Import from FT3+ to CC3+ for D&D world
Winchester
Traveler
Howdy.
I'm looking to get my campaign world map up and functional as quickly as possible. I've determined that my abilities won't let me import all the truly amazing information from FT3+. Maybe one day, but if I put myself to learning what many of y'all seem to have mastered, I'll never get to running my game, and since this is apparently my midlife crisis, time is a factor. I'll have to put off creating a fully realized world for some time.
What I'm wondering right now is if it's better to import multiple maps from FT3+ or if I should import the world map and then create more maps from that one master. I'm assuming that trying to populate a world map with all the different images of mountains, etcetera will invite disaster. I will be reshaping coastlines and probably adding in some land masses. I cannot get close to functional in FT3+ with large changes, and although the World in a Day instructions look like they would speed me up, it's still bogging me down in things well beyond my ken. It does seem to me that the best path for me would be starting with a single master and creating smaller maps from there rather than importing multiple maps. My thought is that I would do coastline reshaping and addition of land masses in the master map and then carve out the smaller maps from there. If I'm understanding right, importing multiple maps doesn't mean that revision on on map will affect all the others in kind.
Thanks for any help. I can't believe the power of this program.
Comments
The larger the map scale, fewer details.
So a world would have continents and oceans named. Maybe a circle and name for major cities. Rivers the size of the Amazon and Nile.
Region maps would have more details.
County/province maps more details.
Town/city maps have the most details.
This is what seems to point me to starting from one main map. This way, those larger details match up with the smaller maps, which I would create as needed from the larger parent. Am I correct in this guess?
Yes, at least that is what I have done with my world, and also what is done in the Community Atlas.
One or many from FT3+ depends on how much you care about map projections. FT3+ operates on spherical planets, so to get it into CC3+, a projection needs to be used. No matter which projection, the exported landmass will be distorted.
So, if you want the detail maps in CC3+ to match the world map in CC3+ as much as possible, start by exporting a single world map to CC3+, and then extract continent maps from that.
On the other hand, if you want your continent maps to actually have the true shape, then they should come from the FT3+ map, possibly with another projection, instead.....
I did take one continent I liked in FT3+, exported it as a bmp, then imported it into a small template and made a large island out of it. I used the bmp as a guide for the new map. Best to import with a new sheet and layer in CC3+. That way you can delete the bmp when you are done. Leaving just the new map for a smaller fcw size.
Thank you all. I am sure there are several tutorial videos and world retcons in my future. As the song says, the road goes ever on. This advice is going to get me going.
Is there a projection that leaps to mind that's the most friendly for a novice?
Generally, for a whole-world map, Equirectangular works fine. But it distorts shape and area as you get closer to the poles, so it isn't as good a projection for areas far to the north or south. Here something more true to shape may be desired, like the Equal earth projection. For the polar regions themselves, something like the Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area may be a good idea.
Basically, each projection in FT3+ comes with a descriptive text, I advice you to read it.
I keep saying this to various folks (and I realize that it doesn't directly answer your question), but the maps should serve the story that you're trying to tell. Maps are good inspirational pieces for telling more stories, but I've rarely found that any players for starting out in a D&D world will have much in the way of understanding (or interest) for things more than a few dozen miles around their starting position. As such, world maps usually aren't a lot of use except for really generalized backdrop for the story. A good map of any sort is likely to be an extremely expensive luxury item and is unlikely to be available to starting characters. An accurate world map here on Earth is something that virtually any government up through 1600ish would have killed entire populations to possess. Any map likely to fall into players' hands will be inaccurate and highly skewed to whatever story the cartographer was trying to sell.
(To stray further afield): Cartography is the art of abstraction. Every map is drawn for a specific purpose, for a specific client, and fixed in a specific medium. Painting an accurate map on the wall of the local princeling's throne room (you know, the one who styles himself a great and powerful king) that shows his tiny realm as being a really insignificant backwater at the end of a tiny road is likely to result in fewer cartographers. Doing that same map showing the wonders of the place, glorifying the power of the king, and showing how his domain extends far into what the pitiful neighbors consider their places is likely to get a few gold and a chance to get out of town before the truth hits. Doing a similar woodcut map might be great for propaganda purposes, but the cartographer might wisely not sign that version because there is likely to be quite a few of them distributed if it's a woodcut.
Similarly, Bob down at the market might be selling "treasure maps" that are hand-written annotations on one of those fanciful woodcuts. Players following such a map may have quite a few surprises. The same is true of the "ancient maps" that they might find in "tombs" shown on Bob's map. They may show a lot of things that are quite untrue and being in possession of such maps in the wrong places can be dangerous indeed. Most maps are likely to be completely counterfeit, or merely based on bad surveys and rumors if the players are really lucky.
If your goal is to provide overview context maps rather than player maps, a top-level map and a few local maps may help in telling stories. FT has a tool called the View Window (View>>View Window) that lets you save some important map views that you can refer to later. Some projections are useful for whole-world purposes and each map projection has its own use (a few examples: Equirectangular is easy to calculate, Sinusoidal shows equal areas and can be used to make a globe, Stereographic has perpendicular latitude/longitude lines, and Hammer is pretty). Use a world-level map to show the relative positions of things on the planet. It's not going to be particularly detailed because it doesn't need to be. Make a few views that show potentially useful or important areas to the story. FT isn't particularly good at super-detailed maps, so a few levels of views are probably good enough. I really don't recommend using FT's File>>Export World>>Multiple Files feature because it just splits things according to what's convenient for the program and nobody really needs a few thousand maps of empty ocean. The View Window feature lets you zoom to that you think is important and have the program remember that for later.
Generally, it's a one-way trip from FT3+ to CC3+. FT3+ doesn't really have anything in the way of vector annotations that would export in a useful way to CC3+, so any of those annotations will have to be added by you in CC3+.
Community support is well named. Thank you.
I believe the hex overlay is in my future.