[WIP] How do I make a plateau?
Brand new user drawing a map for a fantasy novel I'm writing.
I want to make a broad plateau and then a volcanic massif (think Devil's Tower in Wyoming)
I've gotten to the point of adding mountain symbols, but am not understanding how to make a plateau. If someone could point me to a tutorial (or where in the Users Guide to look) I would greatly appreciate it.
Also I would love to know how to widen out a river other than drawing it as a very long and skinny lake.
Thank you in advance.
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I want to make a broad plateau and then a volcanic massif (think Devil's Tower in Wyoming)
I've gotten to the point of adding mountain symbols, but am not understanding how to make a plateau. If someone could point me to a tutorial (or where in the Users Guide to look) I would greatly appreciate it.
Also I would love to know how to widen out a river other than drawing it as a very long and skinny lake.
Thank you in advance.
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Comments
There may be some symbols you could use, or a few sheet effects might be better.
Is there any change you could show us a screen shot of where you are with this so far?
For instance, if you want a plateau with steep, rocky cliff edges, it may be possible to set up the edges using the normal pictorial mountain symbols, and then add a plateau top piece (a hand-drawn polygon using an appropriate texture fill) to hide the mountain peaks, and make it look like it's all one feature. Some symbol sets have a selection of mesas along with mountains, so you may not need to draw the volcanic massif separately - but this is heavily dependent on what symbols you have available (basic CC3+, or that plus some to all of the add-ons, like the relevant Symbol Sets, or the Cartographer's Annuals, say), what the scale and size of the map you're drawing is, and its type.
Widening rivers can be done easily by just adding extra lines (to look like river deltas, or braided streams, for example) or polygons using the same fill texture as the rivers, and set-up on the same Sheet as the rivers (because that way, the extra drawn pieces will behave as if they were identical to the original river line as far as the Sheet Effects are concerned, and they should look as if they blend in with the river as well).
I currently only have the basic CC3+ (it was on sale, so why not?).
The overall map is probably "Regional" 800 (NS) by 1000 (EW) and the plateau would be 200 mi across, roughly oval with two rivers draining it. The rest of the land drains via a major river towards the east. The map will be indicating various towns and cities and of course some goals that the protagonists will need to get to. Its current state is a pen sketch on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of printer paper. :) (attached)
((If attaching a big picture like this is frowned upon, pls tell me.))
ETA: If any of you have recommendations of particular add-on packs, (like one that has a pickaxe symbol, for instance :) ) , I'll be happy.
Now off to try some stuff.
Maybe turn this into a WIP thread so we can dive in with helpful suggestions as you go along?
I presume that I do that by starting a new thread. I'll do that -- thanks.
You can change the title by editing the first comment.
As you can see, I found some cliffs and I found a mesa type peak. Then I went to try to forest the top of it and the forest covered up the mesa type peak. You can see it now because I laid it down in bits and pieces. However, you will notice that there is a red circle on the image where the edge of the forest is. There is the roof of a tower there. The tower is set on top of the tall mesa, but the tree layer is on top of it. So the tree layer tries to cover both the symbols for the mesa and the tower.
So my question is how do I make it not do that, and most specifically how do I tell what layer I'm drawing on. I found the control for looking at what layers exist, but I can't tell what's on them and I don't seem to be able to change their visibility (which would allow me to tell what was on them :) ).
The other red circle is where two rivers intersect, and it looks ugly. I'm still not really satisfied with how the rivers look.
On the other hand, I think I figured out the roads.
P.S. -- is there a measuring tool?
Still crawling up the learning curve. Thanks in advance for any comments.
Tomorrow or so I will try to understand the User Manual about importing and tracing a drawing.
There are several SYMBOLS sheets in this style, and as memory serves me there is a "SYMBOLS in front", or words to that effect?
Providing nothing else is already on it you can move that tower to the sheet I just mentioned by right clicking the yellow Sheets and Effects button on the left and picking "Move to Sheet", then picking the tower, and Do It. This will bring up a list of sheets so that you can pick the one you want to move it to, and then ok your action.
For some reason your rivers are looking all wrong. They should be a solid blue line, not a double tramline. However, from this image I cannot tell if this is because the fill style has been set to hollow, or they just happen to be in the same texture as the land with a blue glow. It would be handy to see the first paragraph of the blue table if you use List from the Info menu on one of them, or even the FCW if you don't mind uploading it here.
In CC3+, Sheets are relatively more important than Layers, because they allow you to add, change or remove a large range of special effects on each Sheet. Layers are a more administrative tool for grouping numbers of Sheets together in different ways.
In addition, the order in which Sheets are set-up is critical. You can access the Sheets dialogue by clicking on the "S:" box on the top row of command option boxes on the CC3+ screen. Sheets that are shown higher up on this list (that is, closer to the COMMON Sheet, which has only the one check-box) will be drawn on your map BELOW those which are lower on the list. For the basic Mike Schley set-up in CC3+, the Sheet which is drawn above everything else is the MAP BORDER one.
You can always hide or show any Sheet or Layer by calling up the Sheet or Layer dialogue via the "S:" or "L:" boxes on that top row, and then either use the "Auto Hide" facility (Sheets) or the "Hide All" button (Layers) to hide everything except the COMMON Sheet and the Sheet (or Layer) that is currently active. You can also use the individual check-boxes if you just want to hide a few Sheets or Layers.
Symbols default to being placed on one of the Sheets that contains the word "SYMBOLS" in it. For the Mike Schley style, these are SYMBOLS TREES (which always draws ON TOP of all other symbols, as you've discovered!), then SYMBOLS, and finally SYMBOLS BACK, which draws lowest of any of the standard Symbols Sheets.
