Upgrading old CC2 maps
Thorf
Newcomer
Hi there.
A few years ago, I asked for help in this forum with converting old CC-DOS maps, and I was highly impressed with the warm and kind response. I wonder if I might trespass on your time once more, to ask for help of a similar nature.
A little background... I run the Atlas of Mystara web site, which aims to collect not just my own maps but eventually all maps created by fans for the old D&D world of Mystara. Recently I have almost completed adding all of the fan-made maps in my collections for the years 1996-2003 — a lot of maps.
However, I have become a little stuck with the last set of maps, which is what brings me here.
The set in question is a wonderful group of maps created (I believe) in Campaign Cartographer 2 from 2001-2003. They were available online at the original cartographer’s web site until it went down quite recently. I have a copy of the CC2 files here, along with a set of exported GIF files here.
As you can see, I already have copies of all of the maps in a form appropriate for posting at the Atlas of Mystara. However, the resolution is low, to the point that the labels are all but unreadable on some of the maps. I would love to upgrade these maps to a higher resolution. Since the source files are available, this seems possible.
But there’s a caveat: I’d like to maintain the look and feel of the original maps as much as possible. This means the same symbols, fonts, etc. if at all possible.
I have tried loading the files up into CC3+ myself, with very mixed results. The simple truth is that I’m just not good enough with this software to achieve what I want. Most of the files don’t seem to even resemble their original images, and I’m at a loss as to how to fix it.
Note that there are a lot of files in those folders, but I only need a subset of them. The maps I need are:
- m_wholeworld.gif
- m_b10_map_k.gif
- m_b10_foamfirevalley.gif
- m_b10_thelostvalley.gif
- m_karameikos.gif
- m_ylaruam.gif
- m_barimoor.gif
- m_glantri-nation.gif
- m_x2averoigne.png
- m_pc4_valeedesloups.png
I would appreciate any help you may be able to provide, whether it’s helping walk me through the process, troubleshooting what I’m doing wrong, or if it’s not too much work for some kind soul to convert them for me.
For what it’s worth, I have the permission of the original cartographer to repost his maps.
Thank you for reading.
Thorfinn
Comments
In most cases, CC2 files can just be loaded straight into CC3+ and they should work. There is one big breaking change though, in CC2, everything on the Common sheet (these are actually things that are not on a sheet at all) displayed on top of everything else, but now these goes in the background.
There is a CC2 to CC3 converter in the File menu, but in this case, unless you want to do more work with them, it may actually be better to skip that, and instead just make a new sheet, then move every entity that is on Common to this new sheet, and make sure it is at the bottom of the list of sheets. This should ensure the file look the same as it did in CC2.
Now, looking at those images (I looked at wholeworld and Karameikos), it does seem like they have been post-processed to add a more textured feel. I can't find any indication in the .fcw's that this texture came from there, neither does it look like CC2 texturing (although I might be wrong). Obviously, replicating that exactly will be tricky, but there are many things that can be done in CC3+ to maybe approach a similar feel if that is what you are after.
The maps have also been drawn with zero-width lines, which was common for these old maps. The issue with that is that the lines will always export as thin as possible (1 pixel wide), so when exporting in higher resolution, this will also make the lines appear thinner compared to those old exports. So here, they should probably be given a proper width instead.
All of this will require some work processing those maps.
Fonts are not embedded into the map files, but as long as you have the right fonts installed on your computer, these should be used to provide the right look here. You can always inspect a text entity and see what font it is set up to use if you use the List command from the Info menu on them.
I am not sure exactly where you want to go from here, so I just leave this as a small introduction for now. Let us know if you need help with any of this and we'll happily provide more detailed instructions, or if there is anything else you are thinking about when you say the maps doesn't look like the images.
I have converted 850+ maps from CC2 to CC3+. Definitely not an expert (who knows maybe I've done more conversions than anyone on the planet LOL), but there are some issues you will face for sure, that will give you a lot of headaches and wasted time.
So if you are using the automated "CC2 to CC3 conversion" what follows is what you may encounter.
The program does a great job of moving everything to the CC3+ format, with the exception of the moving layers over to sheets. This is most likely a by product of the old layers system and how individuals used those.
First thing once the conversion is done, ensure that none of the "Layers" are hidden. Uncheck them all.
So with that said, you may have to go through each individual map. Then manually go through each and every sheet to see what is on each sheet. "Hide All" start with the top most sheet listed. Keep going through the sheets to see if anything is on a sheet that is buried under another sheet.
