What are the best practice for a world map?
Hello Profantasy Community Forum
I had to stop working on CC3 due to my job but I'm now ok for enjoying mapping again.
I designed my world fantasy map with an old tool, and I'm about to redraw it on CC3.
I already drawn all my continents, islands and so on a same map with no details (only boundaries).
Now I'd like to draw all details in each country, so my question is, should I draw it in the same map (i.e. same file) using layers I guess, or should I have to make separate file for each? if yes how to make links between the master map (i.e. my world map) and the detailed maps?
I'm afraid of the size of the map if I draw all details on it
Many thanks for your feedbacks, explanations on how to do it the more reliable
Comments
Hi Doose :)
It's best to add hyperlinks to the world map that lead to continent maps, and for there to be links in the continent maps leading to regional maps... and so on down the chain.
The best current example of this technique is the Community Atlas.
I don't recommend trying the 'all in one map' method. There is a level of detail problem where a house described as a dungeon map will just be a messy splodge if you zoom out to view the city, and the city drawn with individual houses will be a similar mess if you zoom out to view the region. Your world map would be a mass of noise with all that detail included in it.
Hi Loopysue, thanks a lot for sharing that. I'm not familiar with using hyperlinks in CC3. I understand that its works in a downstream way (from main map to detailed map), true?
Is there any tuto on that particular feature to use it correctly (Hyperlinks)?
If I want to avoide redrawing all my continents in separate file, what is the best way to do it? "save as" the main map as many time as necessary (one save per continent) and erase all I don't want to have? or can we just make a save as of a piece of the main map on selected items?
Thks
You can add hyperlinks back the other way if you wish, though it might get rather complicated if you don't set yourself some rules to work by and stick with them so that the structure is familiar no matter where you are on your world. It is easy to get very confused if there are too many links all over the place in all different directions ;)
This Live Mapping session we did last year may cover a lot of what you need to know about hyperlinks.
There is also another Live Mapping session that covers extracting part of a map to make a new one, but your idea could work just as well if you don't want to change the mapping style, and providing you are dealing with island continents, rather than pieces of much larger landmasses.
thank you very much for this material, I will have a look on it carefully ;)
You're welcome :)
This is not the only information available. A lot more is contained in the blogs, or in the Tome of Ultimate Mapping.
Yes, those two videos answered my main questions. Hyperlinks ok, but extracting a region of my main map seems to be more complicated with the copy/paste features regarding the cleansing operations to do as it embeds too much items.. I have to try.
My last question is regarding units, I didn't find how to work in Kilometers instead meters because for a large map, meters is too small as unit.. did you have this issue? I try to find some discussions on it without success, and the CC3 guide seems to talk only about meters, no kilometers..
Thks
Metric overland maps use km for the map unit by default, you don't need to do anything besides selecting a metric template.
@Doose , also check out this video tutorial on changing map styles:
https://youtu.be/uqMbXZJbscA