Looking at purchasing ProFantasy but I am strictly a Historical Wargame player. What do I need to purchase to get started or is there a better alternative out there?
It depends what you are hoping to do. Are you interested in making battlemats? What kind? General overland terrain? City? or are you hoping to create an overview to track your campaigns? What era of history?
A bit more info would help us point you in the right direction.
Actually looking to do both overland "Campaign Maps" as well as closer "battle maps" for all time periods mostly 18th Century to track games. Svens map is right on. What would be needed to get started?
A) What I do is work up a style in coordination with the publisher & author. Usually I offer a couple of suggestions with examples & we do a bit of back & forth until we get what fits the bill. So if you're working up for someone else you need to know how to negotiate & work with people. Know how to research & drill deep. I look at photos and/or period drawings of the real terrain. That made a major difference in several maps I recently did for GHQ & their upcoming release of Microsquad.
Software wise: 1) CC3 2) a thorough knowledge & experimentation with sheets, layers, & effects. Really get practice on Effects & changing the parameters. Experiment!!!!! 3) I've gotten all the annuals & found they are well worth the price for all I've learned from them. They will give you extra tools, symbols, icons, backgrounds, effects, & all sorts of nifty tips. 4) the current version of "Tome of Ultimate Mapping" for CC3 5) learn how to make & use symbols/icons. My military symbols are all of my own custom design & I made them Varicolor. That way they can change sides at ease, LOL. 6) Adobe Photoshop or something like it to handle resizing the Jpegs, etc & tweaking it for publication.
Your maps are really good. Your comments definately help alot and are much appreciated. I thought the software would have the military symbols in one of the annuals. I am a bit intimidated by the software as I am definately not very proficient with any graphical software out there. I just want to make sure it is going to be worth the purchase. There are alot of competitors out there however this looks superior but if it is too difficult to use I might have to settle for a different program.
See steps 3 & 4 above! They will teach you a lot - especially the Tome. Give yourself some patience & read through the parts you need. Get the Annuals for various backgrounds & symbols that will prove useful. Most people in personal map-making are oriented around fantasy than historical so you are less likely to find what you need.
There are some military icons in the annuals, but I found them way too limited for my needs & the demands placed on me. They might serve you, though. However it is not difficult to make standard military icons. It is more a matter of tedious repetition than anything else. I've got a number of different sets depending on my needs & who I'm doing the work for.
Having looked at several programs over the years - I find that CC3 is best suited to me & by far the easiest to use to meet my needs. The others all frustrated me by hidden "walls & stoppages".
Best of luck - you can always email me for help through my website.
Skol, Sven
My normal art forms go more towards things like this functional French & Indian Powder horn I made & scrimshawed -- which also trickily pops open to be used as a dice cup.
BTW my artwork tends more toward this sort of thing:
Hi this is an idea for a CC-3 expansion disk. How about a dedicated war-game hex based map and counter disk? What I'm thinking of is one for designers with most of the preliminary work done. The hexes should be either 16 or 24 mm. The counters 12.7 or 16 mm. The hexes could be a standard terrain list - sea, clear, swamp, forest, hills, mountains, desert with the possibility of cities, and transport lines being over-layed within hexes. Counters could be standard NATO symbols. But must have provision for unit size .. platoon to xxxxx Army Group. Just an idea. Trev
Posted By: trevHi this is an idea for a CC-3 expansion disk. How about a dedicated war-game hex based map and counter disk? What I'm thinking of is one for designers with most of the preliminary work done. The hexes should be either 16 or 24 mm. The counters 12.7 or 16 mm. The hexes could be a standard terrain list - sea, clear, swamp, forest, hills, mountains, desert with the possibility of cities, and transport lines being over-layed within hexes. Counters could be standard NATO symbols. But must have provision for unit size .. platoon to xxxxx Army Group. Just an idea. Trev
Good idea for a annual as well. Hexes are already variable sized & a quick bit of math will get you the size you want. I've made many of those for GHQ & the like & the occasional boardgame in a variety of styles & detail already. Also there are a couple of annuals that deal with the plug & play hexes that you are talking about. If you don't subscribe to the annuals you're missing a lot. I recommend getting the back issues as well as the current.
As to the standard NATO symbols, I've created vari-colored symbol sets that do just what you're talking about by having the body of the symbol as one part & the unit size as the second part so that you just place them together. For example the chart below was done from one of my symbol sets:
Brilliant. I don't know if you've read Redmond Simonsen of SPI fame. But he has a whole lot of stuff about this. Will do some chasing and posting. Thank-you.
Comments
A bit more info would help us point you in the right direction.
And yes since I've been a historical gamer since 1958, I think I even count as a Grognard, LOL.
Software wise:
1) CC3
2) a thorough knowledge & experimentation with sheets, layers, & effects. Really get practice on Effects & changing the parameters. Experiment!!!!!
3) I've gotten all the annuals & found they are well worth the price for all I've learned from them. They will give you extra tools, symbols, icons, backgrounds, effects, & all sorts of nifty tips.
4) the current version of "Tome of Ultimate Mapping" for CC3
5) learn how to make & use symbols/icons. My military symbols are all of my own custom design & I made them Varicolor. That way they can change sides at ease, LOL.
6) Adobe Photoshop or something like it to handle resizing the Jpegs, etc & tweaking it for publication.
I hope that helps.
Sven
There are some military icons in the annuals, but I found them way too limited for my needs & the demands placed on me. They might serve you, though. However it is not difficult to make standard military icons. It is more a matter of tedious repetition than anything else. I've got a number of different sets depending on my needs & who I'm doing the work for.
Having looked at several programs over the years - I find that CC3 is best suited to me & by far the easiest to use to meet my needs. The others all frustrated me by hidden "walls & stoppages".
Best of luck - you can always email me for help through my website.
Skol,
Sven
My normal art forms go more towards things like this functional French & Indian Powder horn I made & scrimshawed -- which also trickily pops open to be used as a dice cup.
BTW my artwork tends more toward this sort of thing:
How about a dedicated war-game hex based map and counter disk?
What I'm thinking of is one for designers with most of the preliminary work done. The hexes should be either 16 or 24 mm. The counters 12.7 or 16 mm.
The hexes could be a standard terrain list - sea, clear, swamp, forest, hills, mountains, desert with the possibility of cities, and transport lines being over-layed within hexes.
Counters could be standard NATO symbols. But must have provision for unit size .. platoon to xxxxx Army Group.
Just an idea.
Trev
Hexes are already variable sized & a quick bit of math will get you the size you want. I've made many of those for GHQ & the like & the occasional boardgame in a variety of styles & detail already. Also there are a couple of annuals that deal with the plug & play hexes that you are talking about. If you don't subscribe to the annuals you're missing a lot. I recommend getting the back issues as well as the current.
As to the standard NATO symbols, I've created vari-colored symbol sets that do just what you're talking about by having the body of the symbol as one part & the unit size as the second part so that you just place them together. For example the chart below was done from one of my symbol sets:
I don't know if you've read Redmond Simonsen of SPI fame. But he has a whole lot of stuff about this. Will do some chasing and posting.
Thank-you.