When I went through the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas doing those conversions. Certain map styles had 5 sheets out of sequence per map. I had to re-arrange them and then place them between other sheets. This may well be something you will encounter.
Some instances certain entities were on wrong sheets and had to "change properties" so they would go the the right sheet.
Hopefully your conversions won't be so difficult, but the above could be something you will have to deal with. Good Luck.
Hello again.
Thank you Monsen and Don for your very helpful replies.
I have finally had time to get back to this mini-project, and I spent the whole afternoon tinkering with these old files to see what could be done. I’m pleased to say that I’ve managed to get quite far, especially using your hint about moving elements to their own sheets.
The whole world file has turned out rather nicely, although I was unable to change the line widths successfully. When I tried to do this, the shapes turned into filled lines.
This is not high priority for me, though, and I don’t really mind that the lines end up being rather thin.
What I haven’t been able to solve so far is a problem with a few of the symbols, specifically in the Vallée des Loups and Eastern Karameikos maps. To sum this up: for some reason, when loaded into CC3+, certain symbols appear in the wrong colours. This happened with certain shapes, too, but I have been able to fix the latter by adjusting their colours. I haven’t been able to work out a way to fix the symbols, though.
Here are links to the files for those two maps, sorted out into separate sheets for ease of use:
Dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/djjg5b3mkqcol0g7cser2/alanjones-la-valee-des-loups-1-cc3.FCW?rlkey=wracuazyae04c6j35gwjn8uwc&dl=0Dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zumja03cbkw593kq6w2ma/alanjones-eastern-karameikos-3-cc3.FCW?rlkey=e2x81co10mfqi9bris2xaa0dd&dl=0Here’s what they are supposed to look like:
And here’s how my latest exports look:
It's almost cherry blossom season here, so the Eastern Karameikos one seems strangely timely right now! But otherwise I’m a bit nonplussed by the pink trees, when the original symbols were clearly green.
The problem with La Vallée des Loups is the same sort of issue, but with the tan hills hexes all changing to deep wine colour.
I would be most grateful for any ideas of how to fix these things.
Thanks,
Thorfinn
The whole world file has turned out rather nicely, although I was unable to change the line widths successfully. When I tried to do this, the shapes turned into filled lines.
Yea, you can't just change line widths of polygons. A polygon is filled as long as it is set to line with 0, otherwise it becomes a hollow shape with the outline the size of the line width. To have a thick outline on a polygon, it needs to be a separate entity. It is quite possible your polys already have those, if so, be sure to only select the outline and not both the poly and the outline when changing width.
As for the colors in the maps, it looks like the original maps was made using a different color palette. In the CC2 days, you could have a different palette by having the palette stored as fcw32.pal in your CC2 installation directory, and all maps would then use that palette instead. So you probably need to go see if you can find that original pal file somewhere.
Since that file affected all maps loaded, we don't usually do that any more. These days, you can attach a palette to a drawing, and the drawing will use the embedded palette instead of the default one, which is what you should be doing to these maps, but you'll need to find the old palette if you wish to know the exact colors used, otherwise you just have to guess and experiment.
Managing the Color Palette in CC3+
https://rpgmaps.profantasy.com/managing-the-color-palette-in-cc3/Ah, I see. Thank you very much!
Can you tell me how to select just the outline? I haven’t yet worked this out. I did see that two objects were being selected, but I don’t know how to choose just the one I want.
About the colours, since I have access to the original exports (posted above), it’s a simple matter to sample them to get the exact colours. I have already done just this to restore the background in the Eastern Karameikos file, which was also pink.
Now I see — so I just need to find the right colour in the current palette, and change it to the colour the old map used?
I recommend you look at the selection tutorial on page 51 of the CC3+ manual, it shows all the different ways you can separate two entities on top of each other.
As for the color palette, yes. Just make sure that the drawing is actually used an attached palette (Set from Drawing Properties
). Also note that if you make changes, you need to re-attach it, changes aren't automatically stored in the map even if it is using an attached palette. I recommend keeping a written record because I have seen the palette reset in some instances before one could attach it.
I am not the most prolific user here, but I try to help with the few things I am ok at. Glad I could be of service, but Monsen is the master. His abilities with the program are unreal.
There is also a whole annual issue devoted to this, which i have found useful: Issue 122.