Trouble With Making Bodies of Water
I'm just barely beginning to work with the Campaign Cartographer 3 program and making some of my own maps that i had come up with. So far I have found the program very frustrating at times, and I know that is due to not knowing how to really use it.
The main thing I have been having a problem with at the moment is creating some kind of body of water like a lake. I've tried selecting the default terrian, using 'Sea Lightest', and when I make the body of water, it remains until I click on something else, or even maximize the map. I know it is likely going beneath the landmass, but when I use 'Bring to Front', it doesn't remain, and then I am having a few other problems with other items coming up front. So it is constant redoing and undoing.
Is there any advise for me on how to make the bodies of water so they remain? Or anyone who can help guide me with some instructions? This newbie would really appreicate ANY help...just so I can keep my hair intact from pulling it out of my head in frustration.
The main thing I have been having a problem with at the moment is creating some kind of body of water like a lake. I've tried selecting the default terrian, using 'Sea Lightest', and when I make the body of water, it remains until I click on something else, or even maximize the map. I know it is likely going beneath the landmass, but when I use 'Bring to Front', it doesn't remain, and then I am having a few other problems with other items coming up front. So it is constant redoing and undoing.
Is there any advise for me on how to make the bodies of water so they remain? Or anyone who can help guide me with some instructions? This newbie would really appreicate ANY help...just so I can keep my hair intact from pulling it out of my head in frustration.
Comments
Did you watch the video tutorials for CC3? They explain the basics, including how to create water.
http://www.profantasy.com/community/user_tutorials.asp
You really should watch them if you already haven't.
CC3 isn't really inviting to new users :-) But once you get the hang of it, you can churn out some beautiful maps real quick.
You can mess with the sheet order to draw things atop of each other.
Ultimately if you draw "a sea" over a landmass, it is going to put itself on a default layer and sheet that is actually UNDER the landmass (as you find out).
The trick is to create a sheet that is above the land and move the lake ontop of that.
Personally, I opened the landmass dialog (right click on the icon), hit advanced, selecteed the sea color that you want, then create new.
Then edit this (via the advanced button) to change the sheet that it appear on and type something like "Lakes"; now use this to draw lakes and it will autopmatically be put on a lakes sheet. Just move the sheet up and down (in your sheets list) to ensure that it sits on top of any land.
ocean
land
lake
for my sheets for a lake or small interior ocean, like the Great Lakes between the US and Canada.
ONly other thing I am stuck on, and not sure if it is just a defaulkt for everyone, when we close out of the program and go back in, the sheets do not remain active. We have to go back and reactivate them. Is there a way to make it so it stays active?
Also, thank you so EVERYONE for all the help. That tutorial and fiddling around with the contours really made things look a whole lot better.
Under Tools -> Options, you can set the effects to be always on on load. You can also do this for any single map by going to File -> Drawing Properties -> Map Notes and edit the OnOpenMacro note. Here, add the command EFFECTSON on the bottom line (below the text already here). This will cause the effects to be turned on for this map each time it is loaded.