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• Monsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer

  September 2009 edited September 2009

  You can map whatever you want with the core CC3 product, but for non-overland mapping you will have to create the appropriate drawing tools yourself, as well as create (or find on the net) appropriate fill styles and symbols.
  
  The addons comes with a lot of tools/fills/symbols/++ that makes making maps of the type they represent much easier, but they are not absolutely required. CC3 does not contain any artificial restrictions that prevent you from making any kind of map. I would highly recommend getting the appropriate addons for the best results however.

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• jaerdaph Traveler

  September 2009

  If you are going to be making products for 4e D&D, I would recommend at least picking up the Dungeon Designer 3 add-on for making indoor and outdoor battlemaps and floorplans for mini use. DD3 has the tools and symbols to do that - it's not just dungeons anymore.

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• vikkiw

  September 2009 edited September 2009

  You can think of it as a drill down of views with four basic tiers:
  
  1. For a satellite view of an entire world, FTPro is a good option. You can very quickly generate random worlds with a few clicks.
  2. For a aircraft view of an area, CC3 is best (overland maps). This is where you would be interested in scale in miles and geographic features such as mountains.
  3. For a helicopter view of a town layout, CD3 is best (city designer add-on). You can quickly plot streets and buildings.
  4. For a troop's view of buildings and dungeons then DD3 is best (dungeon designer add-on). This is where you'd expect to see internal staircases, altars, doors, beer kegs etc..
  
  Cutting across all of that are the Annuals which enrich your options for artwork/style. They can be for any/all of tiers 2-4 as well as other things such as ship design and family crests.
  
  Then there are the add-ons which are called Symbol Sets - they extend artwork/styles too but provide a specific flavour to views 2-4 above. With CC3 you can produce vanilla overland maps, but with SS1 you get some nice icons that you'd expect to see on a map of a fantasy world e.g. a representation of a walled city. Think of SS1 and SS2 as the chocolate sauce and rainbow sprinkles for your fantasy world creations. If you want a modern world, get SS3 (let's call that strawberry sauce).
  
  Hope that makes sense? Now I feel like an ice-cream.

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