given up on that command completely.

I really just want to understand the process of getting from shapes on the screen to filled shaped on the screen reliably but so far I'm only successful when I create very specific shapes. Which is cool, I get what Monsen has said above. But the tutorial goes into the creation of shapes that I cannot get to fill.

GThiel

Joachim de Ravenbel
I've looked at the link you recommended for the Chapel, and it looks interesting, but it appears to be written for CC3 not CC3+ and the steps called for in the first part do not act the same way in CC3+ as your tutorial. Is there an update?