Layering problems
Hello to everyone,
I'm pretty new in starting to use Pro Fantasy's Campaign Cartographer 3 (Fantasy Mapper bundle) and had no success to get around a tutorial problem in creating a new map. Everything works fine until I save my map. After saving, mountains placed on default contour line will be just down below this layer. If I hide the 'Relief/Contour' layer I can see the mountain range I placed. Using the 'BringToFront' Button and unhiding the Contour lines won't help.
I just followed the official tutorial and I'm not sure if I made something wrong.. any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Stefan
I'm pretty new in starting to use Pro Fantasy's Campaign Cartographer 3 (Fantasy Mapper bundle) and had no success to get around a tutorial problem in creating a new map. Everything works fine until I save my map. After saving, mountains placed on default contour line will be just down below this layer. If I hide the 'Relief/Contour' layer I can see the mountain range I placed. Using the 'BringToFront' Button and unhiding the Contour lines won't help.
I just followed the official tutorial and I'm not sure if I made something wrong.. any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Stefan
Comments
First use the Info -> list tool on the mountains symbols and the contour line, to make sure they are respectably on the "symbols" and "contours (land)" sheet. If any of them are on the wrong sheet, use Change Properties to change the sheet of the entities.
Then, assuming they are on the correct sheet, open up the Sheets and Effects dialog, and look at the sheet order. The sheet at the top of the list are drawn before those further down, and will thus appear at the bottom of the drawing, below the other sheets. You need to make sure "Contours (Land)" is drawn before "Symbols", so if it isn't above "Symbols" in the list, move it up so that it is.
This typically happens if a sheet that was in the template has disappeared/been deleted for any reason. The drawing tool will then recreate it when it needs it, but it won't know where in the order to place it, so it gets placed at the bottom, and as a consequence gets drawn on top of everything else. Because the way CC operates, this is not immediately evident until you save your map, or force a redraw.
If I create a new map, I have do redo your suggested actions to get around this behaviour again.
-> Is there a way to permanently change the settings of a template, e.g. move contours permanently up ? <-
I just did a complete install on my Vista client and as far as I know I did no accidental delete. Maybe some install scripts did so, who knows.
After all those updates and monthly annual stuff installations, maybe something got mixed up.
Best regards from Germany...
Stefan
All my regular overland templates are correct, but not all the templates from the annuals were designed for those types of contours. Also, non-overland templates, like dungeon and city templates won't have this sheet either.
'SS1 A 1000x800 km.FCT', whereas 'SS1 B 1000x800 km.FCT' works correctly again. Strange....
The SS1a style uses a slightly different setup, with a sheet called "Terrain" where the contours should en up on. I checked the drawing tools, and they do draw upon the correct sheet, but if you use drawing tools from another style set, they will try to use a "Contour" sheet instead, which doesn't exist on the template you are using.
-> Is there a way to permanently change the settings of a template, e.g. move contours permanently up ? <-
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I create my own overland templates. I added the layers and bitmap fills I use often, and saved them to my hard drive with my own filenames.
I just added and changed things until I got a version I like. I am using, iirc, the 4th version of the templates I created.
Basically, I took an existing overland template, saved it to a new filename. Altered it, and then used it.
When I do a major underttaking in maps, templates, and symbols; Idon't save to the same filename over and over. I make mistakes and sometimes I need to back to an earleir version. Earlier than undo handles.
So I save as to filename01_001, make a few changes, then save as to filename01_002, etc.
@Monsen: I did use not the default contour, which belong to the template but used the one 'Contour14' from the tutorial.
I guess I shouldn't have done it that way, but I learnt alot due to your help. The SS1 Vector template seem to have a similar problem with the Contour layer, even if you use the default ones.
@JimP: I might try out your way of changing default templates after getting more familiar with CC3, as since last week I've never heard from ProFantasy's software product before.
BR
Nothing wrong with combining different style of templates and draw tools, but you need to be aware that stuff like this might occur. Once you know about it however, it is a snap just moving the sheets around a bit to fix it.
In most cases, you will want to use the same style of draw tool as for template, which means you won't have any such problems though.
my template and symbol page
The CC3 surface map templates I use are using these bitmap fills:
Natalya Faden’s Oljan maps and texture files archived on my site.