"Pits and Shadows" a Newbie's Two Questions
Hello all!
I am quite the newbie to the software and have a question or two. Well, two questions really. I'm not quite sure why I was so vague in that last sentence. There might be three questions in this post but most definitely two. Clearly there will not be one question unless it is on the way to the second question. So two, two questions is what will be brought up here. Are two questions in one post all right?
Damn it! That question doesn't count! Okay, three. Three questions is what I will ask.
Question #2:
I have a map put together with help from the hand youtube tutorials. I have a tiled section that surrounds a ten foot drop into a grey lower level below, almost like an extended balcony without a railing. If you take a look at the image attached below, can you share a way to make the lower section look better with the program or must I become a master at photoshop to make this look right?
Question #3:
In the same map below, I have gold disk on the right which looks all right and a similar one on the bottom left that is shrouded in darkness. Is there a way to get the disk on the bottom left to not be so dark, as it is supposed to represent a magical glyph on the ground.
Thanks for reading!
Tom / Doc4
I am quite the newbie to the software and have a question or two. Well, two questions really. I'm not quite sure why I was so vague in that last sentence. There might be three questions in this post but most definitely two. Clearly there will not be one question unless it is on the way to the second question. So two, two questions is what will be brought up here. Are two questions in one post all right?
Damn it! That question doesn't count! Okay, three. Three questions is what I will ask.
Question #2:
I have a map put together with help from the hand youtube tutorials. I have a tiled section that surrounds a ten foot drop into a grey lower level below, almost like an extended balcony without a railing. If you take a look at the image attached below, can you share a way to make the lower section look better with the program or must I become a master at photoshop to make this look right?
Question #3:
In the same map below, I have gold disk on the right which looks all right and a similar one on the bottom left that is shrouded in darkness. Is there a way to get the disk on the bottom left to not be so dark, as it is supposed to represent a magical glyph on the ground.
Thanks for reading!
Tom / Doc4
Comments
The Annual Battle Tiles special contained a Effects Sheet style (Battle Tiles) that has Sunken Floor and Raised Floor which I use for just what you describe. You can download them here:
http://sub.profantasy.com/2009/special09.html
I've attached an example of the Sunken Floor.
I haven't played much with light sources, but maybe putting a small one over the coin would be an alternate way to go.
Steve
I have a few more questions that I cannot find through Searching, if you don't mind.
- I have downloaded plenty of symbols, ordered them into folders, and loaded them with the Symbol Manager correctly via the nice tutorial I found here. The catch is that I have so many different categories now that loading each of them to search for a symbol would be a pain. Is there a way to create a button like the current symbols? I saw a method of creating a new list item item for Symbol Catalog Settings. Is this the way to go?
- What if I just used windows explorer to find the symbol I wanted? Is there a way to drop in a single symbol at a time?
- Is there a way to pan the screen around? I've only been able to use the scroll bars so far.
- How does one take a single texture and make it available for use as a floor? What about as a wall?
- Of all the Annual's, the second one with the Lighted Dungeons seems absolutely stunning. If I subscribe to the current annual do I get access to the older ones? If not, then I think I'll be in trouble. Most of the items are no use to me, but that lighting looks amazing. I guess my question is, how do I explain to the wife why I spent $40 on a single effect for a niche software I'll use every now and then?
Thanks again for the help.
Tom / Doc4
Loading Symbols: You can simply navigate to your bitmap folder from the open button above the catalog window. This loads all the pngs in that folder into the catalog window, allowing you to pick one symbol to place in the map.
Panning: View > Zooms > Pan. But I almost exclusively use Zoom Extents and Zoom Window to get around my maps, it is usually the quickest and most exact method.
Using textures: Is the texture already in your drawing? Or is it still only a png texture outside of CC3?
- use Tools > Import PNGs to import new textures into the drawing as bitmap fills.
- then open the "Advanced" version of the drawing tool catalog, create a copy of an existing floor or wall tool, then change its "Properties" to the new bitmap fill
Annuals: You'll have to get the specific Annual Volume to get that issue, but the Lights functionality is included in the current version. Checkout the Dungeon > Lights menu and "Lights" in the help files, they contain pretty good explanations. They work on the sheet effects model, i.e. you tell CC3 which sheets have their objects cast shadows, giving you good control without having to define shadows on a per-object basis.
Hope that helps.