How to make a desert battle map?
One of the things I'm honestly disappointing about with CC3 is how so many of the terrains have some kind of visual pattern to them that, when used across an entire map, give it an extremely ugly and artificial look. I am honestly at a complete loss for why terrain was implemented this way.
My first map was an estate and I was able to get around this effect on the grass terrain by adding a bunch of trees/bushes/flowers to break up the repeating visual pattern.
The next part of the campaign is in a desert and, frankly, I'm at a loss. Dungeon Designer 3 has a single sand terrain tile and it is absolutely atrocious. It's got this huge spiral pattern in the middle of it that when I try to use across my battle map looks disgusting.
What can I do aside from buying Dundjinni?
My first map was an estate and I was able to get around this effect on the grass terrain by adding a bunch of trees/bushes/flowers to break up the repeating visual pattern.
The next part of the campaign is in a desert and, frankly, I'm at a loss. Dungeon Designer 3 has a single sand terrain tile and it is absolutely atrocious. It's got this huge spiral pattern in the middle of it that when I try to use across my battle map looks disgusting.
What can I do aside from buying Dundjinni?
Comments
Here is the one and only sand terrain tile in use on a 100x100 battle map using Dungeon Designer 3:
Hideous.
Now, here is what people are doing with Dundjinni:
"DD3 contains a lot of bitmap fills that have transparent areas (they have a 'T' in their name). They are well suited to relieve the tiling effect. Draw a variety of polygons with these fills across the tiled area, even partly on top of each other. The fills will merge into each other and break up the repeating pattern. Fractalizing the topmost entity is a good way to do this."
I strongly recommend the Annuals a a great learning tool, as well a providing great resources. Also the Tome of Ultimate Mapping is a MUST.
Natalya Faden's Oljan maps and textures
I was able to install the CSUA3 which was relatively easy.
Unfortunately, the developers of CC3+ made the process of importing tiles using the in-software interface extremely obtuse. I was able to find a single guide for avigating through the labyrinthine process, but aside from it being 30 steps long, it appeared out of date as the instructions didn't match up to the interface. If anyone has a more up-to-date set of instructions for importing stuff, I'd love to have it.
[EDIT] Yeah, just did 15 minutes of Google searches for "CC3+ import tutorial" and various other searches. Absolutely nothing. Is this software dead or something? I feel like I would have been much better served purchasing Dunjinni. Searching for "Dunjinni import tutorial" reveals dozens of relevant links showing an extremely easy process for adding user-generated content.
http://www.profantasy.com/annual/2011/december11a.html
[EDIT] Hmm... a search for "Dunjinni desert" revealed dozens and dozens of pages worth of free tutorials and content. Yeah, I'm thinking I made a big mistake here. Sorry, qwalker, but you have to be helpful first before you can withdraw it.
There is always our satisfaction guarantee if you are not happy with our software. This will also allow you to purchase an Annual, see whether you like it, and get a refund if you don't. There are also bigger previews of all the Annual styles on the "Gallery" pages for each year.
As for the textures, especially the terrain textures for the dungeon styles, are set up to be used on a smaller area than the 1000x800 feet area of a default map. Try a smaller map and combine it with other textures to lessen the repeating effect. Also, you can change the scaling size of a bitmap texture by opening the fill style dialog (click "FS: Name of Fill" at the top of the screen). Increase the values next to "Scaled" to make the texture cover a larger area.
As for instructions on howto import bitmaps as fill, check the Help entries on "import, bitmaps as fill style" and "import, pngs as fill styles".
Everything done in the Dundjinni sample map that you attached can be done in CC3 and CC3+. You have to know how to do it, and you have to have the graphical materials used to make that map. Regardless of which program you use, you have to do a bit of learning before you can do what the Dundjinni mapmaker did.
Your Dundjinni comparison and Dundjinni map sample, however, are at the least misleading and probably more accurately, they paint a false picture. Why? The posting suggests that if one buys Dundjinni, one can make the background that you're showing us. However, that is by no stretch of the imagination correct. The textures (CC3 fill styles) used in the Dundjinni map are not a part of the package that one gets when one buys Dundjinni. The cartographer who made that battlemap background either made the textures himself/herself or got them from a 3rd party source. Therefore, if one were to acquire Dundjinni, one still would have to find and acquire those textures elsewhere. They're not available in the Dundjinni forum.
But beyond that ... you need only look at the Dundjinni forum to verify what I'm saying here ... Dundjinni works poorly with Windows 7, 8 and 10. When Dundjinni still was an active product, it turned out that its Java code wouldn't run under the then newly-released Windows Vista. It was updated in 2007 to Version 1.07, which still is the current version. To run Dundjinni properly, you need Windows Vista or Windows XP. Mindy withdrew Dundjinni from the market several years ago and restored it to the online store two years ago because people were requesting it. There is no support for the product other than the online forum.
So ... if you want to make battlemap backgrounds like the sample that you showed, you might as well keep using CC3+ or CC3. The sample map wasn't made with a single texture (fill style) but with overlaying objects using different textures. To do the same thing or something similar, you need to:
1) Find and download the fill styles you need.*
2) Install those fill styles in CC3+ and/or CC3.
3) Learn the techniques you need to make the map.
*Here are some places where you can get more desert and sand fill styles, in addition to JimP's suggestion above:
The Vintyri Sticky in the main forum list
The Dundjinni forum. Pick the "Search" option and search for the key words "desert" and the "sand:"
http://www.dundjinni.com/forums/forum_topics.asp?FID=8
(For the record: I have not only CC3+ and CC3 but also Dundjinni and two other cartographic programs. I know how to use Dundjinni and I know what's in the Dundjinni package and what isn't.)