One of the projects I'm working on is an attempt to create a fortress loosely modeled after The Armory in San Francisco (here are some pix I took nearly a decade ago, so no copyright violation posting them):

After a bit of research, I've learned that the dome-shaped part of the roof is actually called a barrel roof. In my version, the roof would be split in the center and retractable, allowing for flying creatures housed inside to be able to fly in and out when the roof is retracted.

I've been trying to create the barrel roof using a variety of techniques and effects, but I'm not super thrilled with all of my results. First, I tried taking domes from City Domes and enlarging with different XY values to make them oval. I like how it looks, but for a different project. Not the barrel roof I'm looking for.

I tried adding walls at the ends to chop off the ends, but it's still not a barrel roof.

Then I tried something totally different: going for two rectangular polygons with the Shaded Polygon (Angled by Edge) effects, as if going for a peaked roof, and then adding a series of Glow effects to suggest curvature. There are three Inner Glow effects on this, with a Blur of 4, 8, and 16 map units:

This is getting closer, but I would love any suggestions with effects or an entirely different approach to achieve a proper barrel roof. Here's the FCW for the latest attempt, if that helps.

The map is just the highlights of the trip. Here's the full itinerary. Why two weeks at Crater Lake? My extended family has a cabin a few miles outside of the park, so we were visiting family then before finally heading home.

June 9, 1972 — San Francisco, CA

June 9, 1972 — Big Sur

June 10, 1972 — San Simeon

June 10, 1972 — Los Padres National Forest

June 11, 1972 — Los Angeles

June 11, 1972 — Angeles National Forest

June 12, 1972 — Disneyland

June 13, 1972 — San Juan Capistrano

June 13, 1972 — Chula Vista

June 14, 1972 — Winterhaven, CA

June 16, 1972 — Tucson

June 16, 1972 — Chiricahua National Forest

June 20, 1972 — Deming, NM

June 21, 1972 — El Paso

June 22, 1972 — Carlsbed Caverns

June 22, 1972 — Cloudcroft, NM

June 24, 1972 — White Sands National Park

June 24, 1972 — Cibola National Forest

June 25, 1972 — Petrified National Forest

June 25, 1972 — Coconino National Forest

June 27, 1972 — Grand Canyon

June 28, 1972 — Glen Canyon Dam

June 29, 1972 — Manti-Lasal National Forest

June 30, 1972 — Price, Utah

July 3, 1972 — Thru Utah to Colorado

July 3, 1972 — Grand Mesa National Forest, CO

July 4, 1972 — White River National Forest

July 6, 1972 — Shadow Mountain Lake. Through WY to Nebraska

July 7, 1972 — Cadron, Nebraska

July 8, 1972 — Mt. Rushmore

June 9, 1972 — Thru Gilette, WY

June 9, 1972 — Big Horn National Forest

June 9, 1972 — Shoshoni National Forest

July 13, 1972 — Teton National Park

July 16, 1972 — Yellowstone

July 17, 1972 — White Sulpher Springs, MT

July 19, 1972 — Glacier National Park, Canada

July 20, 1972 — Waterton, Canada

July 21, 1972 — Banff National Park

July 23, 1972 — Mt. Baker National - Snoqualmie National Forest. Olympic National Forest

August 2, 1972 — Mt. Ranier

August 2, 1972 — Maple Leaf-Gifford Pinchat Natl Forest

August 3, 1972 — Portland

August 4, 1972 — Salem

August 5, 1972 — Crater Lake

August 17, 2024 — Redwood National Park

August 19, 2024 — San Francisco, CA

Reinstalling seems to have done the trick. Still had to manually delete the lines that were already there, but the lines weren't reintroduced when I redrew more farms and forests. Thank you!

Level 1 primarily collects water from storm drains along with leaves and vegetation that might get swept in. Manure from horses on the street and domesticated animals are often shoveled into these storm drains as well. These drain into chutes that flow into Level 2.

Maintenance workers can enter this level through a staircase near the Great Maw that descends to a maintenance room, where a great seat of stone doors allows them to dump refuse into the giant pit. Luminescent crystals on the pit side of these great doors helps keep the Black Pudding from ascending this far. A spiral staircase in this room ascends to the surface and descends to Level 2.

Each intersection that has a stormwater drain also has a manhole that allows maintenance workers to climb down. These storm drains do not connect to one another, and maintenance workers who want to traverse the system will have to continue down ladders to Level 2.

Still to come: I want to work on the labels more, and I may add some of the rocky texture to outline the storm drains. 