Stopping the trees from hiding your mesa and tower can be achieved by creating a new Sheet, calling it something like SYMBOLS FRONT, say, and then using the Change Properties dialogue (accessed by clicking on the button at the left of your screen, just to the right of the one with the pencil-and-eraser icon on it and immediately below the eye-dropper one) to change their Sheet to the new one. Make sure the new Sheet is lower down the Sheets list than the SYMBOLS TREES one!
Alternatively, you could delete the trees and redraw the forest, making sure not to hide the mesa and tower along the way.
Or as another option, you could use the Change Properties dialogue to move the tower and mesa to the same Sheet as the trees are on, and then (if necessary) use the "Bring to Front" command (among the buttons over to the right of the CC3+ window, in the edge column there) to bring them above the trees.
There's usually more than one way to achieve something in CC3+, and this isn't even a complete list of what you might try in this case. But I can only type so much!
There is a measuring tool - read about it using the Help > Help drop-down menu, then use the Index tab to look for the "Distance Along" command for details.
It looks as if you've drawn the rivers using the River, Fractal drawing tool, which does give this tram-line appearance, as Sue mentioned, which is creating problems both at the river confluences, and where the rivers run into the sea. You may find it better to use a different river drawing tool, as that fractal one just looks weird to me - I'm not even sure why it's an option in the style!
Good luck!
Thank you very much for all the comments and the clear instructions. I had understood the whole layer/sheet lower in the list is in front, even if it does make my previously GIMP-bound soul crazy. The Info > List dropdown was what I didn't find by myself. Next time I post a question I will remember to add the FCW file so that you can see the "user errors" in detail. :)
@Wyvern -- I like the fractal river style because it gives what seems to me an approximation of what real rivers do in terms of the path -- the empty tracks effect is the only thing I don't like about it. If I ever try to draw ox-bows, however, I will do it manually.
I suspect the river problem might be something to do with the fill style being set to Hollow. You can find out what the fill style is by using the same Info->List menu tool described by Wyvern above. If the rivers are set to a fill style of Hollow you will need to use the Change Properties tool to change their fill style to Solid. I think they are probably the right colour already.
Found a Move to Sheet command that finally solved my problem with the tower because I was not able to make it just go into a special layer.
Selecting is tricky. I did change river style to solid and it's better now.
Layers are for hiding and/or freezing stuff, and occasionally for separating things that are on the same sheet. Other than that they have very little importance at all.
It's under Program Data... a file to which CC3+ will not navigate in the browser window, which means that if you saved something to the desktop, you can't get back.
So, I haven't done all the labeling yet (plan to work on label on curve for the rivers), and I haven't put in the index for all the small towns, but I'd say this is progressing nicely.
Going to post this now and add the FCW file later.
Or possibly not. The program says my FCW files are in C:\Program Files(x86)\ProFantasy\CC3Plus\ That's the address it gives for the FCW that I have open. But if I try to brows to that to upload it here... the FCW doesn't exist.
Have you made hidden folders visible on your PC? If you haven't that might explain why you can't seem to navigate to the Program Data folder, which is a hidden folder.
You can make hidden folders visible by checking the box called "make hidden folders visible" on the View toolbar in any open File Explorer window.
Profantasy isn't the sort of company to go and deliberately hide a key folder. This is just another example of Microsoft deciding to nanny the users of its OS by suddenly making all the system folders invisible one day - long after CC was first created.
I would not expect a software company to hide things. Windows, yes. A bug in the programming is always possible and needs to be fixed. Bugs are that way. No need for _blame_.
EDIT: I re-read your comments and realised that you meant your map and not the Selection.FCW file.
I don't know about your map, but I recommend using the Save as... option and saving it in a better place - somewhere in your Documents folder. Create a new subfolder there where you can keep all your FCWs.
Every time I create a new map these days, when I am asked to give it a name I make sure I save it in my own "CC3 maps" folder in my Documents folder, or in the "CC3 Examples" folder on my desktop. I never save any files within the system folders.
If it wasn't the last file you had open it will hopefully be in the list of recent files.
I'm not discounting your advice -- it is good and I have followed it. Is there a place to report *bleep*ing bugs?
Thank you. The protagonist's path is already plotted, but I appreciate the fact that it might be useful for *other* protagonists. :D
In the mean time please don't worry about the lost file. It's not going to harm anything wherever it is, and I'm sure that PF will be able to find it for you
EDIT: I notice the quote system isn't working for you. You can switch Html on by picking it at the bottom of the comment box when you are making the comment.
Windows introduced UAC some windows versions ago, and along with UAC came stronger protection of the Program Files folders. Programs shouldn't really save user data in these folders, but some software did it anyway. So what UAC does when a user saves it there is that it saves it in a virtual directory inside your profile directory instead. When you are inside the program, Windows make it appear as if it is inside that directory inside program files, but if you try to browse there using other programs, for example windows file explorer, it isn't there.
This can be a bit confusing, but it is really a good thing, because programs should not be saving things inside the program files folder, as that can mess up for other users, and is a prime way for viruses to infect other users of your computer. With this way of handling things, legacy programs can still save and modify files in program files just fine, but the writes are virtualized and only apply to the user making them, and doesn't affect other users of that computer using the same programs.
So, I recommend you just take Sue's advice of just using Save As and put it somewhere else, but if you really want to find it, it should be in some thing like
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\ProFantasy\CC3Plus
However, I do have a question. Is there any way to draw an arrow so that I can put a text in that says "This way to the next country over"?