Question concerning working in different "time eras"

Hey guys :-)

Im new here and currently deciding if i should buy cc3 and fractal terrain or not, and the question im concerned about is as following:

Im currently working on a fantasy novel and i realy have trouble keeping all the history sorted and clear. Now what i already have seen from tutorials and demos is, that i can develop my history realy smooth with these tools, but im concerned about

a) is it possible to import a world made in fractal terrains into cc3, then place cities, roads etc. , then change the world modified in cc3 again in fractual terrains (meteor blows continent away /godly intervention etc.), changing terrain in fractual terrains again and then exporting the world into cc3 and still have all cities& roads & trees etc. ?

b) does cc3 have some kind of movable timescale, meaning i create a small city 100 ad and it becomes big 500 ad, will i be able to "move back in time" to my 100 ad city to let some vulkanoes explode, devastating some land in 200 ad, but letting me always still be able to scroll back to my 100 ad starting point without the "later" changes?
while i imagine it being no problem developing the world over time with this tool, i can not always change the whole world symetrically and maybe i want to change something afterwards so i realy need to be able to track "back in time" to change things ... i hope you understand what i mean - no native english ;D

so in short i need to be able to track back and forth on my timescale making changes everywhere (like keying an animation xD)

Comments

  • Only way I know to do b) would be to have two maps.

    The easy way to do it is,

    1) make the smaller map.

    2) after saving it to, for example, smallmap.fcw

    3) save as it again as largemap.fcw

    4) make the changes to largemap.fcw to be what it will look like in 500ad.
  • CC3 is a great map making software. If you are looking for something to help maintain a 'history', check out RealmWorks (www.wolflair.com). You have the ability to import your map (as a graphics file) and all associated items with other items.
  • From your post, it sounds like you want a 'map slider' to show map changes over time. I don't know of any map making software that does that.

    I have made maps of different eras of the same locaiton using CC3.
  • I suppose you could make a series of maps & then on a web page make a slider button that sequences through them in HTML
  • That would work, but I don't know of any mapping software that does it automatically.
  • It would be HTML software or C++ or Visual Basic, or Ruby on Rails that you could program a slider button to do that. It involves adding the slider bar & setting the pictures to that, not too problematic.
  • My sense is what you're trying to do is a very specific function. I think CC3 will help you, but won't automagically do what you want. Here are my thoughts on your specific questions -- these are how I'd approach it, but there are probably other ways as well:

    a) You can put the things you've added in CC3 on their own sheets or layers, which would let you select them and copy them to a newly-exported map from Fractal Terrains. Alternately, you could put the two exports into the same CC3 map but on separate layers, then show or hide as you want. Having two separate maps will make for an easier export, but you'd lose the ability to add or delete things once and affect both maps. My guess is you'd want two maps, with the common items copied and pasted. Incidentally, CC3's CAD base makes copying and pasting easy -- you can precisely put the symbols in the same place on both maps.

    b) As others have said, you'd have to export an image to make a slide show through the ages. But CC3 gives you a powerful set of tools to modify the maps that your slide show will be based on.

    Steve
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