Live Mapping: Classic Fantasy
Loopysue
ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
Hi Everyone! :D
Tomorrow's Live Mapping session sees Ralf going all 'Tolkien' on us and taking a look at the "Classic Fantasy" vector overland style from the Annual Vol 9. He will also be discussing using and customizing hatch styles.
You can watch right here on the forum:
Or you can come and join in with the live show on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57aVGl7LUPw
Hope to see you there!
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My internet connection is terrible today, but I'll try to follow along.
Don't worry, Jim. They are usually recorded.
...
30 minute shout :)
I know, but I like to try and watch.
Hi,
Question: how do you create the mask for what Ralf used when labelling "Northern Mirkwood"? At about the 50:45 mark he uses the "Terrain Default, Forest Key". How do you create it, and I am not sure I understood the relationship between it and the sheet effect. If someone could please help me understand a little better would be most appreciated. :(
I think this could be very handy for maps that are very busy but then making it difficult to place labels. I have actually been able to get a lot of use of the last video as it has helped me progress my current map a lot so thanks for that! :)
That drawing tool draws a solid polygon of magenta on the forest sheet. Because there is a Color Key sheet effect on that sheet set to magenta, the magenta polygon cuts a hole in the forest fill, leaving the parchment beneath it exposed.
Try it out - draw your polygon around the text where you want the hole in the forest behind it, and then refresh the view.
Awesome thank you, I think I understand. :) I need to play around a bit as it is not working the way I expect, but at least I understand the relationship. :)
Oh - I forgot to say.
For it to work you need to have the sheet effects turned on, which is a checkbox at the top right of the Sheets and Effect dialog.
Using CONTOURSM to get an outline at a distance around the text and then applying that forest key drawing tool to the resulting outline might be a nice way to get a close punchout around the text without having to draw a polygon with the drawing tool.
Hi Joe that looks like it will work really nicely, but how do you tell CC3 to use the forest key drawing tool with that command?
What I have done is, set a color key of magenta on the sheet that I want the text to be visible on, typed some text and placed it over the area that is indicated by the sheet and then typed the contoursm command, set a distance of 1, selected my text and then do it.
It just does an outline of the text in the text colour, i.e. sets a contour of each letter but just as an outline. How do I make the contour use the terrain key that I have already created?
Thanks!
In this case, it is probably simpler not bothering with the tool at all.
Just set the correct sheet, correct color, line width to 0 and fill to 0 on the status bar. Then do CONTOURSM on the text and the poly should go on the right sheet.
Another way that uses the drawing tool is to make a macro drawing tool that sets all the properties as above, and then calls CONTOURSM at the end of the macro, just leaving you to pick the text. I talk about macro tools in this blog article:
Thanks Remy, I still interested to see what Joe has to say re the contoursm command using the tool, but when also trying your way, I am doing something wrong, as I end up with the below. I am attaching the fcw file as well as that might help tell me what I am doing wrong? :(
The top Test is me doing what I described above. The cutout portion is using the polygon cutout as per what Ralf did in the video. The bottom test 2 is doing what I think you are suggesting, but I am obviously doing something wrong. :( The text is initially in black.
I think I have figured out what I need to do for the way that Joe was describing. I need to set the contour to the sheet that I have the color key on and then also do the contour fill as solid magenta. :) So happy days there. Will play around a bit more with your method Remy. :)
And yup that does it too. :) I need to make sure that I am on the sheet that has the color key effect applied to it when I do the contoursm command. That is where I was going wrong.
You can indeed do it manually the way that Remy described. As you've learned, you need to get everything set correctly, including the sheet before going at CONTOURSM manually. The nice thing about going the drawing tool route is that (maybe) it will do the sheet things for you to ensure that stuff gets to the right location. There is a command that applies a drawing tool to selected items, but I can never remember what it's called and also can't remember if it moves the picked entities to the correct sheet.
I can never remember all of the stuff that drawing tools can do (I'm getting older than I ever expected), but the ability to have a drawing tool-like thing that lets you pick one or more entities and then applies all of the attributes and macro options would be nice to have. Being able to apply all of the options for a symfill or escarpment and/or color/fill/layer/sheet with just a couple of clicks would make some kinds of things easier for me, the poor artist with no planning ability.
I really need to go deeper into this stuff. It's application and result is very interesting but I find technical things such as this very difficult to master; for some reason when I'm reading technical instructions - including some bits of RPG rulebooks, you know , the mechanical bits, I've read the Sanity Rules for Call of Cthulhu several times and still don't fully get it - my brain decides to switch off and I read the text, understanding the words written with virtually no comprehension.
You aren't alone, Jim. I am the same with written stuff. I much prefer to watch a video. Maybe you are a visual learner like me?
As long as it doesn't include calculus, I'm fine. However, trig is not my friend.
I think I am. Perhaps the advent of YouTube, the internet and such has just made me lazy...😁
Not lazy. It's just that some of us process images a thousand times faster than words ;)
As for calculus, JimP - that's the point at which I decided I wasn't going to go on and become a scientist like the rest of my family. It was the brick wall that ended any ideas in that direction.
I had to take 10 semester hours of it to get my Bachelors of Science, which eventually got a job for me. I didn't use such math though once I graduated.
For me, it depends on what it is as to what medium is best. The issue I have with videos is that maybe I only need some of the info, but I have to sit through the entire video. But I won't know what info I don't have unless I watch the entire thing.
I like it when videos have breaks with info listed about each part. That way I can just jump to the part I am looking for. When most people make long videos, they don't do that.
I agree, it is not pure black and white as to what is best, videos or text. But I can scan an A4 page of text and pick out the bits I need in seconds, while a video covering the same thing would be in the 10-20 minutes range or more, and it is impossible to scan it the same way you do a page of text. And text can easily be searched for keywords. In most cases videos simply eat up more of my precious time. I always hate when I search for help on a problem on google, and the only thing I find are links to videos. You often can't even tell if they are relevant to your problem before getting far into it.
But when it comes to demonstrating a complicated thing, videos can often be superior to see someone actually performing the task. And when seeing something visually, you don't need to understand the particular jargon either, you see what they do even if you didn't know what it was called.
Having the video divided up into chapter helps, but when creating a video it is often difficult to create good chapters. It is also a lot of extra work when creating the video, either up front because you need a much more detailed plan, or afterwards because you need to work through it and figure out how to divide it and what part really is. And people often come to the video looking for different aspects of things, which means that the chapter division that works perfectly for one doesn't provide a good organization for another (books have the same problem)
For the profantasy videos what I do most of the time is play them as background noise and when I hear something that interests me or is some tip I haven't seen or want to use I'll pause it, back it up, watch it, try it out, then go back to the background noise mode. Works really well for me. Written stuff I really like in paper form but now a days they are all PDF's which works. I can blow up the display scale for my old eyes and can do searches but still like paper better as I can have it in front of me while I'll doing it instead of jumping between windows or digging my ipad out to read them on it.