Looking for Dungeondraft-like assets
MoonBrew
Newcomer
I am prospective buyer and I am just researching everything I can find at the moment. I really like CC3, especially the fact that there are variety of themes for all the maps types (overland, region, city and floorplans).
One thing I want to confirm is, whether or not I can find similar assets to those shown in the trailor for dungeondraft. Some maps styles I would really love to be able to use are the ones by Chad Hodgson, Zalkenai, Jorcal and Isabel Beis. I guess right now I am inspired by the bright and vivid cartoony looks for indoor and encounter maps. Someone has already given another example in another thread but I want to see more. Also I want to know if assets for dungeondraft packs from 2minutetabletop and forgotten-adventures.net are usuable in cc3 or if something similar in style is available.
Maybe my question is really silly and having a particular style is something I do not need to worry about for cc3.
Comments
Any of those PNG assets are usable in CC3 / DD3, I use forgotten-adventures assets in my maps, together with assets from Tom Cartos' Patreon.
They don't come packaged up for CC3 though, but it's only a few minutes (seconds really) work to import a pack of map assets into CC3 as a symbol catalogue once you know what you are doing. The main problem I've had with Tom's assets are the long filenames, which cause a few problems until you've got used to working around them (easily fixed). Forgotten-Adventures assets import with no problems.
You just need to import the assets packs yourself, rather than the prebuilt Dungeondraft packs. From what I've seen on the sites of those asset makers, they'd happily distribute their assets as CC3 symbol catalogues, but a member of their communities would need to set them up.
There's a great set of assets and bitmaps from Mike Schley ready made for CC3 available in Symbol Set 4 - though it has nowhere near as many assets as say Forgotten Adventures.
Certainly though, you can map in whatever style you like in CC3.
It's been done so that you can map a nice dungeon in CC3 without having to purchase DD3 immediately.
Hi @MoonBrew ,
I just started learning CC3+ a bit over two months ago. One of the first things I wanted to learn is how to create news styles, so I started with assets by Ross, at 2minutetabletop...
It's not really complicated. As far as I'm concerned, the problem is that Ross created too many assets and it might take you some time to get them all included and categorized. Another thing to consider: Ross started creating assets at 72 dpi but later offered 300 dpi as well. You should keep this in mind if you include both old and new assets.
There are a number of free assets as well. CSUAC is mentioned on these forums. Look under Resources, on the left side panel.
Edit. Or you could look at the Community Atlas to see all of the different symbol sets and templates/styles we used to make those maps.
Shortly after my post above, I decided to go ahead and create a new discussion to showcase my 2-minute-tabletop templates so far:
https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/11772/trying-a-few-2-minute-tabletop-style-s/
Thank you guys for your answers.
Wow these look really good! This was what I was hoping to see from CC3 with 2minutetabletop assets. I haven't used CC3 yet but I have a few questions on how some of the following effects were done.
Were they a CC3 thing? So far I know that furniture and symbols like that are like stamps, and that walls/textures should be like mountains that use a random variety of shapes.
Realistically how long would it take for me to get to a point to be able to make maps in Ross's style like this with CC3? I am definitely going to buy the humble bundle and probably DD3 with the November discount, but keep it aside to learn later. For my urgent needs, I don't mind also buying DungeonDraft. You mentioned some work still left to be done such as making 'connecting symbol' and using a 'texture' instead of 'tiling', and an issue regarding alligning. I am not expecting an explanation here but am mentioning stuff that I don't know yet but might want to also do.
Also there was one very specific effect I was looking for and that was a pebble border for a stream as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKbwhrC4vRA. I know animations are not possilbe in CC3 so I am not expecting that.
And a follow up question: Are the brushes/tools in CC3 superior to those in DD?
I have googled CC3 vs DungeonDraft and it comes up with nothing...😐️, besides everyone complaining about the learning curve and there being plenty of support for dungeondraft assets (some pretty costly). I want to know the difference in features, like is there a brush that takes a single pebble and draws a bunch of them in a pile etc. I know DD etc is newbie friendly but I am looking for long term use.
