No problem at all, I would love the help and guidance. Its supposed to be a continent, the map scale is 3300x2550 miles total. So obviously my scaling is not correct.
With a map of this size, you need to change the symbol scale to take advantage of the space. Any maps you make that are larger than 1000 x 800 automatically increase the default scale of the symbols. so first we need to change the default scale. Go into file>drawing properties and set the default symbol scale to 1. That sets your baseline symbol scale to work from, and using this scale will immediately make your map feel much larger. Once you've set the default symbol scale, the first thing we should do is draw the land for the symbols to go on.
Use the "zoom extents" tool to view your whole map, then use the "zoom in" tool, and zoom in four times. Work at this level of zoom while drawing the land to get detail on the coast. If you take a look at real-world coastlines, like on google earth, you'll see they're incredibly complicated fractals. You don't have to make your coasts that intricate, but by drawing many points with the tool, and creating small bays and coves, etc., it will make the land look more real. To show this I have redrawn the land of this island using the Land, default drawing tool, but I've given it more detail.
All I did here was draw the land using the original land as a guide, then deleted the original land when I'd done. I love making the coast as intricate as I can. It helps spark the imagination as to where rivers might empty into the sea, or where might be a good harbour for a settlement...
Anyway, that's something to be starting with. You could practice on the smaller landmasses first, before doing the main continent. Once the new lands are drawn we can start placing some symbols, and that's what I'll talk about next time!
Okay, I might not be around for the holiday weekend, so i'll post a few symbol techniques for you to take a look at in the meantime, and I'll catch up with you again next week.
So, when I place symbols I always start from the top down. That applies both to the terrain (so we start with mountains, then to hills, then to swamps, right down to sea level), and to the placement of the symbols. With this map I placed the volcano symbol first purely to make sure I got it in the right place and as something to work around. I made it scale 2 so it's more prominent in the mountain range that dominates the center of this island.
Next I start placing the other symbols, working from the top down. As this is one of the northern islands, and there's an icecap off to the northeast, I imagined this place would be quite cold so decided to use the snowcapped mountain symbols for all the mountains. If the range was in a warmer climate zone I would use these for only the highest of peaks.
I started with some small mountains that I want on the north eastern side of the main range, and will work my way down the map.
Then I add some "mountain sc" symbols, but at 1.5 scale, to form the center of the mountain range. They're still not quite as big as the volcano, but bigger than the first ridge.
As I placed these symbols I covered up the volcano, but that's easy to fix. I Just used the "send behind" tool on the right hand side toolbar. Selected the Volcano as the entity to send symbols behind, and then selected each of the 1.5 scale mountains as the objects to send behind the volcano.
Here you can see that the 1.5 scale mountains are now behind the volcano.
Next I added some more "mountain sc" and "mountain sml sc" symbols in the foreground to soften the corners of the larger mountains, and extend the ridge-lines.
This left a couple of odd looking valleys cutting into the main range. To fix this I just placed a couple more "mountain sml sc" symbols and used the "send behind" tool again to fill up these valleys
I decided that I didn't like the look of this ridge. It looks to me like the symbols aren't placed right, and looks unnatural. I like the valley they've created though, so I don't want to lose it by placing more symbols in front of the ridge to smooth it out. Instead, I'll delete the four symbols and use a "mountain range sc" symbol instead, using the send behind tool again to place the ridge behind the indicated mountain
Finally I added some terrain using the "mountain background" drawing tool to blend the mountains into the map.
Drawing tools with bitmap fills also scale with map size - just like symbols do - when you use a map larger (or smaller) than 1000 x 800, and you can get some different effects by changing this.
Just select the mountain background drawing tool and look in the top right corner of CC3 where you will see FS: Mountains Background_MS. This is where you can control your fill styles. Clicking in this box will bring up the Fill Style Properties window. At the bottom of the window you will see the scale. Make sure the "scaled" checkbox is ticked and enter whatever scale you want in the height and width fields. I'm going to change the mountain background to 80x80 for this map.
