Inspired by the most recent Live tutorial, here's a quick and dirty rendering of my campaign world in the Cosmographer Satellite annual. Taught myself a few new techniques in the process regarding exploding multipolies so that the land masses brought in from a Fractal Terrains export could be managed separately -- but then I had to rescue the inland seas and lakes.

This is pretty rough. I used the partially transparent forest fill over most of the land as a cheap shortcut. Just wanted to see what I could get done in an hour (though this was closer to two hours).

That central donut shaped continent looked to me like a sloth hanging from a tree, but a friend of mine thought it was a smiling frog. It’s like a Rorschach test.

I know Sue is swamped with work for CC4, but this last image inspires me to once again plug for a Spectrum Overlands expansion, maybe ones that includes demi-human (elven, dwarven, orcish) settlement symbols. Probably something that works as a stand-alone but is compatible with Spectrum Overland, so folks can use it even if they don’t have older annuals. (Maybe part of CC4?) Similarly, a demi-human annual compatible with Darklands City would be so great.

Don’t worry about Cobble Final. It shows as missing on mine, too. Remy said something about how that shows up and is a weird legacy fill, or something like that.

The Beaumaris Castle fills are from CA 2019 (volume 13). Did you get that one?

I found a telescope in Dundjinni Archives. Gets the job done well enough.

There probably are in some of the top-down dungeon sets, but there aren't as many symbols available in the Perspectives style.

Are the Alyssa Faden's clouds all from "CA95 - Alyssa Faden Overland," or does she have more clouds in another annual? They look so different here.

Heading out soon to spend the holidays with family. Happy holidays to you and everyone here.

This is very helpful advice. I will go back and redo the forests at the bottom of each map.

Holy smokes, it worked! (Once I read the PDF mapping guide to figure out that the Dracula Dossier maps are created under Floorplans and not Dungeons, that is.) These CAD files are .DWG files, and CC3 was able to import without any problems. Now I have to decide if this is the venue I want to use, and whether it would be easier to delete the stuff I don't need from the CAD import, or started from scratch drawing over a bitmap. Anyway, very excited to have new (for me) options to play with.

Hi Ryan,

Welcome! I see that your hometown was chosen as the inspiration for Mayberry because it was where Andy Griffith grew up. Very cool.

I also started with Fractal Terrains. It took me a while to get my head around how FT and CC3 do and do not interact with one another. I finally started watching some of the older tutorials, and it was watching Joe Sweeney's that Ricko recommends above where things really start to click for me. Before that, I was trying to teach myself using the PDFs and I wasn't really absorbing it.

Joe Sweeney has some videos that show how to use Fractal Terrains, and here are some more from ProFantasy from a few years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuhB_LXr3Sg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khNR-BBPSRo

There are some others that show how to take what you've built in Fractal Terrains and then elaborate on them in CC3. They're a bit advanced, though, but if you want to take a peek, here is one from early 2024:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd78fcQc1YA

(The beginning covers taking part of a continent from FT to CC3.)

But don't get intimidated if it seems like a lot. I started with Joe Sweeney's, then watched some of Remy Monsen's that were about specific techniques and tools, and then graduated to the ProFantasy's "Live" sessions. The Lives are great, and I always learn something new from every one, but you never know (unless it's the main focus on the session) what techniques you'll learn from them. I'd recommend getting a good foundation from the other videos first.

And also, this forum is very welcoming, and we are all happy to answer any questions you have.