It's very hard to compare CC3+ with... pretty much any other mapping software, because CC3+ is very unique. You can say CC3+ is a CAD program that specializes in cartography. CC3+ would be like Autocad, while the others would be like Photoshop (or perhaps MS Paint, in some cases).
There are no brushes, per se. But since you're asking about the pebble example, here's how I made it work in CC3+ (there might be multiple ways to do it; perhaps someone more experienced than me will chime in)...
I created a bunch of rock symbols, marked them all to be a collection, and set it to choose one of them randomly. Now.. you can't just click+hold and drag, so you have to click a bunch of times. But here's an example of how it would look:
I did the same thing with the lilly pads and the underwater rocks, but I also told CC3+ to rotate them randomly (and I think I also selected the option to randomly change the size slightly).
Anyway, back to your previous questions...
The perspective of being able to see the inside of the walls/doors from bottom to top in the second and third maps.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Care to elaborate?
How in the Sever map the walls have some stones sticking outside of them.
That's just the way Ross made the sewer assets. The stones are drawn on top of the walls, and the original wall is "hidden".
So far I know that furniture and symbols like that are like stamps, and that walls/textures should be like mountains that use a random variety of shapes.
Sort of. Symbols are premade groups of things (entities). But most raster symbols (ie: made up from PNG images) usually contain just a single image. Mountains can also be a single symbol, but you create a mountain range by placing several symbols. A better example are forests: you might have symbols of individual trees, but CC3+ has tools to allow you to fill an area with symbols, thus creating a forest.
Realistically how long would it take for me to get to a point to be able to make maps in Ross's style like this with CC3?
Depends on how much you want to do in advance. My problem is I wanted to create symbols for all the assets I had at hand.. and they're a lot! My suggestion would be to create just a few to get the hang of the process, and then include some more as you need them.
I am definitely going to buy the humble bundle and probably DD3 with the November discount, but keep it aside to learn later.
A good plan. I should add that all the maps I've posted were done with just the CC3+ basic product (I've just acquired DD3, but haven't played with it yet).
You mentioned some work still left to be done such as making 'connecting symbol' and using a 'texture' instead of 'tiling', and an issue regarding alligning.
A connecting symbol is actually a collection of symbols crafted in a way that you can tell CC3+ do draw a "line" and it will use the symbols you defined to connect them in a coherent line. A video is probably worth a million words:
In this video Ralf explains how to create connecting symbols; I linked to the time where he uses the simple symbol he just created.
Textures are just plain PNG images, like this one (usually used as backgrounds), that don't create a visible seam when placed one next to the other. If the image was already created with this in mind, you can just declare it as a texture, and CC3+ can fill any area with it.
Hopefully I answered most of your questions. :)
@roflo1 Its very interesting how you achieved the pebble effect, especially the underwater ones and I love it. It makes me think that CC3 provides the logical tools of sorts that you can use combine and use how you want, while raster programs would have just the final effect. How would you mirror the gravel brush effect as seen in the video? From what you have told me so far a seemless gravel texture (couldn't find one in 2minutetabletop) would do the trick?
Its very interesting how you achieved the pebble effect, especially the underwater ones and I love it.
That one in particular, is just the way Ross@2mtt created those assets. But CC3+ does offer filters, like transparency and blending modes, to achieve different effects.
I'm sure Remy did a video where he drew a cave with a pool and stuff underwater, but I can't find the video.
It makes me think that CC3 provides the logical tools of sorts that you can use combine and use how you want
Yes, CC3+ has a huge potential because the tools are very flexible and powerful.
How would you mirror the gravel brush effect as seen in the video?
I'm... not sure... remember, I just started with CC3+ a couple of months ago. ;)
Actually, I'm not sure I'd choose to use gravel for a river bank. For example, I just added a "duff" texture and enabled blur for both the shoreline and the water to the quick test from above:
From what you have told me so far a seemless gravel texture (couldn't find one in 2minutetabletop) would do the trick?
It might.
And if not, I'd still find a way to use it somewhere else (even if not for a river's bank).
Good to know the underwater effects can be done through CC3 as well. I guess blending is one place CC3 has an advantage. I realise now that the reason I was attracted to DD was the vibrant colors but things like river shorlines were just a line. Most of the maps I have seen made by normal people in DD are not that great as the ones in the trailer.