You can adjust any of the bitmap fill styles by selecting the "Fill Style Name" dropdown box and selecting the fill style you want to change. This can be essential for fill styles like the farmland. With a continent scale map it's unlikely that you'll have the detail to use the farmland drawtool, but it's the easiest to illustrate the effect of scaling your bitmap fills, so here's an example that makes the scale clear. In the first one, the fields are as big as the mountains at 165x165 scale...
Well that's enough for today. Practise creating mountain ranges using varying scale symbols, and try experimenting with some of the techniques I've described.
Comments
If you can share the .FCW file, maybe I could go through it with you, take some screenshots along the way, and use it to make a tutorial thread?
All the best
DMG
So obviously my scaling is not correct.
With a map of this size, you need to change the symbol scale to take advantage of the space. Any maps you make that are larger than 1000 x 800 automatically increase the default scale of the symbols. so first we need to change the default scale. Go into file>drawing properties and set the default symbol scale to 1. That sets your baseline symbol scale to work from, and using this scale will immediately make your map feel much larger. Once you've set the default symbol scale, the first thing we should do is draw the land for the symbols to go on.
Use the "zoom extents" tool to view your whole map, then use the "zoom in" tool, and zoom in four times. Work at this level of zoom while drawing the land to get detail on the coast. If you take a look at real-world coastlines, like on google earth, you'll see they're incredibly complicated fractals. You don't have to make your coasts that intricate, but by drawing many points with the tool, and creating small bays and coves, etc., it will make the land look more real. To show this I have redrawn the land of this island using the Land, default drawing tool, but I've given it more detail.
All I did here was draw the land using the original land as a guide, then deleted the original land when I'd done. I love making the coast as intricate as I can. It helps spark the imagination as to where rivers might empty into the sea, or where might be a good harbour for a settlement...
Anyway, that's something to be starting with. You could practice on the smaller landmasses first, before doing the main continent. Once the new lands are drawn we can start placing some symbols, and that's what I'll talk about next time!
So, when I place symbols I always start from the top down. That applies both to the terrain (so we start with mountains, then to hills, then to swamps, right down to sea level), and to the placement of the symbols. With this map I placed the volcano symbol first purely to make sure I got it in the right place and as something to work around. I made it scale 2 so it's more prominent in the mountain range that dominates the center of this island.
Next I start placing the other symbols, working from the top down. As this is one of the northern islands, and there's an icecap off to the northeast, I imagined this place would be quite cold so decided to use the snowcapped mountain symbols for all the mountains. If the range was in a warmer climate zone I would use these for only the highest of peaks.
I started with some small mountains that I want on the north eastern side of the main range, and will work my way down the map.
As I placed these symbols I covered up the volcano, but that's easy to fix. I Just used the "send behind" tool on the right hand side toolbar. Selected the Volcano as the entity to send symbols behind, and then selected each of the 1.5 scale mountains as the objects to send behind the volcano.
Next I added some more "mountain sc" and "mountain sml sc" symbols in the foreground to soften the corners of the larger mountains, and extend the ridge-lines.
This left a couple of odd looking valleys cutting into the main range. To fix this I just placed a couple more "mountain sml sc" symbols and used the "send behind" tool again to fill up these valleys
Drawing tools with bitmap fills also scale with map size - just like symbols do - when you use a map larger (or smaller) than 1000 x 800, and you can get some different effects by changing this.
Just select the mountain background drawing tool and look in the top right corner of CC3 where you will see FS: Mountains Background_MS. This is where you can control your fill styles. Clicking in this box will bring up the Fill Style Properties window. At the bottom of the window you will see the scale. Make sure the "scaled" checkbox is ticked and enter whatever scale you want in the height and width fields. I'm going to change the mountain background to 80x80 for this map.
'Till next time...
DMG