Help with designing a house with DD3

Now, I fully admit I'm not very good with CC3 and its add-ons; but I'm finding it extremely difficult to design something that seems to me should be quite simple. I spent days learning how to use the software over the summer, then didn't touch it again for months and seem to have forgotten everything I learnt from those Sweeney videos.

I'm trying to put together a large, spooky house. I'm a teacher and using it as an example of what I want the pupils to do. (Design a spooky setting, describe it, etc...) However, using DD3 I'm finding it tricky to connect the various rooms of the house together. The walls overlap, and the 'C' command doesn't come up for rooms. Will overlapping walls, inserting doors doesn't work correctly, and half the time the wall cutter doesn't seem to do anything.

Any suggestions? If it was twisty corridors between dungeon chambers I think I'd be okay, but the whole room-side-by-room thing is confounding me.

Cheers,
Mike

Comments

  • jaerdaphjaerdaph Traveler
    edited January 2009
    Take a look at the vampire's castle floorplan I did:

    http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=654

    I didn't use the drawing tools in DD3 to make the walls. The thicker outer walls are a multipoly of an outer and inner set of lines/paths/arcs (and note they don't overlap into the 5' tile grid) of zero width. Once I had the multipoly (which was now essentially a hollow fill style polygon), I changed the fill style to a "solid" bitmap fill of grey stone. The inner walls, on the other hand, are lines/paths of 1'-0" width (and note they DO overlap the 5' tile grid) with the bitmap fill of grey stone.

    Edit: This is easier to see in the version of my map with the sheet effects off.
  • My tendency is to lay down all of the floors in the map first, and then proceed to do the walls by hand. This helps reduce the overlap and while the corners might be less than stellar, it makes the doors work out well because I know that there's only one line in any given location.

    If you're doing a building I'd likely suggest maybe doing your initial drawing with the line and polygon tools from the right hand side on a dedicated guide layer that wold let you figure out the full shape of the building. Then go back in and add floors, do the outer walls as one piece, and then do inner walls individually. That would eliminate overlapping walls and should allow the doors to line up properly.
  • RalfRalf Administrator, ProFantasy 🖼️ 18 images Mapmaker
    edited January 2009
    When I do houses, I usually first use the rectangle or polygonal room tool for the complete outline of the house. After wards I add interior walls through the drawing tools, subdividing the building as necessary. That way doors will work correctly on the interior walls.
  • Thanks for the feedback! I'll see what I can manage. My CC3's acting a bit strange at times, though, which adds to the frustration. FIrst the 'B' and 'C' for connecting with/without break wasn't working--fortunately I found the fix for that on the registration page. However, strange things still happen at times: inserting a door or using the wall cutter occasionally cuts the rest of the room's wall away, leaving only the 5' or 10' bit beneath the door. I've had that problem with the break command as well--the bit I want to get rid of stays, and the rest is deleted... Any idea why?

    -Mike
  • After reviewing Joseph Sweeney's excellent DD3 video tutorial, I'm giving it another go. I'm going to try and lay down all the floors first, draw in the outer wall, then start dropping in some inner walls. May add a layer for 'outer wall' to keep it distinct from the inner wall stuff. Hope it all works out!

    Jaerdaph: thanks of the link to your castle--great stuff! Was curious, though (a bit of a newbie question)--how did you make the gaps/windows in the thick outer wall? Was it just using the 'break' command?

    -Mike
  • Thanks Mike! I probably should have explained the outer wall better - it wasn't made from just one multipolyed polygon but several (four to be exact). I didn't have to make breaks in the outer wall because the sides of the entranceways are actually the sides of two different polygons.
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