I'm still workin' at it, but this is all I do and that ain't healthy, but I don't know how to change it. Writing for the industry, gaming, mapping and kicking this computer... oh and watch bad movies.I keep prayin' somethin' will change but God isn't helpin' much these days.
I've gotta say - I salute your persistence Bloodymage! I haven't read the entire thread (just the last two pages) but I was wondering if you've had a chance to watch any of Joe Sweeny's tutorials on youtube or read the really awesome city-making tutorial that (i can't remember his name) made that's on the site? The reason I mention the youtube tutorials is because, while some of them are geared for battlemaps and overland mapping, Joe goes into some detail about how to use certain basic functionality of the program - it may help ease some of your learning pains. Apologies if this has already been mentioned.
Yeah, I've watched some of the tutorials and I've printed out much of the user's guides, but things just don't stick in my brain like they used to. I'm hoping to get that back, but learning is just a real struggle for me since my medication woes. I've fiddled with my city map. I've drawn the king's keep, but now I need to actually create the city. I've tried using the random symbols in CD3 and I've tried placing houses using the default houses function, but it just seems there's no way to place structures quickly and in acceptable variety.
Another little thing. I did a small overland map and I'd like to fix something on it. My contour lines don't account for the rivers. How do I pull a contour line down a river gully? I tride the insert node and that was close, but didn't really do the trick. Any fix for this? See attachment. Incidentally, why in the devil won't ProFantasy's forums accept attachments in their product's native format? Weird. This is a zip file. Is there a better way to post images for critique here?
How do I efficiently populate this city? Everything in my life right now is taking forever, including this. What's the best way to draw houses with diversity and lay them out?
For cities, this is definitely the random street tool. It works nicely with both straight and curved roads, and has a lot of options you can set [right click the button to access the options). Since the tool follows your streets, the houses are always nicely placed as well. After creating the street, you can also delete on or more of the houses, then insert a special house from the symbol catalog somewhere among them.
First draw a curved line (Either a simple guide line, or an actual road/street in your city.
Then, when you use click the random street button, the CC3 command line will ask for "First end of street". Instead of clicking a starting point, click on your road instead (As if you wished to select the road). This will cause the street tool to draw the houses along that path instead of in a straight line. Now, you need to provide the starting and ending points along that line. This can be the ends of the line/road, or any point on it. In any case, just click where you wish those points to be.
I just printed out my city map and it's useless. The scale is too small. I'm not set up yet to do anything beyond 8 1/2 x 11 and the features are just too small to be usable.
Well, I'm going through this again with the "new" manual after putting it down for awhile. I'm all set for GaryCon next month except a city map of Allis. In my initial attempts at it I was plagued with problems of scale, however, having left the program for other things, I find I need to get through the basics again.
OK. just looked at Help and there's a nifty toll for scaling selected entities by a uniform factor, but I have a heck of a time placing symbols so they look right. The default scale just doesn't look right, so I end up with some stuff at .07, some at .1, some at other scales, so I end up with a general hodge-podge on the map and no consistency. How do I start so my symbols can just be placed in a reasonable scale without fiddling with every setting?
When you start a new map, all symbols (intended for that map type) should be scaled automatically, as long as you make sure to start the map using real world distances. City and dungeon maps should be measured in feet (or meters, if you use a metric template), not in squares or paper distances. So if you are mapping a village that is 500x300 feet in actual size, that is also the size you use for the map. When set up like this, all symbols should fit properly, using a symbol scale of 1.0. That is not to say that you should never use another scale for individual items. For example, you may wish that house a little bit larger than it was intended, and that is always fixed by changing the scale, but generally, 1.0 should be the scale used for most symbols on the map (Overland maps are a small exception here, the recommended scale is equal to the width of the map, divided by 1000, but don't use this rule on other map types.)
Jeez, did you guys really need to make this so damned difficult? I'm still tryin' to get thru this and it's actually going better than last time (I think I'm getting some o' my grey cells back!), but "creating a symbol definition" got me. I created the symbol w/ no problem, but when I tried to place it... nothing. Got some crosshairs, but no symbol! When I hit Ctrl, I got a symbol. W/o hitting Ctrl or Shift there was no symbol.
