Welcome, Matthew!

I agree wholeheartedly with Ricko's recommendation to start with Joe Sweeney's videos. I owned the software for many years, trying to teach myself how to use it through the PDF manuals and fiddling around with it, but could not make any sense of it. I would peek at this Forum and admire everyone's beautiful maps, but could not make any sense of the software. Then I stumbled across Joe's videos and everything clicked.

Joe's videos are old, but still relevant and give a good foundation for the software. Once you've watched those ones, I would recommend checking out more videos here:

https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/10519/video-tutorials/p1

The viewing order of those videos that I think may be most helpful (in order to get a foundation before tackling more advanced subjects):

1. Joe Sweeney
2. Dogtag's and Josh Plunkett's
3. Learning CC3+ Section
4. Quickies
5. Campaign Cartographer Concepts

The ones in the section called "Blog Videos" accompany a blog article on the same topic, so I would recommend tracking down those blog posts. And the ones under the Live Tutorial section are fantastic, but most are not focused on a single technique or tool, and some are more advanced than others. I would try to get a good grounding from the other videos first, and then consider the older Live videos before the newer ones unless you see one on a specific topic that you think will be helpful. The Live videos are also really enlightening about the possibilities with the range of add-ons.

I resisted watching the videos for a long time because I was impatient and thought I could read the PDFs faster than watching a video. And that clearly didn't work for me: I bought the software in 2017 and didn't start watching the videos until mid/late-2023, and didn't make any maps until then either. But honestly, watching really made everything fall into place for me. Plus, I just love seeing someone start with a blank canvass and bring it to life to become a work of art. It's like watching Bob Ross painting videos. I've not only learned techniques from the Live videos, I've also been creatively inspired by them, too.

I am writing up the description for the Eknapata Desert area of Gold Coast region of the Community Atlas. It was designed using the Scorching Sun annual. Any feedback on the map before I submit it?

Hi @Quayuazue! I think you’re describing a different place than mine, but just in case, I wanted to show you the place I’ve already adopted. It’s the village in the red box here:

I’m looking forward to seeing your approach to these villages!

Related to this village: I am planning on submitting an intermediate map of the Kingdom of Enía portion of the Gold Coast. And now I'm thinking that I might also do another map of just the Firessí Woods. I think it might be easier to do the Firessí Woods map now than after this temple village is added to the Atlas.

If I do create a Firessí Woods map, are there any sorts of adventure hooks or mapping possibilities you'd recommend including? I have the Tempuwari Ruins, which were meant to provide a place for an adventure reminiscent of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Other than adding a few more tiny elven hamlets, and maybe a few cave openings in hills, are there other mapping/adventure hooks you'd like to see?

This is really lovely. My only ever-so-slight feedback is that my old eyes are finding it a little difficult to read the legend, so I would consider increasing the opacity of the background fill/color slightly.

Thank you, Sue! I’m delighted that Marine Dungeons can be so versatile for even things that aren’t mostly underwater. I’ve been wanting a Roman style annual and it was there all along. 😉

Per Quenten's suggestion, I have been playing with the Line Styles for the roads. I didn't try creating a custom one, but I did try some of the other presets, and they didn't really work. I also tried checking the Paper Scale checkbox, and that had weird effects when I zoomed in.

Here's an attempt that sets the roads to be solid and leaves the guided routes as dotted lines. I like that it makes it a bit clearer which ones are actual roads. I will also put it in my WIP gallery to make it easier to zoom in. Thoughts?

Here’s a tutorial video focused on Trace. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet myself. It’s older but if it’s just focused on the Trace command, hopefully it won’t be out of date.

I have been looking forward to seeing what you do since you first claimed Elkton.

Also: DD4 things! Squeeee!

Well, I was going to make a twist of Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity") phrased more like Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"):

A secret grand design is indistinguishable from stupidity.

The truth is...just a clumsy attempt to recreate from a much bigger parent map that was itself derived from a much, much bigger parent map.

This is the parent map I took it from (Gongodûr is in the lower right):

And this is the section parent map that this whole 1,000 x 1,000 mile section comes from:

When I downloaded the FCW for the parent map, it said there were green mountains there, which I took to mean vegetation-covered hills and small mountains.

So no real grand design, just an over-exuberance in trying to add more detail from the parent map and slip in some mapping/adventure hooks.