Here's an area map of the Eknapata Desert region on the northeast corner of the Gold Coast map. I decided to do it in the Scorching Sun annual. The mapping guide for the annual recommended Mike Schley Overland as a complementary style for additional symbols, so I used that for the pyramid at the city of Nekhmatunis, the ziggurat at the city of Khemtufu, and the half-buried statue and obelisk at the Sakherma Ruins. I also threw in a few of his camel-with-guide symbols to represent nomadic tribes, and a sandworm just for fun. There are a few more villages, too, and another monastery that I figured were too small to be on the parent map for the entire Gold Coast region. I also added a volcano, but figured that would be on the parent map. Since the parent map hasn't been submitted to the Atlas yet, I went back and added it to the parent map, too.

I'm enjoying the opportunity to try out different map styles with this project. I plan to design one city with Mike Schley's Mideastern symbols from SS5, and another with the Desert Oasis annual.

In a previous thread, Ralf encouraged us to post ideas for future annuals and artists we’d like to see. I know there’s been threads of these sorts of ideas before, but I thought I would take the opportunity to start a new thread, and I hope folks will add their own thoughts.

There’s this one artist whose style I really love. She’s super busy right now, but if she ever has a spare moment, I always love new additions from … Sue Daniel! ;-)

This month’s annual highlighting Mike Schley’s Overland symbols really emphasizes how much of his stuff we have to work with – not just overland, but city and dungeon, too. Since he’s been a longtime D&D designer, his style is great at capturing the same vibe when designing your own maps for D&D campaigns. In deciding what style I want to use for a new map, I often gravitate to his because of how much variety there is to work with. (If he’s looking for city and dungeon level ideas, I would love more Greco-Roman buildings and furnishings.)

So in that spirit, I would love to see more annuals with stuff that is compatible with other styles, particularly Darklands City and Spectrum Overland. I know that might be tricky to do an expansion of an annual released years ago. When an annual has an expansion, it’s generally in the same year (Marine Dungeons, Darklands City, Forest Trail, Monkey Frog Overland, etc.) so that a customer doesn’t have to buy two annuals to use both sets together. But what about expansions designed to stand on their own but also work complimentarily with previous sets? I’d love to see more settlement and adventure-hook symbols that are compatible with Spectrum Overland, and more structures/buildings for Darklands City (and the snowy versions for Winter Village). Right now I’m on an elves & dwarves kick, so elven/dwarven Darklands City structures would be awesome.

Other ideas:

Jungle/Swamp Adventures: something compatible with Creepy Crypts & Forest Trails, but with more jungle elements – palm trees, tropical trees, swamp trees (like trees in water with the ripple effects from Marine Dungeons), bright flowers and other foliage, monster/beast footprints, vines, traps, treasurers you might find adventuring in ruined temples.

Castle Construction: something like CA149 Beaumaris Castle, but with design tools and more castle-specific symbols. Symbols like gargoyles, varicolor flags & banners, crenellations (like the way Marine Dungeons lets you drop crenellations onto walls), machicolations/murder holes, plate armor, thrones, weapons, murder holes, siege/warfare equipment…

Inlays: I’ve mentioned this before, but I would also love more varicolor vector symbols that could be used for so many things like heraldic charges, floor inlays, stitching on fabric (rugs, banners, etc.) – animals, weapons, flowers, runes (in dwarven and elven styles), Celtic or elven design patterns, astrology and astronomy symbols, etc.

OMG, I discovered that if you set three steps across with the center one (moved to front) in varicolor, you can create a carpet runner down the center of your staircase. My grand ballrooms will have the grandest of grand staircases!

I promise not to spam this thread with more discoveries, and will wait until Ralf has a chance to do the Live, but I just couldn't hold back with this one.

I'm ready to submit this intermediate map for the Kingdom of Enía, along the northern edge of the coast for the parent map above. This map will be the parent (or possibly grandparent) for a few villages I will be submitting to the contest.

Primary Style: Mike Schley Overland

Toggles: BORDERS/POLITICAL to show/hide political borders

Here is the FCW along with a PDF of the description:

Should I do a plain text file that strips out the accent marks? Here's the text of the description (with accent marks):

The elven kingdom of Enía is the northernmost coastal kingdom in the Gold Coast region of Dórian. The human Kingdoms of Vacuria and Travi lie to the south and east, respectively. Enía is significantly smaller in both population and geographic size than its neighboring kingdoms. The kingdom’s borders are marked by the Enía River along its southern border, and the Firessí River and edge of the Firessí Woods along its eastern border.

