Newbie questions

Hi everybody! I recently bought CC3 and have been learning the basics by trying things out, and by reading the manual and the annual guides, and viewing the youtube videos. CC3 has pretty steep a learning curve, but I am slowly getting the hang of it. There are some things I still don't fully understand, like the difference between layers and sheets. But I expect the answers to these I can find in the manuals.

There are couple of other more urgent questions that occurred to me that I can not readily find answers for in the manuals. Firstly, I know that when drawing land masses, the program automatically limits them to within the map area. But I noticed that when drawing rivers and curved areas, this doesn't happen. So is there a way to cut off any parts of objects that fall outside the map area (and map frames?)

And another thing, If I have drawn a forest area on the map, either with single tree symbols or with the automatic forest area tool, is there a way to remove the forest from underneath a road that I draw on top of the forest? To make the road 'sink' into the forest, as it were?

I suspect the trim function might have something to do with the above, but I haven't really gotten around how it is supposed to work... any advice is appreciated!

Comments

  • RalfRalf Administrator, ProFantasy 🖼️ 18 images Mapmaker
    If the river tool doesn't limit itself to the map border, do the following:

    - Right-click the Rivers button, then click the "Advanced button".
    - Select the River drawing tool you are using (probably River, Default).
    - Make sure under "Drawing aids" the first box "restrict to map border" is checked. "Save" the tool. It should no function as expected.

    As for removing forest symbols from beneath a road, that's not straightforward. The symbol might be large a block of trees which cannot be separated. If you want to the road "sunken", as you say. It's much better to draw the roads first, and then add the forest as separate parts on both sides of the road.

    But if you want to give editing the existing forest a try, do the following:

    - Open the Layers dialog and "freeze" everything but the VEGETATION layer.
    - Use the Erase command to delete the tree symbols underneath the road.
    - Click the Vegetation catalog button and add single trees or small forest parts to fill up any unnecessary gaps created. Don't worry about the symbols overlapping correctly, the next step will fix them.
    - Use "Sort Symbols in Map" from the Symbols menu on all the tree symbols to make them overlap correctly.

    Hope that helps.
  • VerdererVerderer Newcomer
    Thanks for the advice, Ralph! That does work, but not on already drawn Rivers, I guess? Anyways, I just moved the end nodes of the rivers under the border frame, so they now end correctly. And I guess one way to hide any parts of objects showing outside the map border is to cover them with a white rectangle?

    I will try out that trick. Thanks again. I guess it is good idea to plan ahead when drawing maps, so this kind of situation can be avoided.
  • RalfRalf Administrator, ProFantasy 🖼️ 18 images Mapmaker
    Right, that only fixes future rivers, not ones already on the map.Your method is the one to correct the existing ones.
  • 8 days later
  • VerdererVerderer Newcomer
    edited June 2010
    A couple of more questions have cropped up: firstly, is there a way to edit ALL the tree symbols on the map in one go (colour, size etc?) And secondly, what's the best way to delete all trees from a map (and leave all other symbols intact?)

    I have made a small map which consists of a river valley covered mainly in forests, so what would be the best way to depict hilly forests? My attempt of pasting trees on top of hill forms doesn't look very good, but maybe it's just the way I have done this? Here's an example of what I mean.

    I think my way of doing the forest doesn't look too good anyways, hills notwithstanding. They do look a bit too sparse or something? The forest areas should be pretty dense. How would you do this? With the forest area tool?
    pabadger
  • Symbol Manager will let you delete all of one symbol.
  • When you are selecting entities, there is a "combine" option on the popup menu. Click that, then "and" and then select other criteria such as layer, color, etc to narrow down to what you want.

    Alternatively, you can hide all layers and sheets except for the ones that show what you want to select. Entities that are hidden can't be affected so you can't delete anything you can't see.

    hth
  • RalfRalf Administrator, ProFantasy 🖼️ 18 images Mapmaker
    edited July 2010
    Posted By: VerdererI think my way of doing the forest doesn't look too good anyways, hills notwithstanding. They do look a bit too sparse or something? The forest areas should be pretty dense. How would you do this? With the forest area tool?
    I think the problem with the forest is that the trees are spaced too regularly. Try to arrange them more in clumps and irregular collections to give it a more natural look. There are some pre-assembled groups of trees in the Vegetation catalog which are great for this. Also don't be afraid to overlap symbols, even if it doesn't look right from the start. You can always later use Symbols > Sort Symbols in Map to arrange them correctly.

    I think using forest symbols sprinkled over the hills is a good way to show forested hills, no problem with that. I've attached quick example of how I'd do it.

    As Old Guy says, selecting by layer VEGETATION is really the easiest way to select (and delete) all forests in the map. You can "Combine" the selection with "Entity Type > Symbol reference" to get only symbols.

    Let me know if you need step-by-step instructions for any of this.
  • VerdererVerderer Newcomer
    edited July 2010
    Great, thanks for the great advice guys! I will try to fiddle around with the layers and combining stuff. I will also examine the symbol manager. Does the latter remove the symbols from the drawing or from the catalogue of usable symbols, or both?

    I will re-do the trees and try using the random groupings at places. Let you know how it goes.
  • Posted By: Verderer...I will also examine the symbol manager. Does the latter remove the symbols from the drawing or from the catalogue of usable symbols, or both?....
    The symbol manager just removes them from the currently loaded file. If you're working on a map, they will just be deleted from that map.

    This is also useful if you want to change a symbol just for this map -- use the symbol manager and make the edits you want. The change will just be in that map.

    Steve
  • VerdererVerderer Newcomer
    Thanks to your advice I am making some headway. But now I got a new problem, and what seems like odd behaviour. I have added some coats of arms to the map by adding a shield, and then a charge and/or design on top of it. But I have some trouble adding some complex charges like the two colour heraldric animals. These are the ones with black outline and modifiable fill colour, lions etc. As soon as I add the charge on the shield, the black outlines seem to disappear from it, and it turns into indistinct blurry mess. hard to describe exactly, but the clear outlines seem to vanish from the charge. Is there an explanation for this behavior, and can it be rectified?

    I have also had some trouble placing the charges on top of the shield, they want to go under it. Even repeated sent to front doesn't always work right. I am using Win 7.
  • Sheets, not layers. Send to front works on layers.
  • VerdererVerderer Newcomer
    edited July 2010
    Oh, really? I didn't realise that. No wonder it seems to behave oddly.

    Anyways, I got little more info about the 'blur' problem. Thing is, the program seems to give me a message 'multiple sheets' on red background when I try to insert the charges, and when I check the symbol manager, the fill and the outline of a charge are listed as separate entities? So does this mean that for some reason the outline goes to a different sheet than the fill? Why would it do this, and how to fix it? Any advice appreciated!

    EDIT: I solved the problem by actually reading the annual about coats of arms. Apparently they won't work right, if you just chuck them directly on a map? You need to compose them in a separate drawing, save that, and then import the drawing on your map. Anyways, this round about way worked for me.
  • RalfRalf Administrator, ProFantasy 🖼️ 18 images Mapmaker
    Yes, the Heraldry Annual is set up in such a way that you compose your designs in a separate drawing - mainly because it's impossible to tell in what other maps you'd like to use them.

    You can still compose them directly in your overland map, you just need to sort the sheets correctly. Place the necessary parts of a coat of arms on the map and then take a look at the new sheets that have been created in the map (they'll be at the bottom of the sheet list). Order them until your coast of arms looks correct. Further designs should now come out correctly right away.
  • VerdererVerderer Newcomer
    Ok, thanks again Ralf! One thing I noticed is that some complex coat of arms designs really bog down the program on my machine.
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