Help walking me through map making
OK, the reason i have use pen and paper for the last, um, forever, is that i hate all computer drawing programs with a passion. Unfortunately, i am now attempting to publish and i need to have computer rendered maps. I chose CC3 because i was told it was easy to use. This has proven so far to be entirely untrue, as i find it almost more difficult to use then PC paint, the program which caused me to abandon computer mapping for 12 years.
TO WIT; i am requesting a walk through of how to do what i want with CC3. I HAVE read the instructions, and they might as well have been written in sandscrit for all they sence the make to me. I thus request a CC3 guide for dummies.
Begining at the begining.
Q1; There is a blue green square at the center of the screen when i open the program. No matter what settings i input into the "new map" for size, the blue green square is always the same size. How do i make the blue green square larger so i can see what i am doing?
Q2; i have imputed a map, and it auto saved. The map is in the wrong place. How do i 1) move the map, or 2) delete the map, and reinput it in to the right place.
Q3) The Inputed map was in a three ring binder when i scanned it, and thus has the rings and the bottom and top of the pages. How do i crop these out?
If ii am not making you cry yet, there will be alot more to come.
TO WIT; i am requesting a walk through of how to do what i want with CC3. I HAVE read the instructions, and they might as well have been written in sandscrit for all they sence the make to me. I thus request a CC3 guide for dummies.
Begining at the begining.
Q1; There is a blue green square at the center of the screen when i open the program. No matter what settings i input into the "new map" for size, the blue green square is always the same size. How do i make the blue green square larger so i can see what i am doing?
Q2; i have imputed a map, and it auto saved. The map is in the wrong place. How do i 1) move the map, or 2) delete the map, and reinput it in to the right place.
Q3) The Inputed map was in a three ring binder when i scanned it, and thus has the rings and the bottom and top of the pages. How do i crop these out?
If ii am not making you cry yet, there will be alot more to come.
Comments
Use Irvanview to trim the scanned map, then insert it into the map template.
Q1: CC3 uses templates. The map border, etc. is frozen. To unfreeze it:
Look at the upper rigt top edge of CC3. Look for a part that says 'L: and_a_word' click on that. That is the layer menu.
When the layer requestor comes up, Click on 'Thaw all'. Then click on okay. You can now delete the map border.
Q2: you can drag the map to the origin.
You can set the origin by typing the word origin while in CC3. The word 'origin' without the single quotes ' shoudl appear on the command line of CC3 at the bottom of CC3.
Press the enter key. You will now have a vertical and horizontal line centered on the cursor.
Where ever you click on the map view, the area you map is located in, becomes the origon or location 0,0.
Q2) My suggestion don't get hung up on autosave. Its a great feature but train yourself to go ahead and save on your own. That way you can choose the name and location of the map just like in any other windows program.
To make it the same size as the map, so it fills the whole area, you need to use the scale function. Just click on the scale button to the left of the symbol catalog, then click on the edge of the imported image to select it. When the command line at the bottom tells you that you have one object selected, you can right click, and select "Do It". It now asks for a scale origin. Usually, you'll want to pick one of the corners, or the center of the object. Just click on the desired location. You can now scale the object by moving your mouse. Click the left mouse button to finish the command.
If you need to move the image, there is a "Move, Scale, Rotate" button as well in the leftmost toolbar. The procedure is almost the same as for scaling. Just make sure to read the command line at the bottom to see what CC3 expects for each step.
I would recommend you work through some of the tutorials. CC3 can be a bit difficult if you just jump straight in without doing any tutorials.
- There should be a tutorial in the Quick Start Guide that takes you through the basics
- Get the "Complete Cartography Manual" from your registration page. It is for CC2, but except for the fact that CC3 offers more possibilities to make better looking maps, the basic concepts are the same.
- There is a Dungeon Video Tutorial available. While you are not trying to draw dungeons, it does go through a lot of the features of the program and can be useful even if you haven't got Dungeon Designer installed at all (It will be difficult to do the tutorial if you haven't got DD3, but it is still useful to watch)
- There is a very good video tutorial for overland mapping available, unfortunately, it is part of the 2008 Annual, a pay product. I would highly recommend the annuals however, as they show and help you do a lot of interesting things, as well as different map styles.