Creating Square Grids within Rooms only.
Draugr
Newcomer
Hi.
I'm fairly new to PF and just picked up a few of the Annual sets. The set I was interested in most is Annual 2007. The reason is because I've been tinkering with designing caverns but was not happy with the results. Annual 2007 aka Annual 1 has an issue that tackles caves and believe me the purchase of the Annual just for the cave info was worth it for me!
OK, so now for my problem. I saw that the example cave image shows a square grid within the cavern chambers ONLY and not throughout the entire map. It makes the map look much more professional and will work even better when printed as a battle map. There is a section on how to perform this feature in the pdf mapping guide: Caves & Caverns. I tried following the instructions, but it doesn't seem to help.
Here is what the pdf says about placing a gris within the rooms, or on floors only.
"But if you want a grid that only covers the floor and not the walls beyond, you can Copy to Sheet to copy the floor entities - layer BACKGROUND (FLOOR 1) - to the GRID sheet. Then change their fill style to one of the Square or Hex grid symbol fill styles."
I think I need to figure out two things.
1. Can someone show me step by step how to use the Copy to Sheet function? I'm doing as the pdf says regarding trying to copy the Background - Floor 1 (Layer) to GRID sheet, but it does not appear to be working. I think I'm not understanding how to use the Copy to Sheet function properly.
Is there a way to see entities in the program? I mean the BACKGROUND (FLOOR 1) layer. How do I know what entities are within it and when trying to Copy to Sheet to the GRID sheet, how can I tell if anything copied? In my attempts the GRID sheet remains with but two options. Transparency (checked) and Blur (unchecked) which is no different than before I attempt any of this.
I am truly stumped and hope someone could help me. It might also be neat to have video tutorials on creating b attle map type maps with hex/square grids over floors within walls only so that others might learn how to do this easier by visual instruction.
Thanks for any help
John
I'm fairly new to PF and just picked up a few of the Annual sets. The set I was interested in most is Annual 2007. The reason is because I've been tinkering with designing caverns but was not happy with the results. Annual 2007 aka Annual 1 has an issue that tackles caves and believe me the purchase of the Annual just for the cave info was worth it for me!
OK, so now for my problem. I saw that the example cave image shows a square grid within the cavern chambers ONLY and not throughout the entire map. It makes the map look much more professional and will work even better when printed as a battle map. There is a section on how to perform this feature in the pdf mapping guide: Caves & Caverns. I tried following the instructions, but it doesn't seem to help.
Here is what the pdf says about placing a gris within the rooms, or on floors only.
"But if you want a grid that only covers the floor and not the walls beyond, you can Copy to Sheet to copy the floor entities - layer BACKGROUND (FLOOR 1) - to the GRID sheet. Then change their fill style to one of the Square or Hex grid symbol fill styles."
I think I need to figure out two things.
1. Can someone show me step by step how to use the Copy to Sheet function? I'm doing as the pdf says regarding trying to copy the Background - Floor 1 (Layer) to GRID sheet, but it does not appear to be working. I think I'm not understanding how to use the Copy to Sheet function properly.
Is there a way to see entities in the program? I mean the BACKGROUND (FLOOR 1) layer. How do I know what entities are within it and when trying to Copy to Sheet to the GRID sheet, how can I tell if anything copied? In my attempts the GRID sheet remains with but two options. Transparency (checked) and Blur (unchecked) which is no different than before I attempt any of this.
I am truly stumped and hope someone could help me. It might also be neat to have video tutorials on creating b attle map type maps with hex/square grids over floors within walls only so that others might learn how to do this easier by visual instruction.
Thanks for any help
John
Comments
Right click the "Sheets and Effects button", select "Copy to Sheet". Now, select the entities you wish to copy by clicking on the edges of the entities, you should see the command line at the bottom telling you how many entities you have selected. When done selecting, right click inside the drawing window and select Do It. This will pop up a dialog listing the available sheets in the drawing. Click on one of them to select it, then click OK. The entities you had selected should now be copied to the desired sheet.
Entities on layer:
One way to see which entities are in a certain layer is to simply click the layer indicator, then hide all the layers except the one you wish to inspect. You can also use the LIST command on entities, this will tell you which layers the selected entities belong to.
To check if the entities were indeed copied, try hiding all the sheets except the destination sheet. This will show you only the entities on that sheet)
Note that the options you mentioned (Transparency and blur) are just the sheet effect settings for this sheet. They don't have anything to do with copying entities between sheets.
Note that I cover the instructions for grids only in rooms in detail in the Tome of Ultimate mapping.
I picked up the Ultimate Mapping Tome and in 5 minutes I got the floor grid working. Before getting the tome I tried for hours but couldn't figure it out.
Thanks for the suggestion and for $13.95 or so this Tome is definitely worth it! Anyone out there who is using CC3 and the various add-ons and wishes to learn the A-Zs and 1, 2 ,3s of map making with ProFantasy software should definitely drop down the $13.95 for the tome. I mean if you spent $50 or more on the actual programs such as DD3, CC3, etc... Another $13.95 won't kill ya and it will definitely make your life alot easier!
Now, if there were only a printed version of the tome. I may see how much the local copy shop will cahrge to print it for me and spiral bind it.
Thank Again
John (aka Another happy customer!)
- I've tried drawing a polygon with a 10' grid fill style, but it doesn't draw the grid as expected, just a bunch of tiny 90 degree angles
- I've tried copying to sheet as in the instructions above, but the grid just disappeared from the room.
- I'm using one of the Schley bmp fills so I don't want to get rid of that, just to add a hex grid over it for rooms-only.
Pretty sure I'm missing something simple in trying to apply a grid to this octagonal room, but can't figure out the process.
Open the symbol manager, and place a checkmark in the 'Show fill style symbols' box.
Now, you should be able to find 'Square Fill' in the list. The symbol preview is probably blank, but this doesn't matter. Select it, hit edit, and define the corners of the edit window when asked.
You are now faced with an empty edit window. This is because the lines are white on a white background. Use change properties, and simply select everything in the window by hitting the 'A' key (for all), then proceed with the change command.
In the dialog, simply set the line style to solid, then close the editor window and confirm the saving of changes.
Note that this only changes the fill in the current map. If you wish to make this change for future maps, you need to edit it in the template the map is based on.
Is it possible to add a grid at an angle for certain rooms? I've tried rotating the fills but that doesn't work; also tried changing the rotation of the fill style but no luck there either. I've attached a clip of a map from the Primeval Thule RPG, which illustrates what I'm trying to achieve. I like the way that the floors have a 10' grid that follows the angles of the walls of each room. Maybe the best way is just to have a bmp floor fill style in which the individual paving stones are 10' squares; maybe that's the solution ultimately, but I wanted to check to see if grid fills could be applied at an angle first.
Thank you again.
So, as I can see it, there are two options.
- Measure the bearing of the wall, and create a copy of the symbol fill with the appropriate rotation.
- Find/create a raster image with a grid tiling pattern, and import that as a raster fill, since that can be rotated using SHADEPOLY.