Do you have two entities exactly overlapping each other, e.g. a shape with a separate outline? These cancel each other out in display, so that you symbol is invisible when on the cursor. Add a copy of the outline (for a third entity) to get around this problem.
I don't know if I'll ever get this down, but I keep trying. I'm attempting Allis again and it's going better, but I'm still struggling. I drew some roads and then I drew a road circling the inside of my yet-to-be wall. I tried using Trim to Entity to connect the inner roads to the curtain road, but all it did was blank out the curtain road and when I clicked on an inner road, it blanked out and the curtain road reappeared, but there was no trimming.
I hate computers! Something is wrong and I can't get it to work. I've run CCleaner, PowerSuite and rebooted. I swear I can't work like this and I've made this damned hobby my job. HELP!
Are your scrolling or clicking on 'zoom extents' ?
If you click on Zoom extents and your map disappears, it means you have symbols off to one side of your map. Zoom extents zooms out to show everything in the mapping window.
You will have to delete things outside your map's border. Then it iwll stop doing that.
Post your map file, the .fcw file and we'll look at it.
I was using both the horiz and vert bars and the zoom and zoom extents. No difference. It took me awhile to find the file, but here it is. Might be time for another Team Viewer session.
I'm looking at the Allis map, and zooming into the lower left corner, then using the arrows to move around -- after a while (4-10 arrow clicks) I get a "FCW32.exe has stopped working" message. I'm not sure what the issue is with the map -- perhaps Ralf can help.
I do know that when I was learning (CC2 at the time), I went down so many dead ends as I was playing with the maps that they got a little unruly. Hopefully Ralf can tell you what's going on -- he might need you to fill out a tech support form just so they have all the problem solving information they need.
Comments
here are some with gullys. First one is a aerial photo, and the resulting gully when made into a topographic map.
http://geokov.com/Education/valley-gully-ridge.aspx
Gully, name of a town, but lots of gullys nearby
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lon=-95.6227947&lat=47.7685687&datum=nad83
I used node edit for mine to.
After creating the street, you can also delete on or more of the houses, then insert a special house from the symbol catalog somewhere among them.
Well, maybe not. The help says you can place a random street along a curve, but it doesn't explain how to do that.
Then, when you use click the random street button, the CC3 command line will ask for "First end of street". Instead of clicking a starting point, click on your road instead (As if you wished to select the road). This will cause the street tool to draw the houses along that path instead of in a straight line. Now, you need to provide the starting and ending points along that line. This can be the ends of the line/road, or any point on it. In any case, just click where you wish those points to be.
OK. just looked at Help and there's a nifty toll for scaling selected entities by a uniform factor, but I have a heck of a time placing symbols so they look right. The default scale just doesn't look right, so I end up with some stuff at .07, some at .1, some at other scales, so I end up with a general hodge-podge on the map and no consistency. How do I start so my symbols can just be placed in a reasonable scale without fiddling with every setting?
When set up like this, all symbols should fit properly, using a symbol scale of 1.0. That is not to say that you should never use another scale for individual items. For example, you may wish that house a little bit larger than it was intended, and that is always fixed by changing the scale, but generally, 1.0 should be the scale used for most symbols on the map (Overland maps are a small exception here, the recommended scale is equal to the width of the map, divided by 1000, but don't use this rule on other map types.)
God, this is frustrating the crap outta me!
If you click on Zoom extents and your map disappears, it means you have symbols off to one side of your map. Zoom extents zooms out to show everything in the mapping window.
You will have to delete things outside your map's border. Then it iwll stop doing that.
Post your map file, the .fcw file and we'll look at it.
I do know that when I was learning (CC2 at the time), I went down so many dead ends as I was playing with the maps that they got a little unruly. Hopefully Ralf can tell you what's going on -- he might need you to fill out a tech support form just so they have all the problem solving information they need.
Steve