Enía is governed by a hereditary monarch who is advised by two political bodies: the Council of Adept Mages, and the People’s Assembly. The Council of Adepts consists of those archmages and adept mages able to cast the most powerful spells. The People’s Assembly includes a hundred citizens elected throughout the realm.

Major points of interest include:

Arynnor: The capital of Enía, called the “city of glass.” Here, elves pioneered glassblowing techniques both for ornamentation and practical purposes. This includes a technique to make glass nearly as strong as steel, which has allowed the elves to safely cover their towers with brightly colored glass domes.

Sather Academy: To the north of Arynnor, Sather Academy is an institution of higher learning with academic classes of all sorts, from history to astronomy, poetry to accounting, but it is most famous for two things: its Bardic Colleges, and its Arcane Academy for the formalized study of wizardry and arcane lore.

Lynelon: The coastal city on the northern bank of the Enía River, Lynelon is a bit smaller than the Vacurian city of the same name on the southern bank.

Firessí Woods: Much of the realm is covered by a mighty forest, the Firessí Woods. The woods are home to numerous tiny elven hamlets along with a few notable features. Towards the southern edges of the Firessí Forest lies an ancient henge of standing stones, the Firessí Temple, erected to honor the elven gods. It is the holiest place in all of Enía, and the seat of power for the Archdruid of Firessí, the most powerful religious figure in the kingdom. A small village, Yréas Kôltyn, provides a home for the elves who tend to the temple and provides accommodations for the temple’s many pilgrims. To the northwest of the temple lies the Tampuwari Ruins, the haunted ruins of a people so ancient, they disappeared long before the elves moved to the area. The ruins are best to be avoided. Farther to the north, Lathalas Glen is a town built up around a monastery of the same name.

Taenya Island: The small island is home to a few small villages and hamlets of wood elves Just to the north of the island among rocky reefs, Eilân Danaäd is a harbor village of sea elves with homes both above and below the waves.

I'm pretty new to Campaign Cartographer -- or, rather, I've owned the software for ages but I'm new to actually making maps.

I keep saying I bought the software five years ago, but upon reflection, I think it was around 2016. Eight years ago! I played around a bit with Fractal Terrains, but everything was so intimidating! I had this idea that I could just fiddle around and learn it through trial and error, much like I've learned various desktop publishing and illustration programs and over the years. Didn't work! I didn't grasp the approach of choosing what you want to do and then picking the objects you want to do it to. It was counterintuitive and opposite of the image editing software I've used before, where you select the object and then select what you want to do with it.

I thought I could sit down and read the PDFs and learn that way. Nope! Every time I tried to map something, it looked nothing like the pretty pictures I'd see here. (Pro Tip: Even when you understand that sheet effects exist, you still have to turn sheet effects on to see the pretty effects!)

Finally in mid-2023, I decided to watch one of the tutorials. I started with one of the then-more recent Lives, and that was way too advanced, but it gave me a hint at CC3+'s tremendous power and potential. Then I found Joe Sweeney's tutorials, and everything clicked. His "Parrot Island" tutorial gave me a basic foundation, and then I plowed through the rest of his, and then ProFantasy's more "Intro to CC3"-type tutorials and the brief videos about specific functions and techniques before making my way back to the Live videos.

I was fiddling around with map-making in the second half of 2023, but mostly it was to practice specific techniques rather than design a proper map. I created an account on these forums in December of 2023 and posted my first attempt at a proper map (my Castle on a Cloud) in January of 2024 -- mere months ago!

I still watch the Lives every time there's a new one (and I always, always learn something new). I was watching the old ones in the downtime, but I think I've watched almost every single Live already (a few more than once, especially when there's something I want to attempt that I remember Ralf or Remy demonstrating). I've also watched Jim Sweeney's, Dogtag's, Remy's, and Joachim de Ravenbel's tutorials as well. (I find it quite peaceful and Zen to watch a blank canvas get turned into a work of art in under an hour!)

I tried at 50% of the original size (which is double the size I used). Does this work, or are the symbols still too small?

Am I correct in understanding that if I later want to work on a local map of this, say a 200 x 200 mile section, I can add smaller towns and streams to that? For example, I have a small town I did before that I'd like to find a home for, but it's only about a quarter of a mile wide, so I'm thinking it's too small to register on this scale.

Also, I should come up with names now for settlements shown here, and other major geographical features, rather than waiting to name them in more detailed local maps?