Symbol Catalog Questions
I'm a newbie to this software, and while I've seen a ton of tutorials, I still have a number of questions on symbol catalogs.
1. Is there a way to get a symbol catalog overview? Like a cheat sheet to see the catalogs and its symbols to see what kind of symbol is available where? Maybe done as HTML or PDF so I can browse e.g. "houses" and see what kind of houses are available from which set, or browsing by style and see all the houses, streets, walls, whatever, when I start a map with e.g. "CD3 Bitmap A" in contrast to "CD3 Bitmap B". This would be extremely valuable if a style is for sale, so one could see what it actually offers.
2. Do extended versions of those "CD3 Bitmap A" or "B" exists, i.e. same style, but more symbols? I don't know which city style I tried yesterday, it had some city walls, but no matching towers, bastions, or gatehouses.
3. I have seen the tutorial on making my own symbol library, but it only covered the basics. Are there tutorials or documtation that explain how to fold several symbols under one (to get the little "+" sign into the box), or make a random selection (The "R" box)?
4. Joe Sweeney often talks about styles and other things from "Annuals". Are they made by users or by ProFantasy? Are they free or for sale? Where can I find them?
I already stumbled over annoying holes in the symbol libraries - one overland style offers a crater symbol, but no swamp, another offers swamp, but no crater symbol. And their styles are so different that importing a symbol from the one set into the other makes no sense. Or city walls that had no matching towers. I could draw those symbols as PNGs, but this is absolutely not my strength. I bought CC3 to avoid having to do such artwork on my own.
All in all I start to understand how this program ticks, although some methods really annoy me, as they differ from any other CAD or drawing tools I know. Like selecting an action, then selecting the objects (which can be extremely difficult when objects overlap!), and them choosing "do it" in the popup menu. AARGH! Who cooked this up?!?!?
1. Is there a way to get a symbol catalog overview? Like a cheat sheet to see the catalogs and its symbols to see what kind of symbol is available where? Maybe done as HTML or PDF so I can browse e.g. "houses" and see what kind of houses are available from which set, or browsing by style and see all the houses, streets, walls, whatever, when I start a map with e.g. "CD3 Bitmap A" in contrast to "CD3 Bitmap B". This would be extremely valuable if a style is for sale, so one could see what it actually offers.
2. Do extended versions of those "CD3 Bitmap A" or "B" exists, i.e. same style, but more symbols? I don't know which city style I tried yesterday, it had some city walls, but no matching towers, bastions, or gatehouses.
3. I have seen the tutorial on making my own symbol library, but it only covered the basics. Are there tutorials or documtation that explain how to fold several symbols under one (to get the little "+" sign into the box), or make a random selection (The "R" box)?
4. Joe Sweeney often talks about styles and other things from "Annuals". Are they made by users or by ProFantasy? Are they free or for sale? Where can I find them?
I already stumbled over annoying holes in the symbol libraries - one overland style offers a crater symbol, but no swamp, another offers swamp, but no crater symbol. And their styles are so different that importing a symbol from the one set into the other makes no sense. Or city walls that had no matching towers. I could draw those symbols as PNGs, but this is absolutely not my strength. I bought CC3 to avoid having to do such artwork on my own.
All in all I start to understand how this program ticks, although some methods really annoy me, as they differ from any other CAD or drawing tools I know. Like selecting an action, then selecting the objects (which can be extremely difficult when objects overlap!), and them choosing "do it" in the popup menu. AARGH! Who cooked this up?!?!?
Comments
2. No. There are lots of additional styles available, but no expansions of the basic sets. Symbols from other styles fit in with a varying degree, but the Bitmap A and B styles do not look good together in general. Check out the free community resources, especially the Vintyri Collection.
3. See the manual page 77, which addresses symbol options.
4. Annuals are published by ProFantasy, some of them are made by ProFantasy, others by users. They are a paid product.
As for the selection method, it can feel cumbersome at times, but it is also an extremely powerful system, and once you understand it properly, it is easy to select just one of two overlapping entities and lots of other things. Check out the Editing chapter in the manual for a lot of useful information, as well as this article
Thanks! I'll look this up. Ooof, yes, and it is quite a costly one. I just bought the software, this will have to wait for some time...
Thanks for the information. I see it as cumbersome as it is totally different from what I've seen in a wide variety of CAD programs, ranging from drawing and modeling over hardware synthesis to schematics and circuit board design...
Is there a reason why ProFantasy do it this way?
I do rather like this method though, as it allows me to work far more efficient with complex selection than any other software I've used. (Hint: learn the shortcut keys, they save you a lot of clicking)
Now all I need is a kind of keyword search, but for that I would have to provide the keywords on my own. I seriously hope that a future version of the software allows to tag images and libraries so I can just enter "torch" or "mill" and get the appropriate symbols presented. This should really not be an issue with current systems.
If anybody is interested in my catalog generator I can offer it for download. Works on Windows and Linux, and you'll need Perl and Image::Size installed.